Matt de la Peña became the first Hispanic author to win a Newbery medal, for his book Last Stop on Market Street. The story is of a young, African-American boy riding the city bus with his Nana. This work was an inclusion to diverse literature, demonstrating an appreciation of life values and featured a diverse cast of characters riding the same bus. Pena introduced us to an African-American boy named CJ and his grandmother Nana. The book follows them on their bus ride to their regularly after church Sunday routine. CJ wishes he didn’t have to work in the soup kitchen after church and is either envious of his friends who have cars or bus passengers who have gadgets. But every time he complains his nana points out all the good parts of their …show more content…
This book would be a good tool to teach third-grade level children. Pena uses a simple and poetic language to teach readers attitude and values despite the economic differences. Through this book, students will explore the importance of beauty, gratitude, and materialism. In the Last Stop on the Market Street, Nana and CJ had a Sunday routine. I can inquire third-grade students about the definition of routine and if they have a routine on a certain day. Nana teaches CJ many life lessons. I would ask the students if there is anyone who has taught them an important lesson. CJ volunteered with Nana at a soup kitchen each Sunday. Students can explain about the time they helped someone in need. Nana helped CJ see the beauty in riding the bus. With the use of challenging questions, I can ask the students if they rode the yellow school bus or have their parents drive them to school. I would then request them to describe in detail what they saw when they arrived to school and when they returned home. Using this book as a conservation starter, students can comprehend their own version of routine, life lesson, volunteer experiences, and beauty; and comparing it with the characters in the …show more content…
To teach the Deaf student, I will use a visual method to sign the verbs because American Sign Language (ASL) does not include the verbs. The students can work together as a group to discover each other’s diverse backgrounds and how each of them learned to appreciate what they have rather than focusing on what they wanted. The groups of three can create a short, pantomime skit that demonstrates the definition of one of the mentioned verbs and share with their classmates. With my background in cinema production, I can use myself as a recorder of the students’ pantomime skits and post them on a class blog. Students can then remember the visual definitions and begin to use them in their sign language and written language. When the students understand the visual verbs, the students will enjoy reading more as they understand the concepts and apply the verbs in their conservation through sign
Heritage is one of the most important factors that represents where a person came from. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, this short story characterizes not only the symbolism of heritage, but also separates the difference between what heritage really means and what it may be portrayed as. Throughout the story, it reveals an African-American family living in small home and struggling financially. Dee is a well-educated woman who struggles to understand her family's heritage because she is embarrassed of her mother and sister, Mama and Maggie. Unlike Dee, Mama and Maggie do not have an education, but they understand and appreciate their family's background. In “Everyday Use,” the quilts, handicrafts, and Dee’s transformation helps the reader interpret that Walker exposed symbolism of heritage in two distinctive point of views.
Amina Gautier has been awarded with Best African American Fiction and New Stories from the South; in addition, she has successfully created At Risk. Gautier’s story is based on the African American community and the different types of struggle families can realistically face. However, if a white person would have written this exact story it could have been misinterpreted and considered racist. Stereotypes such as fathers not being present, delinquencies and educational status are presented in the various short stories. “Boogiemen”, “Afternoon Tea” and “Some Other Kind of Happiness” are all examples of stories in which the father is not present.
For this activity I chose to read the book “The Last Stop on Market Street” by Matt de la Pea. The story is about a boy (CJ) and his grandmother (Nana) taking their daily Sunday bus trip across town. However, this Sunday CJ seems to be noticing the differences between himself and others on the bus. On the bus ride, CJ’s Grandmother shows him how to respectfully interact with different races of people. His grandmother also shows him to see and respect the beauty in the low-income neighborhood that they are in.
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
From the beginning, the author introduces the grandmother and right off you see how she wishes they could take a trip to where she used to live, she tries every chance she gets to change the plans for the trip with her only son. ?Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida,? ?I wouldn?t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it.? As they drive and they talk, everything she says toward someone else is always a put down, towards the people they see and the people in the car. She sees a little ?Nigger? boy and comments ?Little Nigger?s in the country don?t have things like we do?.
She leaves behind her family in order to pursue what she believes is the greater good. She leaves behind a family of nine, living in extreme poverty, to live with her biological father—who runs out on her at a young age to satisfy his need to feel big and important, simply based on anxieties about the hardships around him. Moody comes from a highly difficult and stressful situation, but she stands as the only hope for her starving family and leaves them behind for a life of scholarship and opportunity. This memoir leaves the reader with a sense of guilt for Moody’s decisions, and one may even argue that these decisions happened in vain, as the movement never made a massive impact on race relations. Unfortunately for Moody, she would continue to witness atrocious hate crimes up until the year of her
Today, blacks are respected very differently in society than they used to be. In “The Help”, we see a shift in focus between what life is like now for the average African American compared to what it was like for them to live in the 1960’s.“The Help” teaches readers the importance of understanding and learning from our history. The novel is a snapshot of the cultural, racial and economic distinctions between blacks and whites in a particularly tumultuous time in American history. “The Help” encourages readers to examine personal prejudices and to strive to foster global equality.
