ipl-logo

Maxine Clair's The Last Day Of School

690 Words3 Pages

[1] I found myself staring in the mirror, over-analyzing each minute detail of my outfit and every miniscule aspect of my body for flaws. [2] Imagining the stares of my classmates piercing me, the ominous ticking of the clock, and a laugh from the back of the room, I stumbled over my own mess of an appearance. [3] While adjusting my shirt, I rehearsed my speech, gazing over the empty bathroom and mimicking eye contact with my audience. [4] With repetition, I grew fluent, and with fluency I grew confident, even though my stomach churned anxiously and my parched mouth yearned for water. [5] I feared the ruining of my reputation; for I had an excellent one that I had built up from scratch, yet with just one mistake it could witness its destruction. …show more content…

[2] In Maxine Clair’s Rattlebone, Irene and Lydia both encounter a change in status, where Irene’s family becomes well known, where Lydia is disgraced. [3] As displayed in “The Last Day of School”, Irene’s family was “fast becoming ‘established’” (203), a new phenomenon for their previously just surviving family. [4] While Irene celebrates her family’s new status; Lydia fears the result of allowing pregnant Miss Brown in her honorable home. [5] Anxiously exclaiming, “The word’s going to get around…then what…[our house] ain’t going to be on the list” (86), Lydia recognizes the power of gossip that, were Miss Brown to remain, would impact their reputation as a house for teachers. [6] Control-freaks, Irene and Lydia, aim to regulate as much of their lives as possible, Irene by straightening her pleats and Lydia by preventing her rooming-house from becoming a source of rumors. [7] When Irene boldly lies to her school principal, “I looked her straight in the eye the way people do when they are telling the truth…‘She hit him’” (19), she reveals her intent to harm the reputation of Miss Brown, which, by extension allows Irene to control her own life. [8] Throughout Rattlebone, gossip remains a means to a both good and bad reputation, which governs the lives of

Show More
Related
326 Words | 2 Pages

Barry Alford, the author of Freirean Voices, Student Choices is an English professor at Mid Michigan Community College. In this specific piece of writing, he states that “particularly when they find themselves following some formula organizing the topic instead of the trail of their own thinking” (P. 280). Meaning that students just do exactly what they are told to do instead of venturing out and making it their own writing. Alford talks about how students need to have more in depth and creative forms of writing rather than being boring. A major thing he believes is that students need to hear themselves and their other classmates before they start writing.

Read More
642 Words | 3 Pages

She begins to do drugs, disobey her father, and when she meets a pimp named Alphonse she claims

Read More
588 Words | 3 Pages

Dominance is a persistent theme throughout Danielle Evan’s “Snakes” as it consistently highlights each character’s need to regain control. Tara’s grandmother, Lydia, constantly expresses her aggravation over losing control over her daughter, Amanda. She blames Amanda for letting her outlandish views drive them apart. Lydia shifts the blame of losing control to Tara throughout many instances in the story. Lydia is known as the openly conservative antagonist who’s an outspoken authoritarian.

Read More
297 Words | 2 Pages

After few hours reading, “The Sanctuary of School” was written by Lynda Barry, grew up in an interracial neighborhood in Seattle, Washington State. Then, I think this article was interesting to read. I love the way how she told us her past experience by using her own voice to lead us step by step get into her story, then she also shares us about her feeling and how it impacted to her future life. Plus, at the end, she argues that the government should not be cutting the school programs and art related activities. Those programs definitely do help the students and the parents as well.

Read More
499 Words | 2 Pages

The novel “The Outsiders”, is about two gangs, the Socs and the Greases. The members of each gang show that they’re unified. The characters in the novel are united by living in the same neighbourhood and being in the same gang. The appearance and language unites the characters, they look the same and talk a lot like each other. Violence in the novel is very common, this unites the characters, by fighting together this shows that they will always be there for each other.

Read More
936 Words | 4 Pages

My book is called A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. It has 182 pages, all of which are full of sadness. The genre is an autobiography of Dave Pelzer’s abusive childhood. My book is a terrifying story of a mother who used to be loving, but became abusive because of alcohol. She took out her anger on Dave, her youngest son.

