ipl-logo

What Is The Theme Of True Notebook By Mark Salzmans Essay

557 Words3 Pages

“True Notebooks,” by Mark Salzman, is a book about the author’s experience teaching young offenders how to write. According to Salzman, one of Mark’s writing students is Nathaniel Hall. I believe Nathaniel is very smart and streetwise, but he yearns to be the center of attention. While reading, “True Notebooks,” I came across an essay written by Nathaniel, I like how the essay begins, but I don’t like its ending. Salzman continues by quoting Hall, “In my knowledge quest I search for the secrets of the mind. I start with psychology. With a perfect understanding of the way the mind works and reacts to certain situations” (184). I think it’s great that Nathaniel wants to enhance what he already knows, to go on a quest for knowledge. I can relate to this because I’m currently on a journey to enhance my own knowledge through life experience and education. By comparison, the essay’s ending describes Nathaniel’s devious reason to strive for mental acquisitiveness. According to Salzman, …show more content…

Furthermore, the quest for knowledge should be to grow intellectually, not to learn how to be a fake. According to Salzman, when Nathaniel mentions women in his essay, he says, “Understanding their behavior and way of thinking will allow me to seem caring and understanding” (185). Not surprisingly, Nathaniel’s motive in educating himself about women is to learn how to appear as though he cares and understands them, by putting on a pretentious façade. As a concerned parent, I shared this essay with my twenty-three-old daughter, and my fifteen-year-old son, so that they can grasp that some people deliberately pretend to be something they’re not. I read this essay to my children to make them aware that just because someone is smart and charming doesn’t mean they’re good and honest. Who would have thought that I could use a juvenile offenders essay as a teaching

Show More
Related

Rhetorical Analysis Of Paired And Pared: The Sibling Effect

1200 Words | 5 Pages

In chapter eleven, “Paired and Pared”, of The Sibling Effect, author Jeffrey Kluger informs his audience about twins and only children and how they are different than other broods. Not only are twins and only children, referred to as “singletons,” biologically different, but their emotional, physical, psychological, and social development is as well. By devoting an entire chapter solely to twins and singletons, Kluger is indirectly claiming that these offspring view the world in a special, and sometimes unexplainable, way. Kluger validates this claim by the use of governmental policies, psychological studies, controversial viewpoints, and personal narratives. Kluger opens up the chapter by summarizing the harsh views of psychologists G. Stanley Hall and Abraham Arden Brill.

Read More

Burning Down The House Summary

610 Words | 3 Pages

Not only does Berstein call for an overall reform of this nation’s juvenile prisons, she goes as far as saying the practice of locking up youth is in need of a “more profound than incremental and partial reform” (13). The fact that Bernstein outlines the numerous failed strategies and goals of this practice with her compelling use of studies and statistics is enough to promote an audience to reject the practice of locking up youth. The statistic she shares that “four out of five juvenile parolees [will be] back behind bars within three years of release” as well as the studies she conducted on numerous instances when a guards abuse of power lead to the death of a child work to further prove her point: being that “institution[s] as intrinsically destructive as the juvenile prison” have no place in a modern society (13, 83). Bernstein refutes this false sense effectiveness further by sharing her own ideas on what she believes works as a much more humane solution to rehabilitating

Read More

Modern Day Phonies In Catcher In The Rye

248 Words | 1 Pages

Each and day we confront those who are not genuine, act fake, or create an unrealistic atmosphere. These people are otherwise known as the “modern day phonies”. In 9151, through the voice of Holden, J.D. Salinger called out people with personality traits or characteristics similar or the same to those mentioned above as “phonies”. Although, the world has much changed since the time of Holden few things will never, one being the appearance of phonies.

Read More

Mark Salzman Accomplishments

970 Words | 4 Pages

In search of inspiration for his novel, Salzman turned to a juvenile delinquent to gain insight into their life and character. Amazed by what he observes, Salzman, who was expecting the worst, becomes a teacher himself. According to source 3, True Notebooks is written by Salzman, documenting his challenging first year as a writing teacher at Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall (Maslin). Moved and astonished, Salzman transforms into a committed teacher who listens, dedicating four years to instructing incarcerated juvenile

Read More

Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Smooth Talk Essay

1005 Words | 5 Pages

Smooth Talk VS. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” In the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the main character, Connie, is faced with life altering decisions. The story is based in the suburbs during the 1960’s, when the normal American society was more traditional than how it is today. Connie’s personality type may be seen as scandalous, which makes her teenage years miserable because of how strict society had been.

Read More

The Strangers In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

974 Words | 4 Pages

Title There is a saying that appearances can be deceiving, or people are not what they seem. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, she shows many examples of this in her writing. The novel covers a few characters who the readers eventually get to see and know more about, who demonstrate a theme of how people are not always what they seem to be. The readers learn about these characters that they are not as crazy and irregular as they are viewed, but far different than their appearances suggest.

