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Maya Angelou Graduation

618 Words3 Pages

In the essay “Graduation”, by Maya Angelou, starts off by talking about what kids in various grades are feeling at the end of their school year in the early 1940s but focuses mostly on a young Maya Angelou. The students are described as being happy and sad. This essay is about a young girl graduating and her opinions on how different races are treated and thought about. Other topics that are discussed are about how in each grade, those students are happy about becoming older and getting higher up on the social chain. For example the middle schoolers are excited about becoming high schoolers and how underclassmen are excited about being the head of the food chain and their high school, and finally how the seniors are are looking forward to traveling to different exoctic places. However the majority of the essays talks about Maya Angelou’s feelings on her graduation day. The thesis in this essay is …show more content…

Angelou talks about the White and Black schools and how some families can afford certain thing when others cannot. She writes about how some parents have already ordered or received new clothes, shoes, and books. While some mom are just getting started on making their childrens clothes by hand. It is also written that a large percentage of the Black population in the high schools will not graduate. The next part of this essay then transfers over to a girl talking about her experiences. She talks about her friends, mom, dad, and some of her favorite memories throughout her life. She talks about herself and her friend Louise and how they were both graduating soon and how she was very blessed to be graduating. She explained that she never had to be scolded to do her work and she never had to be reminded to do something. Another thing she was very excited about was her graduation dress, how it fitted her perfectly and how she looked like a sunbeam in

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It begins in the perspective of her eight year old self experiencing her first loss. Angelou’s parents divorce and her move to stamps. This novel continues on to tell of Angelou's biggest troma. The book finishes after she graduates high school and gives birth to her first son.

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Throughout the essay, Angelou describes her experience and her observations while she is on her way

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Angelou’s tone perfectly illustrates the rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. She writes joyously, with a hint of sadness and malcontentment reflecting the racial prejudices of the South during the 1940s. She uses phrases like “sunlight itself was young” and describes herself as “the center of the moment” to convey the excitement and joy she felt as a child on the days leading up to her graduation. She also interjects more sobering statements, such as when she speaks of “hanging ropes of parasitic moss and speaks of wishing everybody dead to characterize the struggle of African Americans during the 40s. The tone of these segments is malcontentment, sadness, and anger over the subjugation of blacks

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"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive, and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style" (Angelou 12). These quoted words came from a strong, wise minded, African American woman whose legacy still lives on. In this essay you will understand a lot about Maya Angelou's early life on how she became famous, her careers, how many awards she has received, and also how her legacy continues to have an impact on people. Maya was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928 (Angelou 8). During Maya's growth she spent most of her days at the library attending Toussaint L'ouverture Grammar school (Angelou 8).

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In “Graduation”, Maya Angelou talks about her graduation experience in her class of 1940. Her essay is mostly based on how African Americans were treated back then. Angelou states that African American schools were ruled under white power. She said that it didn’t matter whether they were smart or not the boys were sent to work and women were to take care of the home duties. Angelou states that during her graduation ceremony white man came to her school to tell them how good the white schools were doing and what new material they were getting and to congratulate the few black athletes that were going to play football.

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“Today, Michelle and I join millions around the world in remembering one of the brightest lights of our time – a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman.” (Online - White House). This memorial statement, by Barack Obama in 2014, encompasses how many felt towards Maya Angelou, one of the most influential writers and voices of her generation. Over the course of her lifetime, Maya Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees and received the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Angelou’s personal admiration and self-love that is reflected in her poetic works, specifically, “Phenomenal Woman,” is credited to the overcoming of her traumatic childhood and her work in activism.

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Angelou, later on, became a writer, dancer, and poet. She went on to prove that no matter what skin color you may be, you can still go on to be successful. Throughout life, you should never judge a person because of how they look on the outside. You never know, that person could go on to be beyond than what you believed.

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Growing up in the 1930s as an African American was not a walk in the park. Angelou had to

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Maya Angelou was a strong African-American women who made an influential impact on the Civil Rights Movement, in bother her actions, and her literature. Her life experiences and courage helped others, and made her work influential. During Maya’s early life, she experienced many hardships that shaped her into the person many remember her as. Born on April 4, 1928, she only lived in St. Louis, MO for three years before her parents got divorced, and Maya, along with her mother and brother, moved in with her grandparents in Arkansas. At the age of eight, raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Maya learned the power that words possess.

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Graduation article by Maya Angelou was written in her young adult life. Angelou was an intelligent African American girl that went to a school in Arkansas and graduated class in the 1940’s; even though, at the time Whites and African Americans were segregated; Angelou had good grades and rarely missed school. As Angelou walked into the ceremony she noticed everyone looked very nice, as they had “hair brushed back, legs oiled, new dresses, and pressed pleats, fresh pocket handkerchiefs and little handbags…” ( Pg 80 Line 28 ). The students were sitting down as she noticed something was wrong, as if “something unrehearsed, unplanned, was going to happen…”

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In “The Problem We All Live With” by This American Life, Mah’Ria Pruitt-Martin’s experiences as a black during the 2000s was very similar to Angelou’s experiences. Angelou went to Lafayette Country Training School, which was the black school. Pruitt-Martin went to Normandy, which was the worst district in the area. She was trying to transfer to a better school. Both Maya Angelou and Mah’Ria Pruitt-Martin had bad high school experiences because their schools had little resources for education and people didn’t

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Angelou talks about the White and Black schools and how some families can afford certain thing when others cannot. She writes about how some parents have already ordered or received new clothes, shoes, and books. While some mom are just getting started on making their childrens clothes by hand. It is also written that a large percentage of the Black population in the high schools will not graduate. The next part of this essay then transfers over to a girl talking about her experiences.

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Maya Angelou worked as a professor at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, from 1991 to 2014. As an African American women, one whose life was full of racial discrimination and gender inequality, she had plenty of experience and wisdom to share with her students. During her time working at the university, she taught a variety of humanities courses such as “World Poetry in Dramatic Performance,” “Race, Politics and Literature,” “African Culture and Impact on U.S.,” and “Race in the Southern Experience” (Wake Forest University,

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As I read and look up the opinions from other people about Maya Angelou’s novel, most people agree with my opinions and others have an opinions of their own. Said by an unknown critic, “Angelou’s autobiography is an important and honest look at racial prejudice in the United States.” A junior high teacher from Rosewood Junior High stated, “This is not okay for kids unless you don’t care about your children having disturbing images of sex as an act of love between a man and a wife.” Overall this novel liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, but not only her life, but the lives of other African

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In Maya Angelou’s “Graduation” she spoke about a fictional character named Marguerite Johnson and her eighth-grade graduation. Marguerite was always kinda of lost and selfish at times, and never look at how others seen things. But as the story goes on Marguerite starts to find herself and understand others. “Graduation” isn’t just about how Marguerite pass on to the next grade but how she has grown from a lost girl to a young intelligence woman. In this story the reader is going to follower her on this surprising journey.

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