Summer Reading free essay sample

The Silver Kiss * Canyons Title: The Bronx Masquerade Author: Nikki Grimes Point of view: First Person Setting-Time and Place: Present Day, in theBronx, NY All Main Characters and Descriptions * Tyrone Bittings: Dad Died, doesn’t like white individuals. * Chankara Troupe: Abused by her sweetheart, composes awesome sonnets. * Raul Ramirez: Painter, Writes an elegantly composed Zorro Poem. * Diondra Jordan: Painter, father needs her to play ball because of her tallness. * Devon Hope: Plays b-ball, yet his preferred mystery diversion is perusing. Lupe Algarin: Wants to have an infant, for somebody to adore her, and she never grins. * Gloria Martinez: Had a child (B, Angel) father deserted them, and its difficult work. * Janelle Battle: Smart, wants to peruse, rotund, and low confidence. * Leslie Lucas: White, mother kicked the bucket, frightened of individuals of color, just companion is Porscha * Judianne Alexander: Abused by father, low confidence, and she is desirous of Lupe. * Tanisha Scott: Light Skinned, Long Hair, â€Å"caramel cutie†. We will compose a custom exposition test on Summer Reading or then again any comparative point explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page A great many people are desirous. * Sterling Hughes: â€Å"Preacher† Believes in God seriously and plays the guitar. Amy Moskowitz: Has no companions, fears being harmed again since her mom passed on. * Sheila Gamboroni: Italian, Hates her light hair, needs her Africana name Natalia. * Steve Ericson: Wants to configuration sets on Broadway, is moving out of New York. * Raynard Patterson: Dyslexic doesn’t like to peruse, yet verse raised his confidence. * Porscha Jackson: Everyone thinks she is vicious b/c her mother mishandled her. Plot Summary: When a secondary school English educator utilizes the strategy for a verse hammer to carry his understudies to the acknowledgment that they are for the most part extraordinary and equivalent. That the shade of their skin doesn't make a difference, its their insight, and flourishing that will take them puts throughout everyday life. Struggle: Each understudy needs something that an alternate understudy has. At the point when they take a gander at one another, they take a gander at what they have outwardly, yet they don’t truly comprehend what each other has where it counts inside. They don’t think about each other’s characters. They don’t consider how hard it may be to be them. Topic: (if there is one) To be OK with yourself and drive forward until you arrive at your objectives. Title: The Silver Kiss Author: Annette Curtis Klause Perspective: Third Person Setting-Time and Place: 1990’s Chicago, Illinois All Characters and Descriptions * Zoe: (16) Black Hair, Gray Eyes, mother has malignant growth, father remains with mother, BFF is Lorraine. * Lorraine: Zoe’s Best Friend. Moving to Oregon Soon. * Zoe’s Mom: Always in the emergency clinic. Has bone malignant growth. * Zoe’s Dad: Is consistently occupied with her mother, contends with Zoe a ton. * Simon: (300) Zoe’s â€Å"crush† who is additionally a vampire. * Christopher: Simon’s more youthful sibling. Doesn’t like Zoe with Simon. Plot Summary: Zoe feels alone on the grounds that her whole life is self-destructing. Her mom is kicking the bucket of malignant growth, her closest companion is moving out of state and she scarcely ever converses with her father any longer. Be that as it may, at that point one night she meets Simon, a vampire. She quickly goes gaga for him. At that point he uncovers to her that he was changed to a vampire over 300 years prior when he was sixteen when he was seized by a linkboy that he followed home one night. Strife: Simon needs to vindicate his mother’s demise by executing his younger sibling Christopher, who is likewise a vampire however is within a young men body. Simon is too reluctant to even think about fighting Christopher without anyone else on the grounds that he is frail. In any case, he imagines that Zoe can assist him with beating his sibling. Topic: (if there is one) No issue what you are experiencing, another person is experiencing something more regrettable. Title: Canyons Author: Gary Paulson Point of View: First Person, Flashback Setting-Time and Place: 1860s and present day El Paso, Texas All Characters and Descriptions * Brennan Cole: Lives in El Paso, Texas with his mom. * Coyote Runs: An Apache kid who anticipates masculinity. He should endure an assault so as to be viewed as a man by his clan and family. * Magpie: An Apache man that loaned his horse to Coyote Runs to use during the attack. Sancta: The pioneer of the strike. * Bill: The minister that Brennan’s Mother is dating. Plot Summary: Canyons is a tale around two teenaged young men on an excursion. One day when Brennan goes outdoors, he feels something jabbing him from underneath his camping bed. He uncovers the vermin to find that it is a human skull. Well piece of it. He cau tiously inspects it finding that the back is missing and there is a shot gap in the focal point of the brow. He takes the skull to his previous science instructor Mr. Homesly. Mr. Homesly then uses his numerous associations with an end goal to separate data relating to this find. At the point when Mr. Holmesly got the data from his companion he brought Brennan directly finished. Brennan remained up the whole evening perusing the containers for data. After much exploration he found that the skull was just about 250 years of age, and had a place with an apache kid, his age named Coyote Runs who went on an assault and didn’t endure. The police or the â€Å"bluebellies† shot him point clear in the brow. His masculinity was brief. Strife: Brennan finds a human skull on an outdoors outing and activities the entirety of the assist he with canning get the chance to discover who it has a place as well and why it was there in any case.

