How far can a lesson go? Can it alter your future, how you react, and how you handle certain situations? For a young black boy, this is a very likely possibility. In the poem “Playground Elegy” by Clint Smith, a little boy simply playing in a park is taught the lesson that many mothers of young black boys miss. To defy gravity, he didn’t realize the significance of his mom’s message until he noticed the racial violence in his own community. Smith conveys his important message by using a free verse structure, hyperboles, allusions, and much more. Smith paints an explicit picture of how the character's experience went. “I remember reaching the bottom, a smile consuming half of my face, hands still in the air because I didn’t want it to stop. …show more content…
His imagery skills developed in his poem by adding depth and emotion to a common experience that many kids do. However, once his mother adds that he is defying gravity, his perspective of raising his arms and rippling his fingers through the air has now become his connotation of feeling alive and staying alive. His mother has made this lesson a consequential lesson that will ease him into the vulnerable world we live in. Nowadays, the not-so-little boy witnesses how the simple act of “defying gravity” can save a life. “When I read of the new child, his body strewn across the street, a casket of bones & concrete, I wonder how many times he slid down the slide” (Smith 5-8). Now as a grown-up, he experiences the lives of innocent children being taken by police brutality and the lack of knowledgable preplanned defense, and conformity. Smith hides the fact that he is talking about racial violence by using allusions, he talks about defying gravity. When he's frankly about how young black individuals have the burden of having to take extra precautions around cops. Smith added hyperbole to emphasize the significance and toll that this information took on his present
According to the articles "Tear Down the Swing Sets" by John Tierney and "Can a Playground Be Too Safe" by Nicholas Day many changes have been done to playground designs for many reasons like creative risks, lawsuits, and child safety. Playgrounds used to be fun, exciting and riskful but now due to playground design they are safe, yet boring.
The Haiti earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010 just fifteen miles south of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince was a severely large-scale earthquake, at a magnitude of 7.0. The initial shock was then followed by a series of aftershocks with magnitudes ranging up to 5.9. Over three hundred thousand people died due to this extreme chaos. Many buildings collapsed and disintegrated under the force of the quake; both the cathedral and National Palace in Port-au-Prince were heavily damaged. In the aftermath of this tragedy, efforts to aid the people of Haiti with medical assistance, water, and food were hampered by the loss of communication lines as well as by roads blocked by debris. Over one million people were left homeless due to this quake. Two days after the earthquake, journalist Leonard Pitts wrote “Sometimes the Earth is Cruel,” an article describing how the people of Haiti responded to the disaster. In “Sometimes the Earth is Cruel,” a major theme is that some things are inevitable.
In Death of an Innocent, Chris McCandless goes on a memorable and tragic journey into Alaska, but for most of his expedition he was known, not as Chris McCandless, but as Alexander Supertramp. The reason that he changed his name for his journey was because he is running away from his past and wanted to become the person he believed he really was.
In the short story “The lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, A women named Miss Moore, is an intelligent African American women, in a neighborhood full of children. It is in her best interest to educate the children to learn about their cultural aspects of their lives.
"It was called the Earthboy place, although no one by that name (or any other) had lived in it for twenty years."(166)James Welch in his fictitious allegory, "The Earthboy Place," presents the idea of how assimilation has caused many Indians to stop continuing with their lives as a native. Consequently, they leave their homelands to earn a living in another "world" which shows adaptation to the Westerners' culture; likewise to the writing of McNickle's.
His outside actions of touching the wall and looking at all the names are causing him to react internally. He is remembering the past and is attempting to suppress the emotions that are rising within him. The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ... ...