Read More
1006 Words | 5 Pages

The story opens with Mrs. Wright imprisoned for strangling her husband. A group, the mostly composed of men, travel to the Wright house in the hopes that they find incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright. Instead, the two women of the group discover evidence of Mr. Wright’s abuse of his wife. Through the women’s unique perspective, the reader glimpses the reality of the situation and realizes that, though it seemed unreasonable at the time, Mrs. Wright had carefully calculated her actions. When asked about the Wrights, one of the women, Mrs. Hale, replies “I don’t think a place would be a cheerful for John Wright’s being in it” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 7).

Read More
567 Words | 3 Pages

Their housing complex is raided by Nazi soldiers and come to Annemarie’s apartment wanting to know where the Rosen’s went. The soldiers end up coming in and searching their apartment. Ellen acts like she is part of Annemarie’s family while the soldiers are searching and questioning them. They look at Ellen and notice that she is the only one with dark hair amongst the rest of the family. Annemarie’s dad pulls out a picture of their deceased sister who passed away

Read More
1019 Words | 5 Pages

Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is a non-fiction book written by Sandra Beasley, an American poet and non-fiction author. Beasley is most known for her poems, her poetry has been anthologized in the Best American poetry in 2010, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Best New Poets 2005. Her work has also been included in many journals such as the Wall Street Journal, The Believer, and Black Warrior Review just to name a few. In 2009, Beasley won the Barnard Women Poets prize, and in 2010 she won the Summer Poet in residence fellowship at the University of Mississippi. These two awards are just a couple of the many awards and accomplishments Beasley has received.

Read More
165 Words | 1 Pages

In The odyssey when Odysseus came back from his long over due stay away from his family where he spent ten long year away from his family where he did not even get to rise his own son and to have an to hole is wife Penelope but only by time he gets back from his trip he came home to see other people at his house with his family. For me personally I think the punishment what Odysseus gave to these wooers not so sever because Odysseus left his house better say his home town of tory for over twenty years he leave his one and only son with his wife because wasn’t expecting someone to take over his house. So the position I take one this issue of Odysseus taking revenge I would not say it was revenge I would simply put it as taking back what

Read More
337 Words | 2 Pages

Exposition: The exposition of the story starts when Dre Parker and his mother Sherry flew to Beijing from West Detroit to start a new life. So he has a crush on a violinist her name is Mei Ying she always responds to his attention. Cheng is a kung fu student and then Dre notices that his crush's family is related to Cheng's family. Dre gets harassed and humiliated and beaten up by Cheng and his friend around the school. Mr. Han reveals Dre as a kung fu master so that he can defend himself among Cheng and his friends who he really gets annoyed from all the time around the school every day.

Read More
898 Words | 4 Pages

A deceiving student, Macca, dominates both Ruth and fellow victim, Philip. No one attempts to control this, not even Mrs Canmore who only warns the bullies. One student, Ruth, comes from a tough background; she is a soldier against the Macca War. Despite the consequences, Ruth becomes a quiet hero; this inspires the audience. Throughout the story, the author portrays Ruth as a shred of hope for the other characters.

Read More
610 Words | 3 Pages

Abandonment and Identity in Housekeeping The setting of Housekeeping begins in Fingerbone, Idaho, where the narrator, Ruthie, and her younger sister, Lucille, resides. Although Ruthie and Lucille are sisters, they went through many heartbreaking events that made them view the world differently. Thus, because of their indifferences, they isolated from each other. Throughout the novel, Ruthie and Lucille never had a concrete parental figure to look up too, thus leading them to have a sense of abandonment.

Read More
1776 Words | 8 Pages

Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle and her siblings had a lot of trouble fitting in and trying to avoid being bullied. When Jeannette lived in Welch, West Virginia, as always, her family didn’t have money. Jeannette lived a poor life because of this; she never got the nicest shoes, got the nicest clothes that made her look cool, or be considered the cleanest person in the school since she didn’t take a shower because of the lack or running water in her house. Jeannette often had to eat the leftover food from a trash can that people would throw away because her family couldn’t provide her food. The first girl she met at Welch was Dinitia, and she bullied her because she was poor.

Read More
389 Words | 2 Pages

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court made a life-changing decision to integrate schools across the United States. Before this, people of a different race were not allowed to be in the same school, or even drink from the same water fountain. R.V. Cassill lived through this change, therefore he wrote, The First Day of School. A story about an African-American family recruited to be the first six black children to go to Joseph P. Gilmore High, an entirely white school. R.V. Cassill develops John’s character through John 's nervousness at the thought of having to go to the school, his anger at his mother, and his calmness when he was actually going to the school.

Read More

More about Maxine Clair's The Last Day Of School

Related Topics

Open Document