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While many stories take the initiative to tell the story more innocently for children, there is a limit on how much innocence is utilized. The poems A Barred Owl and The History Teacher are two completely different poems giving off the same message, containing innocence, but not too extreme. Each poem has the adults teaching the children what is good and bad in the world without giving them fear. The literary devices utilized in each poem portray different intentions. In A Barred Owl, Richard Wilbur utilizes personification, imagery, and irony to portray the innocence being seen throughout the poem, while in The History Teacher, Billy Collins utilizes syntax, tone and theme.
Ethel Waters overcame a very tough childhood to become one of the most well known African American entertainers of her time. Her story, The Eye on the Sparrow, goes into great detail about her life and how she evolved from taking care of addicts to becoming the star of her own show. Ethel was born by her mother being raped at a young age. Her father, John Waters, was a pianist who played no role in Ethel’s life. She was raised in poverty and it was rare for her to live in the same place for over a year. Ethel never fit in with the rest of the crowd; she was a big girl, about five nine when she was a teenager, and was exposed to mature things early in her life. This is what helped shape Ethel to be the strong, independent woman she is.
Sven Birkerts essay, “The Owl Has Flown” taken from The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age 1994 focuses on the immature thoughts of using electronics with our reading. He refers to the past on multiple occasions, giving the reader the sense that Birkerts may think that the past was a much better way of reading. When Birkerts talks about reading he also means learning and interpreting, getting the understanding from what we read. The depth of reading has changed a lot since the middle ages and Birkerts believes that it has changed and will continue to change for the worse. A quote from my reading of this essay that really tore at me is, “As we now find ourselves at a cultural watershed—as the fundamental process of transmitting information is shifting from mechanical to circuit-driven, from page to screen—it may be time to ask how modifications in our way of reading may impinge upon our mental life. For how we receive information bears vitally on the ways we experience and interpret reality.” the reason for this becoming an obstacle for me is that I agree and disagree with him.
The ability of words to calm a child’s fears is shown in “A Barred Owl.” Additionally, the author conveys the idea that even though one may say everything is alright, what one makes up in one’s mind is often worse than reality. The rhyme scheme in “A Barred Owl” helps depict the simple and soothing tone of the poem. Not only the rhyme scheme but also the repetition of certain consonants and sounds such as, “the warping night air having brought the boom / of an owl’s voice into her darkened room” help emphasize Wilbur’s i...
The poems “A Barred Owl” and “The History Teacher” by Richard Wilbur and Billy Collins respectively, depict two different scenarios in which an adult deceives a child/children, which ranges from the sounds of a bird at night, to the history of the world itself. “A Barred Owl” depicts two parents who lie to their daughter about an owl who woke her in the night, while “The History Teacher” involves a man who tries to protect his students by using education as a tool to deceive them. Both poets use diction, imagery, and rhyme to help them convey a certain tone in their poems.
In Conclusion, Billy Collins use of irony in both the setting and the description of the stereotypical students helped strengthen the allusion of the poem. The students in the poem are in an eternal school lifestyle as opposed to being in a normal town environment. Aspects of the setting, such as the landscape being made out of paper and the night sky being compared to a blackboard painted a descriptive picture in the mind of the reader, making the allusion more believable and relatable. Also, the use of stereotypes in this poem added on to the allusion of the school environment, giving life to the society in the town created by Collins. At first, the poem may seem like only an allusion, but with a closer look, you can see the reality behind it all.
Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “One Boy Told Me” uses the innocence and imagination of a young child to convey important life messages to adults. The sense of wonder and “not taking things to seriously” in the poem captures the way children look at the world. Her poem includes stylistic choices that reflect the way a child would talk and think, including anthropomorphism and repetition, which makes the poem all the more believable and relatable. While many phrases in the poem are humorous in their apparent nonsense, they contain important pieces of childlike wisdom.
In his poem “The History Teacher,” poet Billy Collins sends a strong message of those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Collins uses dramatic irony to reinforce this theme by having the history teacher downplay tragic events, lie to his students and create an unrealistically rosy picture of the world. The teacher thinks that he is “trying to protect his students’ innocence” (Collins 1), by shielding them from many horrific things that have happened in the world. The reader realizes that an ironic situation is unfolding in which the students are acting terribly even though the teacher has tried to shield them from the historical rotten things that have taken place.
Before the teacher read the book to her students, she provided them with the name of the author. She explained the front cover, back cover, and title page of the book. As the teacher displayed the book to the class she asked her students to name the type of animal that is on the cover page, and what they the book was about. The students were completely engaged as teacher read the book to them aloud. She brought to the students attention that at the end of every sentences, the words rhymed. For example, she asked the students to repeat after her as she said the words, hide and ride. The students were surprised to see the character as he changed colors throughout the story. The teacher asked the students to counted the number of times Clyde changed his color, and to name the different
I am so mad because I have to research owls in science. Slowly I logged on to my computer and found a site on owls. Instantly I was instantly intrigued by how interesting owls could be. I read the whole hour in concentration. When the bell rang I knew that I would research them again.
Poems have the ability to express thoughts into words. They convey messages and stories for the audience to interpret, and emotions for the audience to feel. Gwen Harwood, one of Australia’s most highly regarded poets, demonstrates sophistication and provokes emotions from the audience with descriptive use of imagery and inspiring messages in her poems. Harwood uses different methods to portray the themes of innocence, death and rebelling against authority in her poem Barn Owl. These ideas are clearly depicted through the use of literary techniques such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, imagery, direct speech and metaphors in the poem.
part of the k-selected species. K-selected species are carrying capacity species. They are a part of the s curve (logistic growth). They have an equilibrium pattern. They are large individuals with a long-life span. They are slow to mature and have few offspring with much care. Humans, elephants, and birds are all a part of the k-selected group. Long-eared owls fit the description of k-selected species. Long-eared owls only have one competitor, the tawny owl. The tawny owl and long-eared owl are similar in many ways. The tawny owl is an owl the size of a pigeon. It has a rounded body and head, with dark feathers around its face surrounding its dark eyes. It’s a widespread breeding species in England. Like the long-eared owl it eats small mammals
The two poems titled, “A Barred Owl” by Richard Wilbur and “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins have a very distinct thing in common. The authors centered each text around adults protecting children’s innocence by hiding the real world problems and issues through interpreting them in ways that will ease their thoughts and imaginations (dreams). Richard Wilbur was able to interpret his piece through rhyme and focused on the preservation of children’s imagination. While Billy Collins elucidated the same theme, he represented his ideals through having the main character a teacher censors real world events when educating his students.
In Richard Wilbur’s A Barred Owl and Billy Collins’s The History Teacher, a central point of shielding young ones from the truth is given. The two poets show how careful and protective adults deal with the curiosity of children. Wilbur uses playful rhymes along with a non-serious tone in juxtaposition to a child’s irrational fear. Collins uses a manipulative diction to show euphemistic yet disadvantageous protection.
suggest that the little boy in the poem has a different point of view from the readers. For my
I am not new to Purdue Owl, I refer to it several times whenever I am doing a research paper or writing an essay and have always found it to be very useful. I have never used the site map on the Purdue Owl website before, the site map showed me topics I never knew was available on Purdue Owl. Usually, I use the website to double check a source citation and in-text citation. The website was very easy to navigate, it is well organized into general section and then into a more detailed sub-section. I will be using its “outline components” to help me create my outline for my paper. I always refer to the APA citation section on the Purdue Owl website and I will be using it again to help with my research paper.