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An essay on character development
An essay on character development
What is the importance of character development in literature
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Informational Text Elements - The Teacher Who Changed My Life
Informational Text Elements - The Teacher Who Changed My Life
Assigned by: Marilu BelmanDue: Nov 8, 2017 11:59 PM
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1Identification and Application:
Look for facts and key details in the text that describe or explain important ideas, events, or individuals.
Identify transition words and phrases, such as because, as a consequence, or as a result, that signal interactions among individuals, ideas, or events.
Determine how an event or a sequence of events influences an individual, a subsequent event, or an idea.
Determine how an individual or individuals
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influence ideas or events. Ask yourself how interactions with ideas and events play a part in shaping people’s thoughts and actions. 2Model: The influence of individuals on events and ideas is the focus of Nicholas Gage’s personal essay in his memoir, A Place for Us.
In this personal narrative, Gage recounts how Marjorie Hurd, one of his teachers and mentors in junior high school, influenced his life by pushing him toward a career in journalism. Gage makes this idea clear in the first sentence of his essay:
3The person who set the course of my life in the new land entered as a young war refugee --who, in fact, nearly dragged me on to the path that would bring all the blessings I’ve received in America--was a salty-tongued, no-nonsense schoolteacher named Marjorie Hurd.
4As happens with a flood of memories, Gage packs facts and key details into the long first sentence of his personal essay. He establishes that he came to the United States “as a young war refugee” and that one individual--a “no-nonsense schoolteacher named Marjorie Hurd--served as his compass by setting “the course of ...[his] life ...on to the path” of journalism, a path “that would bring all the blessings” he has “received in America.”
5In the second paragraph, Gage provides more details about the reason he came to the United States and the role that his mother played in shaping his
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life: 6My mother, Eleni Gatzoyiannis, had been imprisoned, tortured, and shot by Communist guerrillas for sending me and three of my four sisters to freedom. She died so that her children could go to their father in the United States. 7Although it is not yet evident to readers, this information about his mother’s death is an important detail in the story of how Marjorie Hurd influenced his life.
8Readers get the first glimpse of Hurd’s enormous impact on the events in Gage’s life in a remembrance placed in paragraph 8:
9One day, after discussing how writers should write about what they know, she assigned us to compose an essay from our own experience. Fixing me with a stern look, she added, “Nick, I want you to write about what happened to your family in Greece.” I had been trying to put those painful memories behind me and left the assignment until the last moment.
10Although he had been trying to forget his mother’s death and other painful memories, he now had to confront it for his essay assignment. In paragraph 11, Gage provides concrete evidence of the profound emotional impact that Miss Hurd’s assignment had on him:
11I handed in the essay, hoping never to see it again, but Miss Hurd had it published in the school paper. This mortified me at first, until I saw that my classmates reacted with sympathy and tact to my family’s story. Without telling me, Miss Hurd also submitted the essay to a contest sponsored by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, Pa., and it won a
medal. 12Recognizing the value of the essay, Miss Hurd had it published “in the school paper” and submitted it to a contest, where it won a medal. Writing in an emotional voice, Gage remembers the power that the essay held for him and the spark it ignited, in paragraph 12: 13For the first time I began to understand the power of the written word. A secret ambition took root in me. One day, I vowed, I would go back to Greece, find out the details of my mother’s death and write about her life, so her grandchildren would know of her courage. Perhaps I would even track down the men who killed her and write of their crimes. Fulfilling that ambition would take me 30 years. 14Through her mentoring, Hurd influenced Gage’s ideas about the “power of the written word” and its influence on people and events. Rather than try to forget what had happened to his mother, he vowed to give those events a future direction by seeking the details of her death and someday writing “about her life” for her grandchildren. 15By focusing on how Marjorie Hurd and his mother influenced him, Gage is able to weave together memories to create a personal essay that expresses how two powerful women played a pivotal role in shaping the events and ideas that molded his life
Growing up, Ehrhart lived in a small town called Perkasie, where he had a very safe and comfortable life. He had always felt prideful of his country. He would ride around with red, white, and blue crepe paper hanging from his bicycle and was brought to tears by the ceremonies on Memorial Day. As a child, he played war with his friends and loved the battery powered toy gun he got one Christmas. It only seemed natural to him that he would join the service someday.
The story of Lewis Grizzard began on the twentieth day of October Nineteen Hundred Forty Six in Columbus, Georgia. He was born to an Army soldier, Lewis Grizzard Sr., and a school teacher, Christine; they were later divorced and Lewis and his mother moved to Moreland, a small town near Newnan. Grizzard earned his B.A. in journalism in 1968, after which he went to work for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution as a sports writer. During his college years, at The University of Georgia he “shunned the school newspaper in favor of the independent Athens Daily News”, according to the biography written by his wife (D. Girzzard) . Sorrowfully, the literary world suffered a great loss as Grizzard passed away due to a congenital heart defect in March of Nineteen Ninety-four.
In the short story “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska, the author talks about a girl who came to America looking for the “American dream” and also trying to escape from Russia, which she calls prison. This nameless girl feels “beaten out of [her heart],” suffocated in Russia, like she couldn’t get out of her impoverished lifestyle there. She tried to adjust to living in America because she’s from a different culture and environment and she asks many questions to help herself out but then she realizes that she is not an American and never will be. She ends up working with a Russian family as a servant. Then, later on she worked in a sweatshop and got fired. She had low thoughts about
... harsh and tragic. Similarly, Hodgins symbolizes a life full of hardships in Portuguese Creek with the death of Elizabeth, for she had been the only good thing that had come out of the war. The positives of the families and communities working together were ultimately overshadowed by the negativity of these same families and communities falling apart; only further showing readers that new beginnings are not a chance for a better life, but center stage for one that is worse.
