Book Ideas for Grade 9 and Grade 10 students I have just started doing some private tutoring with two students - a Grade 9 boy and a Grade 10 girl to...

I find that
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is a big hit with students in early high
school and middle school. Both boys and girls can relate to the rebellious characters in the
story. Ponyboy's coming of age plot is a real draw for girls, while boys enjoy reading about the
trouble that the gangs get themselves into. The novel also provides an opportunity for great
discussions about the 1950's-60's, parenting, gangs, families, etc. I taught The
Outsiders to a group of 9th and 10th grade students in summer school who boasted
after the two week session that The Outsiders was the first book they
actually read and enjoyed.

In 1984, what values of society are revealed through Winston Smith's alienation?

's alienation
occurs as a result of the overwhelming control of the party. To truly connect to other human
beings, it is necessary both to have some sense of self and for the person you're interacting
with to have the same, because personal connection comes, in part, as we reveal these selves to
each other, and while they grow and change through a relationship. In the world under Big
Brother, everyone must portray themselves as the people they are expected to be, and discovery
of self is explicitly discouraged in order to create people who are identical and controllable,
so no one has any sense of self to reveal and, even if they did, they would be punished if they
let it slip. This means that human interaction never creates real connection, and this is
incredibly alienating.

What Does Willy Loman Sell

If a writer of prose knows
enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the
writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the
writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it
being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow
places in his writing.
                           -Ernest Hemingway, Death in
the Afternoon

It may be a weakness in
that the viewer is never informed about what kind of merchandise Willy
Loman is selling.may have "omitted" this detail because he didn't know enough about
traveling salesmen and about marketing. As a result there seems to be "hollow places"
in his writing. Miller provides very scanty information about what Willy actually does on his
trips to New England. We don't know whether he went to stores or to offices, or both. We don't
know whether he made appointments by telephone or just dropped in on buyers. And we don't know
these things because Arthur Miller probably did not know anything about such business dealings
either. Miller wanted his main character to be a salesman because plays always consist of a lot
of talking. Dialogue is practically everything in a play, and Miller wanted to write about an
insignificant little working man. A salesman makes a good character because he is used to doing
a lot of talking; yet he is usually a lower-middle-class type with a limited
education. 

David Mamet's excellent play Glengarry Glen
Ross features four salesmen. We know that they sell land in distant states, but the
details are vague because Mamet does not seem to know much about selling that kind of real
estate.

What if there were no racism? What would happen to the world if ever there was no place for racism? Would everyone live in peace? And do you think...

As ugly and
unfortunate as racism is, I don't think it's the main source of most serious problems. Certainly
there are exceptions to this: slavery, white settlers v. Indians, the Holocaust, etc. But most
problems are based on economic or security issues, and these are not race related in and of
themselves. That is, you could take race completely out of the equation and these would still be
issues that cause social problems.

Another way to look at this is to ask: if
everyone were the same color, race, creed, and religion, would problems disappear? Of course
not.

How is symbolism used in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"

The family artifacts
owned by Mama Johnson are used, symbolically, to show the characters' differing views of
heritage. Dee is newly interested in these artifacts, for which she's never before shown such
longing. She says,

"I never knew how lovely these
benches are. You can feel the rump prints [...]." Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed
over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was
something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over
in the corner where the churn stood [....]. "This churn top is what I need [....]. And I
want the dasher, too."

Dee wants these objects, but
it is Maggie who knows not only their stories but also who made them, what their nickname was,
when they made them, and so forth. And despite the fact that her family is still using these
items daily, Dee wants to take them to do "something artistic" with them. It's a
similar story with the family's quilts. Dee is terrified that Mama will give them to Maggie,
because Maggie would be "backward" enough to use them every day, and they would fall
apart. Dee wants to hang them on the wall, attempting to preserve them. For Maggie and Mama,
these objects are symbolic of their heritage, but they seem to feel that heritage is something
that is best kept in the present by keeping the objects in use, which reminds everyone of those
people to whom they're connected. Maggie knows how to quilt and can make more; it's as though
she honors her heritage by remembering the stories, by learning the traditions. Dee, on the
other hand, thinks of these objects as symbolic, and she thinks of heritage as something that is
past, that ought to be preserved rather than used; she thinks of the quilts as artistic rather
than objects meant to serve a purpose. It's a much colder, more distant kind of
remembrance.

Color is also used symbolically in the story to help
characterize Maggie and Dee. When Dee arrives, for example, she is wearing a bright dress. Mama
says, "There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my
whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out." Dee wears colors associated with
fire. Maggie, on the other hand, wears a "pink skirt and red blouse," the colors of
skin that's been burned. Maggie has "burn scars down her arms and legs" as a result of
the fire that consumed the family's house years ago. As a child, Dee "burned [her mother
and sister] with a lot of knowledge [they] didn't necessarily need to know," treating them
like "dimwits." It even seems possible, given Mama's description of events, that Dee
might have set the fire to the house that she "hated" so much. Figuratively,
certainly, Dee damages and burns others, making them feel small and slow and stupid. Maggie is
burned by Dee, by her condescension and derision. The colors associated with each daughter help
to illuminate their character.

Was the Reconstruction a success or a failure?

I would
probably be inclined to viewas having a very mixed and complicated legacy. At best, I might call
it a very partial success, but its failures are too severe to ignore.

In
some ways, Reconstruction was an extremely ambitious and difficult project to implement
(especially from the perspective of the Radical Republicans). Transforming a slave-based economy
and society into one that was post-slavery was always going to face resistance from white
Southerners, and while it certainly failed to live up to its full promise, the transformation
remained profound nevertheless. With the 13th Amendment, slavery was outlawed across the
country, and with the 14th Amendment, citizenship rights were expanded. The 15th Amendment
expanded voting rights. Mr. Kirschner is correct when he says that ultimately, with the ending
of...

How is honor shown in Romeo and Juliet?

On the
surface, "honor" is what keeps the Capulets and the Montagues fighting in a bitter,
deadly feud. Nobody seems to know what they are quarreling about anymore, but neither family
will sacrifice its "honor" by walking away from the quarrel or attempting to make
peace. This attitude is most clearly on display whentries to exercise restraint withand avoid a
sword fight.intervenes hotly and cries out with emotion to his friend:

O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!

To Mercutio, not fighting is seen as dishonorable, a loss of status. Mercutio won't
have it and battles Tybalt, losing his life for his honor.

This leads to
Shakespeare's real point about honor: that honor comes through reconciliation and compassion,
when the two families are finally sobered enough by the deaths ofto realize that have to end the
senseless, bloody feud.

Shakespeare is ironic in his opening line when he
refers to the feuding families as