Cris Tovani's Talk To Me

208 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Reading habits of students

In her video, “Talk to me,” Cris Tovani’s discussion with her student Omar was a clear example of the “easy, just right, and challenging” philosophy of selecting books to read. Omar’s selection of “easy to just right” books encouraged him to continue reading. The more he read, the more he comprehended and became part of the piece of literature. At the end of the video, Tovani mentioned that it was time to add a little challenge to Omar’s reading selection. In the excitement of his success as a reader, Omar accepted the challenge, even to the point of presenting the challenge to a friend. A favorite line in the video, Engaging the Nonfiction Reader was “and when they ask their own questions and find their own answers, and when they are

Show More
Related

  • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

    1740 Words  | 4 Pages

    Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.

    Read More

  • Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris has used various literary terms which followed the use of a clear tone. This is clearly depicted with the author’s choice of words, as well as, figurative language. This demonstrates the author’s talent for casually laying out the absurdities of his daily experiences. In the novel, Sedaris has used a depressed tone. He explains how he is depressed by the French instructor. He explains that he is not alone to be belittled, but others also experience a similar attitude from the teacher, during the time they spent in class (Sedaris 13). He explains that the instructor wanted to put everyone down. For instance, he understood only half of what the teacher said, and that the first day that she was in class was very depressing (11). Sedaris also narrates that when the teacher asked that ‘has every one apzkiubjxow, it was very startling because he had not been asked the question for a while and realized that she did not understand the alphabet (11). The author states that the teacher always asked that ‘were you always this palicmkresis (15). It is clear that Sedaris employs nonsense letter arrangements, in order to replace the words that he could not understand (Sedaris 15). Through this, he relates his feelings with what the teacher said and this created pity for him and a mutual understanding (Sedaris 15). This demonstrates a depressed tone.

    Read More

  • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

    977 Words  | 2 Pages

    What if you were raped and nobody knew about it? In the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda was raped and she didn’t tell anyone. Before school started Melinda was at a party and she was drunk. She was raped in the woods that night by an older senior , Andy Evans. She called the police and she was blamed for calling the police on the party but, its because she never told anyone she was raped. Through many different events and people Melinda changes from being shy to feeling confident. I will show you how trees represent melinda through the beggining , middle, and end

    Read More

  • Neil Gaiman's Why Our Future

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the reading, “Why our Future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming” Neil Gaiman discusses the importance of reading, in addition to that he feels going to nearby libraries to check out books is a wonderful thing especially for children. Gaiman also believes that children of all ages along with adults can read any type of book. The books can be fiction or non-fiction and have dissimilar genres as well. The rhetorical devices that were used are persuasive speaking; the tone which was imperative, and Parallelism. The main point Gaiman is trying to make is that more people should have a desire to read, not only to learn but to also have a broad vocabulary and to be well read to have knowledge on the world.

    Read More

  • Paul Curry's Out Of This World

    325 Words  | 1 Pages

    Paul Curry was an amateur magician and the vice-president of the Blue Cross Insurance Company. He was born in 1917 and lived until 1986. Even if you have never heard of him, you probably know at least one of his three most famous creations; Out of This World, The Sliding Knot, and The Missing Square Puzzle. He reveals the methods to these effects in two of his books on magic; Magician’s Magic (12) and Paul Curry’s Worlds Beyond ($45). I would recommend reading them both not just for the effects but also for learning more about the incredible man.

    Read More

  • Nicholas Carr

    1549 Words  | 4 Pages

    Carr is worried. He confesses that he now has difficulty with the simple task of sitting down and reading a book. Absorbing the text is now belaboring, and he finds that his mind drifts off into other realms. Moreover, this phenomenon is not only limited to himself. Bruce Friedman, a pathologist at the University of Michigan Medical School, admits that he “can’t read War and Peace anymore…even a blog post of three or four paragraphs is too much,” (Carr). In addition, Scott Karp, a devoted blogger on online media and literature major, relates that he was an avid reader in college. Sadly, he observes the same trend in his focus as Carr and Friedman. Karp speculates that the loss of focus isn’t so much a change in the way he reads, but in the way he thinks (Carr).