Mayan Civilization with citations!

Morrison Marginalia TAR BABY

Morrison Marginalia TAR BABY The Riot Reading Day for Toni Morrison is less than two weeks away, and I have miles (and 5 books) to go before I sleep. When I first read Toni Morrison in a seminar in college, she had 8 novels out (Love had just been released), and my professor concluded that we only had time to read 7 of them in the 14-week semester. Two weeks per book is about right, and I wish I had remembered that when I set out to try to read all NINE of her now-extant novels in just 12 weeks. Insanity, I tell you. Tar Baby was the book that got the boot from that class, so I’ve only ever read it on my own, and only once before. While there were moments in which I wished for academic notes during my reading, I also found it deeply satisfying to discover that I could encounter Morrison completely on my own and come out relatively unscathed. My notes from this reading filled seven college-ruled notebook pages. Here’s the condensed version.* Read previous installments of Morrison Marginalia here. ____________________ The epigraph, from 1 Corinthians 1:11, is super-interesting. “For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.” This book is definitely about a house filled with contentions, but what really fascinates me here is that Morrison’s real name is Chloe Wofford, and I know Morrison well enough to know that this is no coincidence. What is she telling us about herself here? The foreword is equally compelling. In the first paragraph, Morrison discusses storytelling and says, “All narrative begins for me as listening.” Later, she says that the novel “merged the primal and the contemporary, lore and reality.” Don’t worry, friends, I’ve already googled the original tar baby folk tale half a dozen times. We are ready to rock. 11: Valerian Street, what a name! And Margaret being known as The Principal Beauty of Maine? Fantastic. It is a truth universally acknowledged that odd names can distract readers and pull them out of the moment. Maybe I’m just attenuated to the fact that Morrison does this, but damn, she makes it work. 15: First mention of exile, a major theme of Tar Baby. 19: Valerian contemplates his reasons for retreating to L’Arbe de la Croix and notes that “everybody is conspiring to ruin it for me.” He says he wants peace and quiet, but his delight and amusement at discovering Son would indicate otherwise. 26: “It’s just that I’m undergoing this very big change in my life called dying” So melodramatic, Valerian, but so wonderful. 36: Ondine and Sydney talk about Michael and Margaret’s relationship, and Ondine tells Sydney, “He’s not the one who’s not natural. She is.” Hello, foreshadowing. 39: Reference to “one of them Marys” calls to mind the Deweys of Sula. Morrison presents othering and the notion that “they’re all the same” without putting too fine a point on it.yet. 48: ”Sometimes I want to get out of my skin and be only the person insidenot Americannot blackjust me.” Issues of color and racial identity loom large in this book, so it’s worth noting that Jadine is the first light-skinned black woman (Gideon calls her “yalla” later on) to have truly extended screentime in a Morrison novel, and Tar Baby is the only of her oeuvre to feature white main characters. 67: Regarding Valerian and Margaret’s “May and December marriage,” Jadine thinks, “He is waning, shutting up, closing in. She’s blazing with the fire of a soon to be setting sun.” Damn if I don’t want my middle age to blaze with the same fire. 94: “Things went back to their natural state so quickly in that place.” Morrison plays with the notion that black = wild here to explore the fear that Son’s presence will reintroduce Jade to her wildness. This recalls Sula and her funkiness (and Helene Wright’s fear that hanging out with Sula would turn Nel wild), and now I really want to read a paper that puts Tar Baby alongside Sula. 99: Sydney refers to Son as “that nigger.” It’s not the first time Morrison has shown us one black person calling another one “nigger,” and I know she does it to demonstrate intra-racial caste and class systems, but I am always caught a little off-guard by it. And honestly, I am deeply uncomfortable quoting it here. But the alternative, to reduce it to “n-word,” would be a crime against Morrison and her work. 119: The image of Son standing over Jadine’s bed and whispering dreams to her is creepy but also sort of enchanting. And my Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison tells me it’s an allusion to Paradise Lost. Well played, ToMo. I expect nothing less than subtle references to difficult works of classic literature. 