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Billy Collins essays on poems
Billy Collins essays on poems
Billy Collins essays on poems
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Billy Collins essays on poems
Billy Collins essays on poems
Billy Collins essays on poems
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the excerpt from “Cherry Bomb” by Maxine Clair, the narrator makes use of diction, imagery and structure to characterize her naivety and innocent memories of her fifth-grade summer world. The diction employed throughout the passage signifies the narrator’s background and setting. The narrator’s choice of words illustrates how significant those memories were to her. Specific words help build the narrator’s Midwestern background with items like the locust, cattails and the Bible.
This is only one of the five ways that the history teacher deceives the children by emitting false information to them. The irony lies in the fact that his purpose as an educator is to relay only accurate historical information, with the hopes that children retain the information; in spite of that, the history teacher does the inverse. He is releasing misleading information and at the same time, exploiting the children because they are only becoming more ignorant by his
Propaganda posters during World War II were used to address issues to citizens. In the article “History as Historical Documents”, by Rodney F. Allen, it was stated a good poster is one that communicates a clear message and draws the attention of the viewer (1). These posters were able to influence a lot of citizens to make sacrifices and decisions to help the troops while addressing controversial topics. One of the well-known propaganda posters was “We Can Do It”, with Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter was a strong and competent factory worker in jeans and a bandanna and urged women to fill jobs that men had to leave for the war (Olsen).
Katz and Vishny claim their statement within the second to third paragraph of Banning Books Like 'Maus' Is Part of Sanitizing History. Dangerous, difficult, and sensitive topics are a challenge for many kids, and can cause distress and despair to said students. Even though this stress is necessary to grow and mature, the school board is banning books from developing the kids' immature and young minds. Katz and Vishny are claiming that this “pajamafication” is ruining the great futures of these students. Another factor to consider is how the parents want their children to be taught from the educational system.
The use of irony in the two poems “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins and “Outdistanced” by Larry Rubin punctuated the shared theme that a willful lack of self-awareness can quickly lead to greater societal ignorance of what should shape humanity. Both poems present irony in the actions of the teacher and the young man and the effects that those ignorant actions have. For example, in “The History Teacher”, the teacher decides that in order to preserve the children’s innocence, he needs to keep them in the dark about the horrific events in history. He instead teaches them that, “The War of Roses took place in a garden” (11). This is ironic because the children's innocence is already gone as evidenced because they “torment the weak/ and the
In James W. Loewen’s “Handicapped by History,” the author exposes the broken nature of what we are taught in history classes in the Cultural Memory vs. Historical Reality framework. Students only hear of Helen Keller’s struggle to learn to read and write and are never taught of her strong humanitarian and socialist beliefs. In the case of Woodrow Wilson, history books often let his efforts during WWI overshadow his white supremacist beliefs and his schemes to overthrow governments in South American countries. Loewen explains why history books tend to create fairytale-like images of American heroes: “We seem to feel that a person like Helen Keller can be an inspiration only so long as she remains uncontroversial, one-dimensional. We don 't want complicated icons” (Loewen 35).
The author also shows the martyrdom of Christ was, in fact, a wonderful event that occurs, which can be unnatural. The world sees Jesus’s martyrdom as a horrible
In the article, “School Slams Door on Santa” written by Todd Starnes, a Connecticut school has placed a ban on all religious symbols, including Christmas trees and Santa Claus. At the Fairfield Ludlowe High School, there is a door decorating contest yearly and many students and teachers are excited to participate. In one of the classrooms, many students produced ideas including a Christmas tree and a “Santa Claus-inspired fireplace design”. Both ideas had gotten rejected by the teacher, leaving many students confused on why they could not use their non-offensive and creative ideas. Starnes hear the drama from a friend whose child goes to the high school so he decides to call the headmaster, Greg Hatzis to confirm the accusations.
A Letter to the Editor Based on Response to Cedric Jennings' Education Journey The Pulitzer-winning story of Ron Suskind about Cedric Jennings, a son of the drug dealer and the Agriculture Department worker, has been a source of inspiration for many students who struggle to change their lives by getting prestigious education. Cedric has lived in Southeast Washington, and the school he has attended (Ballou High School) consists mostly of black teens connected with gangs and drugs: the circumstances are not friendly for an aspiring learner. Cedric Jennings has made his educational and career path successful due to the social capital he has received in his family; structural and expressive racism have influenced his character and led him to his
Selzer reports on specific illustrations that White paints for the readers, such as the instance where he compares the country school teacher to an ideal mother, yet allows the city school teachers anonymous identities. Selzer describes this as appealing to the readers’ emotions, or pathos. I related this back to the section of my analysis where I specifically investigated White’s descriptive statement about the city school. White describes the city school bus as “the flashy vehicle was as punctual as death.” This expressive statement establishes a hostile image that the reader will then subconsciously associate with the city school.
The harsh diction of the description of Santa establishes his condition in a sharp way that can only get worse: “He’s had the chest pains for weeks, / but doctors don’t make house / calls to the North Pole,” (Webb 1-3). The common use of cacophony throughout three lines of text causes the harsh diction to be overwhelming. The lengthy use of this literary device is similar to the amount of time that Santa’s been in pain. Describing Santa’s condition with words such as “chest” and “pains” brands his health sharply The “ch”
The poem “History Lesson” written by Natasha Trethewey has a unique form of style and rhythm that causes the reader to rely more on their comprehension of the story than the presented facts. Specifically, in the beginning of the poem the writer describes herself standing, with her hands on her hips in a flowered bikini while her grandmother, beaming, takes a photograph of her. In the middle of the poem she states that the beach has recently been opened to people like her and her grandmother. Finally, at the very end of the poem she says “Forty years since the photograph where she stood on a narrow plot of sand marked colored, smiling, her hands on the flowered hips of a cotton meal-sack dress.” The writer formatted this poem in a way where she did not put the information together in order to create ambiguity.
Censorship in History: Non-Beneficial Environment for Students Historical truths are at stake. States and schools are murdering U.S. history by either changing it in textbooks or not teaching it all. They’re making it disappear. Censorship of history textbooks in the U.S hides important details and truths from the students. It also gives students false impressions of U.S. history.
(Spiegelman, 1999) In the process of retelling certain stories, at times the core of the story is lost in translation, however for maus, the author succeeds in retelling in a simple yet very clear way.
In her thought provoking essay “In History,” author Jamaica Kincaid explores the idea of naming things in a historical context through various anecdotes. Kincaid makes a purposeful choice to tell her story non chronologically, beginning with the tale of Columbus, putting her own reflection on plant nomenclature in the middle, and ending with an overview of Carl Linnaeus, the inventor of the plant naming system. This choice gives Kincaid the opportunity to fully vet out each point that she makes, an opportunity she wouldn’t have gotten had she written her essay in chronological order. Throughout each anecdote that Kincaid tells, the theme of names and giving things names is central. Kincaid argues that by giving something a name, one unrightfully takes ownership of it and erases its history.