S.E Hinton’s realistic fiction novel, The Outsiders, takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1950’s. It’s hard for Ponyboy, the main character, to reserve his childhood innocence because he is in a gang, called the Greasers, and the Socs and the Greasers are always fighting. One lesson The Outsiders suggests is preserving childhood innocence. While some believe the strongest theme of The Outsiders is loyalty, I argue the strongest theme is preserving childhood innocence, as supported by S.E Hinton’s use of characterization, dialogue, and allegory.From the very beginning, the characterization shows how the Greasers have lost their innocence. S.E Hinton describes how Johnny looked like a “lost little dark puppy that’s been kicked around too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers,” (Hinton 11). This line shows how Johnny lost his innocence because of the way he looks
In Natasha Trethewey’s poetry collection “Native Guard”, the reader is exposed to the story of Trethewey’s growing up in the southern United States and the tragedy which she encountered during her younger years, in addition to her experiences with prejudice. Throughout this work, Trethewey often refers to graves and provides compelling imagery regarding the burial of the dead. Within Trethewey’s work, the recurring imagery surrounding graves evolves from the graves simply serving as a personal reminder of the past to a statement on the collective memory of society and comments on what society chooses to remember and that which it chooses to let go of.
The book I chose to read is called, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by: Richard Louv. I chose this book for a few different reasons. One reason I chose this book was because I’ m highly interested in the whole concept of the book and feel very passionate about its reasoning. I also thought it would be a great read to guide me towards a topic for my main project at the end of the Lemelson program. On the plus side, I “read” this book through audible, which enabled me to listed to the book on my drive to and from work everyday. I commonly do this because of my forty-five minute commute from Truckee to Spanish Springs.
They are many ways to approach a conflict in order to find a resolution. For minimal actions people are often willing to talk about it, but for major actions the solutions to those problems are usually acted out by violence thus, the creation of war. For many centuries countries have been going to war over disagreements. However, it is not any type of disagreements; it is usually about the political beliefs of certain countries. In fact, World War 1 was caused by the disagreements of the European countries in power which were Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Some of the countries had a difference of opinion concerning political values on ruling the country. Some were in favour of nationalism, imperialism, or militarism which caused physical conflict and created war. (Duffy) Many soldiers had to go fight to represent their country and make them proud. Many novels have been written to explain to the people how the war had a psychological impact on the soldiers who participated in The Great War, but in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque he explains the true depth of war by implicating his knowledge of his days as a German soldier fighting on the western front. Remarque’s awful war experience influenced him to write his novel to show the realistic brutality of war by graphic violence, the emotional impacts on the privates as well as the impact of nationalism by the Germans.
“The Message” also speaks about violence in urban Black communities. For instance, one part of the song talks about a girl getting pushed in front of a train and a man getting stabbed “right in his heart.” Aside from this example, another verse describes children looking up to the “Thugs, pimps, and pushers” in their communities, becoming those people, and then shooting others after they become thugs (Grandmaster Flash 41-42). Finally, “The Message” also touches on education in Black communities. In one part of the song, the speaker mentions how he or she got “a bum education” while another part of the song describes a child wanting to drop out of school because his teacher does not care to teach him (Grandmaster Flash 41).
Life is short and it is up to you to make the most out of it. The most important lesson that everyone should follow and apply to everyday life is “never give up”. In the novel, “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines, the important lesson can be shown in the characters Jefferson, Miss Emma and Grant Wiggins.
The poem focuses on the son’s feelings and thoughts as he is looking up at what he perceives to be his father’s hospital window. The second stanza concretes the literal foundation for the poem—the son is despondent about the gravity of the situation revolving around his father’s cond...
Non judgmental and Compassion was a message in this movie. If more people would have compassion for others we would live in a better world. It is important to be non judgmental because people never know what happens in a person's life to cause them to act out in a certain way. Mrs. Erin Gruwell’s students were separated along racial lines and had few aspirations beyond street survival. Many people warned her that her students were all criminals who couldn’t be taught. With all odds stacked against her, she accepted the teaching position at Wilson High School. Erin Gruwell saw more in the students than a future as criminals and gang members; she saw them as people who have lost their ways in life. Instead of turning her back as society had done, she held out a helping hand. She had compassion and was non judgmental toward the children’s actions and hatred for one another. Being judgmental...
I always believed that you could see the effects of bad parenting, by studying the youth of today opposed to the youth of sixty years ago. The effects of bad parenting can be measured in many different ways. One of the things that we all forget about is “lead by example”. What we as adults, teach our children, is what our future generations will be as people.