129: Now, in a conversation with Margaret, Jadine calls son a “nigger” but bristles when Margaret says he looked like a “gorilla” when she found him hiding in the closet. This gives me pause, and I think Morrison wants that. 134-137: I simply adore the story of how Son came to the island, and Morrison’s use of repetition to hammer home “He had not followed the women” is beautiful. 155: Gideon (Yardman) and Son discuss Jadine and her status as a “yalla.” Gideon says, “It’s hard for them not to be white peopleYallas don’t come to being black natural-like. They have to choose it and most don’t choose it.” I love that Morrison questions the notion that racial identity is immutable, and I want more of this conversation about what it means to embrace or reject blackness. 185: Jadine and Son return from the picnic during which Jadine gets stuck in the swamp, and Margaret looks at the muck on Jadine’s clothing, noting, “It looks like pitch” (emphasis mine). You know, just in case you weren’t sure that Jade is the tar baby in this scenario. 186: Reference to “Dorcus, the one black girl she ever looked in the fact.” There’s a Dorcas in Jazz. A minor change in spelling, but still. Is Morrison going to connect these characters, or is she just a fan of repeating character names? We’ve seen Suggs in multiple novels already, and Baby Suggs is HUGE in Beloved. 206: Valerian has come off as relatively friendly to the black characters in the book so far, but he fires Gideon and Thérèse for taking apples and responds to Syndney and Ondine’s protests with, “I am being questioned by these people, as if, as if I could be called into question!” White privilege and entitlement rear their ugly heads. 219: Son thinks of his and Jadine’s leave-taking as an “escape from the plantation.” There. It. Is. 222: In New York, Son and Jade would “drink margaritas at Suggs.” See what I mean about repetition of names? 230: Jadine and Son become so close that their “language diminished to code.” Ahhh, ain’t love grand? 236: The revelation that Margaret abused Michael is a big one, and I so appreciate that it’s not one-dimensional and that Margaret is straight-up vilified (right, as if Toni Morrison does anything one-dimensionally). She notes that Margaret was “outraged by that infant needfulness,” and that’s another call back to Sula and the burden of motherhood. 262: I’m just going to say it. I do not get the “coven” of women who appear to Jadine and bare their breasts. Please explain it to me. 265: Thérèse’s last name is Foucault. Don’t tell me that doesn’t mean something. 270: “People don’t mix races; they abandon them or pick them.” I’ve read a lot of studies about how people’s sexual identities evolves and changes over the course of a lifetime, and I would love to read something similar about racial identity. (If you know of a good resource, please leave a link in the comments.) 305: Thérèse tells Son that Jadine has “forgotten her ancient properties.” Is this an indictment of Jadine’s assimilation? Also, an essay in the Cambridge Companion quotes the line as “she has lost her true and ancient properties.” Is this a misquote, or did Morrison actually change the line at some point? [I asked Twitter, and a reader who owns the original said it was just ancient properties. So now Im really curious about where the true got added in along the way.] *page numbers refer to 2004 Vintage edition Sign up to Unusual Suspects to receive news and recommendations for mystery/thriller readers. Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox.

