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Analyzing Jason Reynolds 'First Day Fly'

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Mr. Nelson 002 - 5th Period Language Arts Critical Analysis Essay In First Day Fly by Jason Reynolds, published in 2021, the first day of school is tomorrow and the author is getting prepared by washing his clothes, cleaning his shoes and thinking about what the day will be like. The author explains, in detail, how he is preparing for the first day of school and how this year is going to be different. His goal is to look “like, yeah.you fly”. I’m a fly. Gon’ be flying tomorrow.” The writing starts with his attitude about the first day of school. He’s just as excited about it as his birthday. The author goes on to talk about some of the things that happened last year, like how another student stepped on his shoes and made them muddy, how Reynolds …show more content…

The author uses parallelism early in the text, which really gets the audience’s attention because all of us can relate to high school hallways and teachers. In the text, the author states “The hallways.don’t do anything but lead you to teachers. And, teachers don’t do nothing but remind you they already got their education” The author uses parallelism to show the similarities between teachers and hallways in that they both “don’t do nothing” in the author’s opinion. The author also uses anaphora and alliteration early in the text for the same effect. The author states, “How you were supposed to know geometry.How you were supposed to hear anything Mrs. Montgomery had to say.” Basically, the author uses both rhetorical devices to emphasize how hallways, teachers, geometry and listening to teachers really doesn’t add up to anything important. What’s important, according to Reynolds, is a new start and looking “fly.” In First Day Fly by Jason Reynolds, the author starts the text with a comparison between the first day of school and his birthday, speaks about some of the stupid things that happened in school the year before and turns his focus to how this year is going to be different. It’s going to be different

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