    Read More

  • The Cheetah Girls Analysis

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this article, Brooks et. al (2010) focuses on black females and ways they are portrayed through some of the struggles within them. “This article examines how black girlhood is constructed through fiction” (p. 7). It is important to make a connection when reading something. Connections can be made either by text to self, text to text, or text to world. According to this article, Sharon Draper states that she likes to give her readers a strong character to read about so that the reader can fully connect (Draper, 2009, p. 8). This supports my belief of the importance of making a connection through reading. I gathered the understanding of the importance of sharing pieces of literature, similar to the ones that were mentioned, in my classroom because of the diversity it shows to the students. There are many pieces of literature that I have personally read that gave me

    Read More

  • Gerald Graff's Ethos In Disliking Books

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gerald Graff is an accomplished English professor, writer and is well known for his teaching theories. In “Disliking Books”, Graff tells the story of how he became interested in literature yet dreaded the subject throughout his academic career. Furthermore, the narrative goes into detail on how his personal struggles with literature at a young age allowed him to develop teaching techniques far superior to his colleagues. Graff does this by using both pathos and ethos in his writing to catch the readers’ interest.

    Read More

  • Being There by Jerzy Kosinski

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story “Being There”, by Jerzy Kosinski, there are multiple examples of satire that are displayed throughout both the book and the movie. A few of them are: media, death, politics, and racism. The satire of the media was very similar in the book and the movie. Media played a big role in society and still does to this day.

    Read More

  • Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers

    485 Words  | 1 Pages

    “Human beings, we have dark sides: we have dark issues in our lives. To progress anywhere in life, you have to face your demons”. This quote by John Noble is meant to explain that although we all have issues in our life in order to move forward we must face the parts of our life we may try to keep hidden. This is true in both life and literature. In the book I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga, Jasper Dent nicknamed Jazz the son of notorious serial killer Billy Dent goes through many trials and tribulations while trying to seal away his past.

    Read More

  • A Love Affair With Books

    520 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ever since I was a child, I've never liked reading. Every time I was told to read, I would just sleep or do something else instead. In "A Love Affair with Books" by Bernadete Piassa tells a story about her passion for reading books. Piassa demonstrates how reading books has influenced her life. Reading her story has given me a different perspective on books. It has showed me that not only are they words written on paper, they are also feelings and expressions.

    Read More

  • A Memoir Of The Craft Analysis

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    I have gradual select books fastidious. However, this does not mean that I do not like reading anymore. I think I just become mature and change my taste for reading. I am no longer satisfied with the novels which are easy to read. I change my taste to read some historical and religious books, and try to read more serious literature. For example, I like to read “A Global History” which will let me know a detailed history of the world. And I like the book “Old Man and the Sea” which wrote by American author Ernest Hemingway. Although the story of “Old Man and the Sea” is short, it has a profound moral. In this story, the old fisherman finally failed to take back a fish, he just took back the fish’s chine with the head and tail. However, the old fisherman still is a hero because his indestructible sprit. I am impressed with “But man is not made for defeat,” the old fisherman said, “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” (Hemingway). After I read this book, I sometimes reviewed my reading journey. If I read this book early in my teenage, I might not understand the meaning behind the story. Therefore, I think my sprit world gradually become mature with the help of

    Read More

  • Literary Devices Utilized in Thomas Foster's Book "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" Put to Use in "Pulp Fiction"

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor: a Lively and Entertaining Guide to

    Read More

  • I am the Messenger by Zusak

    1869 Words  | 4 Pages

    In I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak, the main character Ed is a nineteen-year-old cab driver in Australia who has never amounted to anything. One day, while with his three best friends, an event occurs that forever changes his life. While in a bank, they are held up at gunpoint. Ed ends up stopping the criminal and saving the day. Days later, as the bank robber’s trial is ending, he tells Ed that he is “a dead man… [And to] [r]emember it every day when [he] look[s] in the mirror” (Zusak 38). This overlooked statement by the reader comes back in the end of the novel to reveal an important message that “everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of” (535). Before attending the trial though, Ed begins to receive playing cards with addresses, names, times, and movie titles on them that require him to complete tasks, which challenge him in more ways than he could ever imagine. In the short story “Good People” by David Foster Wallace, the two characters, Lane and Sheri, are faced with a situation that changes their lives as well; Sheri is pregnant with Lane’s baby. Even though Lane’s and Sheri’s situation is a little different than that of Ed’s, they relate greatly as all the characters are forced to make decisions that can alter the rest of their lives. In the novel, morality is used to accomplish self-discovery and growth of Ed’s personality by pushing his boundaries, and in the short story “Good People” by David Foster Wallace, morality is used to accomplish growth and the realization of consequences of one’s actions by placing the young couple in a faith questioning situation no adolescent wants to face.

    Read More

  • Imagery In Poems "Daddy" And "Lady Lazarus" By Sylvia Plath

    1439 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kirszner, Laurie and Mandell Stephen. 2004. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. London, New York: Thomson & Heine.

    Read More

More about Cris Tovani's Talk To Me

Open Document