10 California Geography Facts

California  is a state located in the western United States. It is the largest state in the union based on its population of over 35 million and it is the third-largest state (behind Alaska and Texas) by land area. California is bordered to the north by Oregon, to the east by Nevada, to the southeast by Arizona, to the south by Mexico and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Californias nickname is the Golden State. The state of California is most well known for its large cities, varied topography, favorable climate, and large economy. As such, Californias population has grown quickly over the past decades and it continues to grow today via both immigration from foreign countries and movement from other states. Basic Facts Capital: SacramentoPopulation: 38,292,687 (January 2009 estimate)Largest Cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach, Fresno, Sacramento, and OaklandArea: 155,959 square miles (403,934 sq km)Highest Point: Mount Whitney at 14,494 feet (4,418 m)Lowest Point: Death Valley at -282 feet (-86 m) Geographic Facts About California The following is a list of ten geographic facts to know about the state of California: California was one of the most diverse regions for Native Americans in the United States with around 70 independent tribes prior to the arrival of persons from other areas in the 1500s. The first explorer of the California coast was the Portuguese explorer Joà £o Rodrigues Cabrilho in 1542.Throughout the rest of the 1500s, the Spanish explored Californias coast and eventually established 21 missions in what was known as Alta California. In 1821, The Mexican War of Independence allowed Mexico and California to become independent of Spain. Following this independence, Alta California remained as a northern province of Mexico.In 1846, the Mexican-American War broke out and following the end of the war, Alta California became a U.S. territory. By the 1850s, California had a large population as a result of the Gold Rush and on September 9, 1850, California was admitted into the United States.Today, California is the most populous state in the U.S. For reference, Californias population is over 39 million people, making it roughly the same as the entire country of Canada. Illegal immigration is also a problem in California and in 2010, around 7.3% of the population was made up of illegal immigrants.Most of Californias population is clustered within one of three major metropolitan areas. These include the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, Southern California extending from Los Angeles to San Diego and Central Valley cities stretching from Sacramento to Stockton and Modesto.California has varied topography that includes mountain ranges like the Sierra Nevada that run south to north along the eastern border of the state and the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California. The state also has famous valleys like the agriculturally productive Central Valley and the wine-growing Napa Valley.Central California is divided into two regions by its major river systems. The Sacramento River, which begins flowing near Mount Shasta in northern California, provides water to both the no rthern part of the state and the Sacramento Valley. The San Joaquin River forms the watershed for the San Joaquin Valley, another agriculturally productive region of the state. The two rivers then join to form the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta system which is a major water supplier for the state, a water transit hub, and an incredibly biodiverse region.Most of Californias climate is considered Mediterranean with warm to hot dry summers and mild wet winters. Cities located close to the Pacific coast feature a maritime climate with cool foggy summers, while the Central Valley and other inland locations can become very hot in the summer. For example, San Franciscos average July high temperature is 68 °F (20 °C) while Sacramentos is 94 °F (34 °C). California also has desert regions like Death Valley and very cold climates in the higher mountain areas.California is highly active geologically as it is located within the Pacific Ring of Fire. Many large faults such as the San Andreas run throughout the state making a large portion of it, including the Los Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas, prone to earthquakes. A portion of the volcanic Cascade Mountain Range also extends into northern California and Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen are active volcanoes in the area. Drought, wildfire, landslides, and flooding are other natural disasters common in California.Californias economy is responsible for about 13% of the gross domestic product for the entire United States. Computers and electronic products are Californias largest export, while tourism, agriculture and other manufacturing industries make up a large part of the states economy.