“Everyday Use” is a story based in the era of racial separation between communities of diverse ethnicity. “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker merely scratches the surface of racial heritage and the elimination of previous ways of living. This discontinuation of poverty driven physical labor shines through Dee as she grows to know more of her heritage throughout her years in school. An example of this is when Dee changes her name; this is an indication of Dee/Wangero wanting to change her lifestyle after the harsh truth she is hit with while going to school. Dee learns about the struggles of African Americans during this time, which changes her view on the unforgiving reality of her family’s lifestyle. In “Everyday Use”, the author opens the mind
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is a short story about an African American family that struggles to make it. Mama tries her best to give Maggie and Dee a better life than what she had. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” Dee is the older sister and Maggie is younger. Dee is described as selfish and self-centered. Maggie is generous, kind, and cares the family’s history together. She would go out of her way to make sure that her older sister, Dee has everything she needs and wants. Maggie is also willing to share what she has with her sister. Maggie is also shy and vulnerable. Mama is the mother of Maggie and Dee. Mama is fair and always keeps her promises to her children. Hakim-a-barber is the boyfriend
Junot Diaz's short story “Fiesta, 1980” gives an insight into the everyday life of a lower class family, a family with a troubled young boy, Yunior and a strong, abusive father, Papi. The conflict, man vs. man is one of the central themes of this story. This theme is portrayed through the conflicts between Papi and his son. Papi asserts his dominance in what can be considered unfashionable ways. Unconsciously, every action Papi makes yields negative reactions for his family. Yunior simply yearns for a tighter bond with his father, but knows-just like many other members of his family-Papi’s outlandish ways hurts him. As the story unfolds it becomes obvious that the conflicts between Papi and himself-along with conflicts between Yunior and himself-affect not only them as individuals, but their family as a whole.
Everyday Use, a short story about the trials and tribulations of a small African American family located in the South, is an examination of black women’s need to keep their powerful heritage. It speaks on multiple levels, voicing the necessity and strength of being true to one’s roots and past; that heritage is not just something to talk about but to live and enjoy in order for someone to fully understand themselves. A sociological landmine, it was written to awaken the concepts of feminism as well as the civil rights movement, while being able to focus on just three women and their relationship to one another. Everyday Use give its black female characters an identity of their own, each in their own right, and observes the internal conflicts of two sisters who have made two very different life choices, all the while scrutinizing the underlying sibling rivalry between them.
“I am a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands” Mama describes of herself in the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Mama, who additionally takes the role of narrator, is a lady who comes from a wealth of heritage and tough roots. She is never vain, never boastful and most certainly never selfish. She speaks only of her two daughters who she cares deeply for. She analyzes the way she has raised them and how much she has cared too much or too little for them, yet most of all how much they value their family. Mama never speaks of herself, other than one paragraph where she describes what she does. “My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing” (Walker, 60). She does not need to tell readers who she is, for her descriptions of what she does and how her family interacts, denotes all the reader needs to know. Although Mama narrates this story rather bleakly, she gives readers a sense of love and sense of her inner strength to continue heritage through “Everyday Use”.
Alice Walkers “Everyday Use”, is a story about a family of African Americans that are faced with moral issues involving what true inheritance is and who deserves it. Two sisters and two hand stitched quilts become the center of focus for this short story. Walker paints for us the most vivid representation through a third person perspective of family values and how people from the same environment and upbringing can become different types of people.
Author Alice Walker, displays the importance of personal identity and the significance of one’s heritage. These subjects are being addressed through the characterization of each character. In the story “Everyday Use”, the mother shows how their daughters are in completely two different worlds. One of her daughter, Maggie, is shy and jealous of her sister Dee and thought her sister had it easy with her life. She is the type that would stay around with her mother and be excluded from the outside world. Dee on the other hand, grew to be more outgoing and exposed to the real, modern world. The story shows how the two girls from different views of life co-exist and have a relationship with each other in the family. Maggie had always felt that Mama, her mother, showed more love and care to Dee over her. It is until the end of the story where we find out Mama cares more about Maggie through the quilt her mother gave to her. Showing that even though Dee is successful and have a more modern life, Maggie herself is just as successful in her own way through her love for her traditions and old w...
A main theme in this novel is the influence of family relationships in the quest for individual identity. Our family or lack thereof, as children, ultimately influences the way we feel as adults, about ourselves and about others. The effects on us mold our personalities and as a result influence our identities. This story shows us the efforts of struggling black families who transmit patterns and problems that have a negative impact on their family relationships. These patterns continue to go unresolved and are eventually inherited by their children who will also accept this way of life as this vicious circle continues.