“The sanctuary of school” by Lynda Barry Lynda Barry demonstrates her childhood experiences on the essay, “the sanctuary of school”, specifying how crucial schools are for children: especially neglected children like herself. Once, she walked alone to her school in a dark morning due to overwhelmed of parents’ financial issue conflicts. As she walked to the school, she gradually realized that the school was her home in which people were happy, felt nurture, and safe rather than her actual home, where Barry felt dejected. Furthermore, the author stated that school budgets cut is an issue for future children and students because the art, music, or before or after school activities program would be the first cut from the schools. These issues
“Well, Alice, my father said, if it had to happen to one of you, I’m glad it was you and not your sister” (57). Even though Alice was the victim of the horrid crime, she had to stabilize her own emotions, so that she could help her sister cope with this tragedy. Throughout Alice’s childhood, Jane struggled with alcoholism and panic attacks. “I wished my mother were normal, like other moms, smiling and caring, seemingly, only for her family” (37).
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Anzia Yezierska is one of many immigrants that traveled to America in order to create a new living. Throughout her short story “America and I”, she immerses the reader with descriptive imagery and thoughtful detail as she tells of the challenges she personally faced. Perpetually conflicted and confused, Yezierska’s ever-evolving understanding of America changes the structure of narrative to fit her journey. Throughout the trials presented and an internal battle against an imagined and romanticized America, Yezierska finds her true America and the life she can build within it, which is reflected in her adjusted structure and tone.
In the commencement of the story, the narrator is shocked and in disbelief about the news of his brother’s incarceration, “It was not to be believed” (83). It had been over a year since he had seen his brother, but all he had was memories of him, “This would always be at a moment when I was remembering some specific thing Sonny had once said or done” (83). The narrator’s thoughts about Sonny triggered his anxiety that very day. It was difficult to bear the news of what his brother had become, yet at some point he could relate to Sonny on a personal level, “I hear my brother. And myself” (84). After the news had spurred, the narrator experienced extreme anxiety to the point of sweating. Jus...
As a result, their lives changed, for better or for worse. They were inexperienced, and therefore made many mistakes, which made their life in Chicago very worrisome. However, their ideology and strong belief in determination and hard work kept them alive. In a land swarming with predators, this family of delicate prey found their place and made the best of it, despite the fact that America, a somewhat disarranged and hazardous jungle, was not the wholesome promise-land they had predicted it to be.
Jacobs elucidates to the reader the exhaustion, anguish and hopelessness that came over her upon discovering that Dr. Flint had begun building the cottage he threated to take Jacobs in as a concubine. She experienced such trauma that even the sound of his footsteps evoked fear in her and she trembled upon hearing his voice (Jacobs, 62). Dr. Flint held so much
My day was going well. I devoured a big breakfast, my brother, for once, got out of the shower quick, and no major assignment was pending. Life was very, very good. Then life began to fall into oblivion. I saw on the board in the front of Mrs. Smith's room the journal entry for the day. It was about what would I write about in a narrative essay. Hope faded away. Somewhere on the planet a nuclear bomb went. An earthquake struck in some unknown place on the Earth. A volcano erupted on Jupiter's moon Io and killed a bunch of Ionians. Somebody's red rose just wilted and the petals fell onto the ground. The end of the world was indeed upon us. My jaw dropped and warning bells went off in my head. I went completely and utterly blank. I tried as hard as I could to write my journal. Channel One came on and talked about a nuclear bomb going off in India that caused an earthquake that somehow caused a volcano to erupt on Io (that killed a bunch of aliens). My jaw dropped once again. It was now the floor. As I was finishing my journal, Mrs. Smith went to the front of the room and talked about, du du du, narrative papers. She gave us a cold, white study guide that gave me no hope for survival. She then gave us another evil sheet of pap...
Throughout his youth, Anderson experienced life-altering events that shaped the basis for many of his stories. In his childhood, Anderson experienced desultory schooling and worked several jobs, including a newsboy, a housepainter, a stable boy, a farmhand, and a laborer in a bicycle factory, many of which are jobs of those in his writing (May, ed. 77). The central psychological event in Anderson’s life occurred in 1912, when he suffered a nervous breakdown. Subsequently he moved to Chicago where he began writing. Here, he also met Dr. Trigant Burrow of Baltimore, who operated a Freudian therapeutic camp in Lake Chateauguay, New York, attended by Anderson the summers of 1915 and 1916 (May, ed. 77). Influenced not only by life events, Anderson’s writings contain clear commonalities, allowing clear comparisons to be made.
...nd just as fast the memories came they went. Cringing her teeth, she begins to count. “One, two, three, four, five…” As she is about to reach six she begins to feel a warm rush invade my inner skin, instantly she feels relief. It no longer mattered to her that that woman came, or that the trash was overflowing with weeks of junk mail or that she had a thirty page thesis due tomorrow. All that mattered was getting on the phone and phoning her mother, Nancy. “Mom?” says Janine.
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...