The Louisiana Purchase Unconstitutional or Not Essay

It seems that since the beginning of history the actions of the government have always been criticized, especially in the sense of public spending. In the case of the Louisiana Purchase many political figures at the time it was created, as well as historians argue whether or not it was in fact a violation of the Constitution or not. This debate is still ongoing, but in order to analyze whether the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional or not, one must analyze the sequence of events leading to the acquisition of the territory by the United States. The Louisiana Purchase appeared to be the only solution to the United States anxiety over whether the French would try to control part of the land that many of the colonists were attempting to†¦show more content†¦While the Constitution can be interpreted in many different ways depending on who is analyzing its contents, the Constitution is in fact fairly black and white in terms of its purpose and decrees. Although President Jeff erson and most of Congress believed that the purchase would be beneficial and prevent an unnecessary war for the United States, Jefferson soon began to have doubts about if the purchase using government money could be justified by the Constitution. On the flip side, however, although the Constitution does not specially empower the federal government or the acting President to acquire new territory by treaty, the practical benefits of the Louisiana Purchase outweighed if it was in fact a violation of the Constitution. Although many believe in a strict interpretation of the Constitution, the Louisiana Purchase was in fact constitutional. First, the tenth amendment grants to the states and the people all rights not specifically denied in the Constitution. (â€Å"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the United States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people†) In other words, the 10th Amendment is applicable to the Louisiana Purchase because the colonists wanted to expand into the west and it was in their best interest to do so. Secondly, in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution it also states that the President is theShow MoreRelatedThe Louisiana Purchase Essays940 Words   |  4 PagesThe Louisiana Purchase was done in the year 1803. In this purchase the United States of America paid fifteen million dollars to get all the land west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains. This transaction was done between Thomas Jefferson and the great Napoleon. The benefits that the United States of America experienced from this purchase were numerous. For one, it gave the U.S. complete control of the Mississippi, which in tern helped many farmers with transportingRead MoreThe City Of The United States875 Words   |  4 Pagescommemorate the importance of settling in the West following the Louisiana Purchase. A watershed event in American history, the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 nearly doubled the land mass of the young nation: for a purchase price of $15 million, the United States increased its size by some 828,000 square miles (Louisiana Purchase, 2003). There were fifteen present U.S. states that were all or part of involved in the purchase. Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas,, NebraskaRead MoreEffects Of The Purchase Of Louisiana1162 Words   |  5 PagesThe purchase of Louisiana was both beneficial to President Thomas Jefferson as well as detrimental in many ways. The ordeal started in October of 1802, where Joseph Harris of smithsonianmag.com states that the Spanish administrator, Juan Ventura Morales, who was administering New Orleans until the French administrator Laussat arrived, said that the terms of 1795 treaty had expired and the Americans had lost their right to store American merchandise in warehouses located in New Orleans. Another rig htRead MoreMadison And Jeffersons Federalist Ideas Essay968 Words   |  4 Pagesas strict constructionists, who were opposed to the broad constructionism of the Federalists, both Jefferson and Madisons presidencies highlighted Federalist ideals in many of their decisions. This included Jeffersons unconstitutional decision in purchasing the vast Louisiana territory and MadisonsÂ… The standard Democratic-Republican had many beliefs in which followed the Constitution whole heartily. Jefferson writes, The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best thatRead MoreHow the Louisana Purchase Was Aganist the Constitution Essay examples638 Words   |  3 PagesThrough the Louisiana Purchase a lot of problems with how Thomas Jefferson dealt with the Constitution can be found. Jefferson was the third president of the United States and the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party. Even though he believes in a strict interpretation of the Constitution his actions during the Louisiana Purchase violates this avowed Constitutional principle of his and it also went against his principal of low government spending. Jefferson believed in a strict interpretationRead MoreEssay about The Formative Years of The Louisiana Purchase960 Words   |  4 Pages To buy or not to buy, that is the question. Although it was the greatest â€Å"real estate† deal, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was perhaps one of the most controversial events in American History. President Thomas Jefferson, although he was a Founding Father and the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence, faced major opposition with his decision to purchase the Louisiana Territory from the French. Most of the opposition he faced, however, was domestic. Jefferson was the founder of theRead MoreThomas Jefferson s Dilemma On The Louisiana Purchase1065 Words   |  5 PagesGabriel Quarcoo Mr. D Nesmith History 1301.06 October 24th, 2014 Thomas Jefferson’s Dilemma on the Louisiana Purchase In our day, we consider the boarders of the United States impenetrable and inevitable. We