Analyzing Connie Clare's Poem 'Communications Class'

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The speaker is posing herself as a Cree student in school who is being silently ostracized. The student hates the education system, as she thinks it is dull and tedious, and the teachers have no faith in her intellect. However, she does not stop at her frustration, as, in the poem we see a certain turn-around: she is sick of playing dead, and as a result, she makes a firm decision to push for change. In the poem “Communications Class,” Connie Fife shows through form and school imagery, the frustrating experience of ostracization in school, but also the resilience a student can exhibit against it.
The speaker is expressing her determination through repetition of a negative phrase “do not.” The phrase “do not” infers a negative connotation, so …show more content…

The poet expresses a lot of emotion through the imagery that she uses. At the beginning of her poem, we can see a silent frustration, as we read: “do not fool yourself that I have fallen off the face of the earth and/am just another statistical write-off.” She shares how frustrating it is to be ostracized in a class where no one understands her, or makes any attempt to do so, and expresses this through smooth sarcasm. In the education system, Cree students were always expected to drop out, so it made no difference when or how many did drop out, because it was assumed they would all drop out eventually. They assumed that it was either because the Cree people didn’t care about their schooling, or didn’t have the mental capacity to learn, so as a result the staff also failed to care. This naturally, did not make it easy for the Cree students who did care, and who did try their best, and the speaker was also one of these people. She indicates that she is very annoyed with the education system because of all the stereotyping that was happening between students and teachers alike, but also because the classes are extremely boring to her, for she

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