Read More

The Role Of Social Norms In Edith Wharton's Age Of Innocence

238 Words | 1 Pages

Throughout Edith Wharton’s Transcendental novel, Age of Innocence, she creates a complex society based on social norms. During this work, Wharton suggests that power is based on wealth and that an individuals’ potential is limited to some extent by the strict rules of upper class New York society. For instance, the elites of New York refuse to let Ellen Olenska into their society because she is a woman who left her husband. These New Yorkers are worried that they will be breaking the social code by having an outcast as an acquaintance. Ellen’s struggles in fitting into society depicts the fact that one cannot ignore all social norms and be accepted by anyone worried about their own status.

Read More

No Angels In America Quotes

1120 Words | 5 Pages

From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character’s villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work. Do not merely summarize the plot. Roy Cohn’s crooked beliefs reflect the beliefs of many people in America in the late 20th century.

Read More

The Absolutely True Diary Literary Analysis

761 Words | 4 Pages

As Winston Churchill said,” Success is not final. Failure is not fatal”. It is the perseverance and hope to continue that counts. This is the story of a boy named Junior whose key is his hope. The Absolutely True Diary is the life story of a Arnold Spirit (Junior) and his efforts to break the stereotypes about Indians.

Read More

Gender Roles In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

737 Words | 3 Pages

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, is set in the 1960’s, a time when men and women had specific and restrictive roles in society. Men were the ones to work and earn money for their families and women were expected to a caring and obedient homemakers. In many ways, those gender stereotypes are still very present today. The contrasting opinions of Atticus Finch and Aunt Alexandra provide the reader with the different views on how men and women should be raised, which in turn, affects the readers thoughts and opinions on the gender expectations and roles that are present in today’s society.

Read More

The Characterization Of Criticism In The Birthmark By Nathaniel Hawthorne

899 Words | 4 Pages

Any rational, compassionate individual who reads Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-mark” would be aghast at how Aylmer treats Georgiana, his wife. Aylmer treats Georgiana as an object, or rather a specimen, for Aylmer desires to “possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness, without the semblance of a flaw” (Hawthorne 13). Aylmer’s misogynistic approach to his wife and her birthmark, “this single imperfection” (15), then, comes as no surprise. The “imperfection” does not rest with Georgiana, however—it rests with Aylmer and his detrimental objectification of her through the male gaze.

Read More

Who Is Emily: Helpful Or Harmful?

232 Words | 1 Pages

Emily, a neophyte teacher, asseverated that she would be able to successfully emulate her prestigious high school English teacher’s prepossessing personality; however, being calm and outgoing was unwonted for Emily, who was normally testy and taciturn. Pejorative and derogatory diatribes, about Emily’s goals were ubiquitous, and as a result, she became discouraged and summarily temporized her student teaching job. Thankfully, Emily’s reputation of intractability and intransigence were indubitable; after she gleaned enough confidence to derelict the carping maledictions and pusillanimous animadversions of the conniving people, she concocted a devious stratagem that allowed her to exhume the complicity of these nefarious, depraved individuals

Read More

Juvenile Crime Annotated Bibliography

1043 Words | 5 Pages

Annotated bibliography Childress, S. (2016, June 2). More States Consider Raising the Age for Juvenile Crime. Retrieved from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/more-states-consider-raising-the-age-for-juvenile-crime/ More states are considering to raising the age for juvenile crimes before being tried as adult because young offender's mental capacity. The idea is to cut the cost of incarcerate young offender in adult prison and ensure offenders to receive proper education and specialized care to change their behavior. Putting children in adult prison does not deter crime.

Read More

Societal Expectations Of Women In To Kill A Mockingbird

106 Words | 1 Pages

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, illustrates how women are restricted by societal expectations. Women and girls are expected to act a certain way, to be feminine and docile. After an argument between Jem and Scout, Jem goes as far to shout, “‘It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!’” (Lee, 153). Jem believes that Scout should be cooperative and malleable to be a typical girl.

Read More

The Valley Of Childish Things Literary Analysis

2131 Words | 9 Pages

Edith Wharton is an important, though neglected novelist in the history of American literature. Her novels study the status of the women and explore their relationship with men in a male dominated society. Again and again she presents the state of exceptional, rising, ‘New Woman’ of the turn of the century to break out of her compressible role and attempting a venture rebellion. The Age of Innocence is on the theme that deals ironically with the affluent social world of New York. The novel has a theme of entrapment and the struggle of the intruder, both to maintain an adult sense of self in a childish society and to rescue a trapped male from that society.

Read More

More about What Is The Theme Of True Notebook By Mark Salzmans Essay

Related Topics

Open Document