tend to forget that the nation started off as a little country which consisted of 13 states, occupying the Atlantic Seaboard, which is only is small portion of what it is now. The county before the 1803 depended on its resources for agriculture, mining and logging. The need for more land forRead MoreThe Louisiana Purchase By Thomas Jefferson1129 Words   |  5 Pagesthroughout the endeavor of the Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana Purchase is highly regarded as the greatest achievement of American expansion since the establishment of the country. This transaction between France and America gave the necessary requirements to recover and even advance the weak U.S. economy. America paid France $15 million for an estimated 800,000 acres of land; making this the largest land deal in history. Despite the many advantages that the Louisiana Purchase had to offer, Thomas JeffersonRead MoreThe Louisiana P urchase Shaping America1213 Words   |  5 Pages The Louisiana Purchase shaping America Christopher Richeson East Forsyth High School Mrs. Callendar American History 4th Period December 15, 2015 Abstract The Louisiana Purchase was a major event in the growth of the United States of America. Purchased from France for 15 million by Thomas Jefferson in 1803, it gave America twice the available land, adding 827,000 square miles. Some may argue the Louisiana Purchase is unconstitutional, but Jefferson found a way around that. TheRead MoreUs History Essential Questions on Thomas Jefferson Essay785 Words   |  4 PagesDescribe the short and long-term ramifications to the decision. The case of Marbury vs. Madison established judicial review of acts of Congress to determine if they are unconstitutional. It was so epochal because had it not established judicial review, Congress would be free to pass laws that are completely unconstitutional and a violation of the rights set in place by the first ten amendments. It brought order out of the chaos that occurred when Adams appointed the Midnight Judges. Over the long

Know Rhymesâ€Know Reasons Free Essays

My parents are nerds.   I don’t mean they were nerds as kids and grew out of it; I mean my parents were nerds from the moment each was born, though their adolescence, and right into adulthood.   Today, my parents remain true to their heritage: they are full-fledged, adult nerds. We will write a custom essay sample on Know Rhymes—Know Reasons or any similar topic only for you Order Now As most people are aware, nerd hood requires a few supplies and traits: along with the requisite pocket protectors, the over-exuberance for all things academic, and thick glasses, both of my parents are bookworms.   Luckily, certain genetic traits skip a generation, and I can honestly say that I am not a nerd; however, I am a bookworm, and I am not ashamed to admit it because much of my life has been influenced by the things I have read. I grew up with Dr. Seuss.   My father used to spend time every week reading the latest Dr. Seuss book with me.   He’d tuck me into bed, and then I read to him aloud as the story unfolded one rhyme and one intriguing illustration at a time.   My goal was not so much to get to the end, but to learn new words, and each new word I learned was marked by my father with a bright, yellow highlighter. In this way, the progress I made became more tangible, and for all I know, that habit of my father’s allowed me the freedom to read all of my books with a dictionary and a highlighter by my side and never to feel as if doing so was a waste of time or a burden: new word were an adventure, and I loved learning them.   I don’t recall developing a particular favorite Dr. Seuss book as a child, but as I got older, I began to get the urge to unpack the box of my highlighted books and relive a little of my youth. The box of Dr. Seuss books had been stored in the family shed, and the years had taken their toll.   The change in temperature had caused the books to warp and mold, but they had not gone completely to waste: at least one family of rodents had nested in the box, shredding the pages of my early education for their own progeny’s needs.   One lone book remained untouched: Horton Hears a Who, and as I opened this last book of my childhood and began to read, I was struck by the power of the story.   Hidden in the text was one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned: a single voice of the tiniest girl was strong enough to make a difference.   As hokey as it may sound, I leaned the degree to which an individual can impact the world that day as I read that book.   Perhaps I am a nerd. I won’t waste time by detailing the degree to which I read during grade school, junior high school, and high school; I will only clarify that while I admit to being bookish, I was also an athlete, participated in student body, and had a social life.   I was, however, not done with Dr. Seuss. I hit a wall with Shakespeare, and I felt the burden of reading for the first time in my life.   While many students had grown accustomed to that wall, I had never dealt with it, so by the time it happened to me, the stakes were high: I was in college, and I wasn’t getting it.   I had never skipped a reading—never worried about my English or literature courses. Suddenly, I was ready for a slug of the stuff Romeo had taken.   I did the only thing I could think of: looking for commiseration, I complained to my parents about how stupid Shakespeare was, pointed out that no one could really be sure he’d written his plays, and wondered out loud why anyone needed to read stuff that’s written like that anyway. My father would have none of it, but he suggested to me that anyone who had grown up on Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein had no business complaining about or being confused by Shakespeare.   Like many messages delivered when one isn’t ready to receive them, the point my father had tried to make was lost on me for awhile—buried by the frustration of not having been appeased.   Several days later, I tried to give in to the notion that there might be something familiar in the rhythm and rhyme of Shakespeare if only I’d do what my father had suggested: read it out loud and listen—really listen. I struggled at first trying to work through the colloquial terms.   I fought to remember that the ends of a line of text didn’t necessarily equal the end of a sentence.   I battled with Shakespeare’s sentence structure trying to remember that it was rarely subject-verb-object.   It was like running through sand that was waist deep.   Until it wasn’t.   Suddenly, everything fell into place: it was like I had learned a foreign language.   The words made sense; the story began to unfold around me; I got it; I liked it.   The only thing I can compare it to is sitting in a theater watching a sub-titled movie: there is a point at which the reading becomes so automatic that it is no longer a conscious effort but automatic.   It was just like that. Later, I met the wall that was Henry James.   I was reading Portrait of a Lady, and I had spent far too much time trying to decipher the first scene of the text.   When I realized that James had spent over a page beating around the bush to say that three men were at tea, I wanted to scream.   I wanted to ask the guy why he’d wasted so much ink and so many words simply to point out to the audience that it was tea time, but instead of there being women there, there were men—but I had a book to wade through, and Mr. James was long dead, so I moved on. Having figured out the context of the opening if the book, I went back and started anew, and I realized that I wanted to sit and talk to the man who had chosen such wonderfully descriptive words—a man who had taken such great care to spend the time to so completely describe the fact that three men were at tea.   I remember thinking to myself that if he were a painter, and he painted the way he wrote, that I would love his work like I loved Claude Monet’s Impression Sunrise.   Years later, when I began to read everything I could by and about Henry James, I had a private laugh over his affinity for painters—Monet in particular. Having cracked Shakespeare and James, I was never again afraid of a book’s language or  length.   I picked up Middlemarch and Tom Jones and Vanity Fair and loved each of them for  different reasons, but one day, I picked up Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, and like  Horton Hears a Who, I found a story that changed the way I viewed the world.   â€Å"The Book of the  Grotesque† made me think about truth, and the way in which each individual forms his or her  own truth and twists it to suite personal needs.   It made me consider that each person’s  quest for and claiming of truth can send ripples into the world, and these ideas changed me. Recently, I have discovered Flannery O’Connor, and while I struggle with the racial issues that threaten to ruin her works for me, I feel the now-familiar tingle beginning that I have grown to recognize as the discovery and excitement that only a well-written book can bring me.   I may have to break down and buy a pocket protector just to use as a book mark. What about writing?   Well, if one day all of the things I have jotted down in hopes of emulating the people previously mentioned ever manages to make its way to a publisher, I will blame that on the books I have read and the people who wrote them.   I will speak of the fact that when I walk into a bookstore, I marvel at all of the people who have managed to get published and allow myself an instant to believe it might someday happen for me as well. As I pick my words and paint my own pictures, I wonder if I have it in me to write the thing that for the right person will make a difference—the thing that might one day be highlighted in bright yellow—the page marked with a sticky note.   Maybe this year I’ll try my hand at NaNoWriMo.    How to cite Know Rhymes—Know Reasons, Essay examples

Children Raised by Alcoholic Parents Essay Example

Children Raised by Alcoholic Parents Essay While reading â€Å"Who Are the Real Victims of Alcoholism† in my college textbook, I could not help but thinking of my own experiences as a child growing up with an alcoholic father. This essay was written by a student named Meredith Newmon Blanco. In her essay, she makes several strong claims on how children who are raised by alcoholic parents will grow up facing many troubling obstacles. Some of her examples are physical and emotional abuse, lack of structure and discipline, and a childhood that is filled with fear. Although alcoholism is a tremendous problem in the United States, not all children grow up suffering from a variety of problems due to the fact that they were raised by alcoholic parents. Children, who are raised by alcoholic parents, are exposed to many different types of environments while growing up. Blanco states, â€Å"Children in homes with alcoholics grow up with inconsistency and disciplinary fluctuations†. (pg 52) Children are not only raised by their primary care giver, but by the community in which they live in. This means that children have many social relationships other than their parents. Daycares and schools are a place where many children spend a majority of their day. While in these facilities, the children are in an environment that is stable, structured, and socially enhancing. The teachers and caregivers in these facilities play an important role in the development of the children who are attending. If the facility is lacking in discipline and structure, this can contribute to many behavior problems displayed by the child. There are several children who do not attend these types of facilities and do spend a majority of their day at home with their alcoholic parents. We will write a custom essay sample on Children Raised by Alcoholic Parents specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Children Raised by Alcoholic Parents specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Children Raised by Alcoholic Parents specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer However, there are also several characteristics that may contribute to the children’s success, including the ability to obtain positive attention from other people. This includes extended family members like grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even cousins. Children may also obtain positive attention from peer relationships as well. Through these forms of positive attention, children living with alcoholics are able to gain communication skills, a caring attitude, and a desire to achieve success. Children thrive on routine and research has shown that children with alcoholic parents are less likely to become alcoholics as adults, when their parents consistently follow through on plans and maintain rituals like holidays and regular mealtimes. When alcoholic parents maintain these routine rituals, this can help provide their children with emotionally stable. Some research findings suggest that children suffer negative emotional consequences due to parental alcoholism. However, larger a proportion of these children function well and do not develop serious problems. Children of alcoholics experience higher levels of conflict within the family. Their development is delayed, and they are four times more likely than other children to develop alcoholism. † (Blanco pg 54) Researchers have reported that many children from alcoholic homes develop neither psychopathology nor alcoholism. (NIAAA) Recently, a longitudinal study was done in Hawaii over children born to alcoholic parents . The researchers reported that only forty two percent of the children developed serious coping problems by the age of eighteen and fifty nine percent did not develop any kind of emotional problems. My childhood was very happy and full of structure. My family did many activities together on a regular basis. I experienced no extreme conflict with my parents and had normal sibling disputes with my brother. There were things about my family that I did not discover until I was around nineteen years old. My father was a severe alcoholic, spending hundreds of dollars a week in liquor. He was what is considered a functioning alcoholic. â€Å"The functioning alcoholic is the alcoholic who can hold down a job, pursue a career or care for children while continuing his or her alcoholism. (Neill) My father was very active and well liked in his community. He made a lifelong career out of being a truck driving to support his family. Growing up as a child, I was unaware of his problem with drinking. To my knowledge, my father only drank socially. Sometimes, there would be cans of beer in our refrigerator for months before my mother would throw it out. Only on occasion, would I notice a liquor bottle or two in the cabinet. As I grew older, I began to learn things were not as blissful as they appeared. My parents struggled quite a bit with their marriage. However, they still maintained structure and bliss. They would fight quite often, but never in front of my brother and I. As a child, I cannot remember a single argument between the two of them. I was extremely close to my father and favored him over my mother as a child. He was always available for me whenever I needed him. I held him very high on a pedestal and would do anything for him. He was my best friend. I feel that the way I was raised really shaped me as a person. I turned out to be a very well disciplined adult, who in no way, is a dysfunctional member of society. Now that I am almost in my thirties, I have experienced situations with my father that has exposed me to just how bad his drinking truly is. My father is self destructing before my very eyes with each passing year. My parents divorced about three years ago due to my father’s infidelity. Over the past three years, I have seen him become a pathetical liar, a mantic depressive, violent towards others, and has distant himself from his family. Some of these things my mother dealt with throughout my entire childhood. My father is still a functioning alcoholic. He is still very well liked in the community, holds his truck driving job, and is even helping to raise his new wife’s child. Many are unaware of his severe drinking problem. My father taught me self discipline and emotional control when I was a child, and those valuable lessons are now helping me as an adult with the challenges of watching my best friend fade out of my life. I credit so much of who I am to how he morally shaped me. Those lessons he taught me as a child are what I am using now to prevent him from negatively impacting me or my family. Blanco’s statement, â€Å"Children of alcoholic parents suffer from a variety of problems directly linked to their parents’ alcohol abuse† (Blanco pg 54) really showed her ignorance to the situation she was writing about. My alcoholic father has helped me become a strong, positive, independent, outgoing, and optimistic person. Much of your ability to succeed comes from the way you deal with life. Having a positive mental attitude is indispensable for success and happiness. You are constantly faced with challenges, difficulties, and problems every day of your life. They are unavoidable and one of the inevitable parts of being human. Never the less, as you draw upon your resources to respond effectively to each challenge, you grow and become a stronger person. Now that I am an adult, I feel my father’s current actions are just another life lesson for me. Sometimes, things in life are not always what they appear, but how these challenges shape you as a person is for you to decide. Every human being is capable of making their life what they want it to be. Works Cited Blanco, Meredith Newmon. Who Are the Real Victims of Alcoholism? James, Missy and Alan P. Merickel. Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2008. 51-55. Neill, Dr. Neill. The functioning Alcoholic Part 1. 2010. 16 September 2010 . NIAAA. About. com: Alcoholism. 15 September 2010 .