March 7, 2005
Writing Assignment: Out of the Dust
Note: If you are my Professor and you have found this paper please be assured that I did not copy it from someone else. This paper was written for Prof. Tim McLaughlin at BHCC for his Children's Lit 2 class for the Spring of 2005.
Writing Assignment: Out of the Dust
Hardships come in so many forms and many times adults seem to forget how these situations effect children. Karen Hesse, the author of Out of the Dust is able to give us insight on what a child would go through if they had to dust bowl times of Oklahoma with dried farms and in the middle of a drought. Billie Jo is the daughter of a farmer and her courage throughout the book compels you to keep reading and to be hopeful for her.
After Billie Jo loses her mom, brother, and for the most part the use of her hands she keeps going, perhaps out of rage or defiance against her father who will not even look at her because in her eyes it’s his fault they were lost. “But as long as I live, no matter how big a hole digs, I can’t forgive him that pail of kerosene left by side of the stove” (78). Still even after everything that has happened and still happens she keeps going and even manages to find the strength to come back to her father after she left him. She realized that she left out of fear and had the courage to go back.
However, her greatest act of courage came after she came back home to her father. “I am forgiving him, step by step, for the pail of kerosene. As we walk together, side by side, in sole-deep dust, I am forgiving myself for all the rest.” (206). The fact that after everything it seemed that she put herself through and her father put her through she was able to forgive herself and him as well shows great courage.
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Writing Assignment: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (completed)
Note: If you are my Professor and you have found this paper please be assured that I did not copy it from someone else. This paper was written for Prof. Tim McLaughlin at BHCC for his Children's Lit 2 class for the Spring of 2005.
Writing Assignment: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (completed)
Today it’s hard to even get a child to pick up a book let alone read it. Children want to be stimulated visually but not words on a page, they want flashy visual effects to flicker across a screen. With the growing success of turning movies into loosely based versions of books a child sees no reason to read the book when they can flip open their laptop, open up their favorite internet browser, and add the movie to their online rental queue. With all these other sources of entertainment it’s no wonder that when a parent stops reading to a child because of their age the child feels no need to keep reading on their own. J.K. Rowling has given children a reason to pause in between clicking the send button on their instant messaging system and made them reconnect with the written world and have given them a chance to rediscover reading.
Part of the reason that Rowling has enjoyed so much success is because of her characters. We are able to connect with them, feel for them, and even hate them when we are supposed to. Harry becomes endearing to us and we are able to watch him grow and over come obstacles that he faces in his live that still parallel what any child goes through. When the book starts Harry’s concerns are that of a normal teenage boy. He is a little low on self confidence even though, and probably because everyone seems to expect great things from him. Despite his fame he does not really know how to handle himself which we can see when he encounters the girl he has a crush on, Cho Chang. “She waved and smiled at Harry, who slopped quite a lot of water down his front as he waved back” (84). Even though we can laugh at this we still manage to feel embarrassed for Harry and that quality is so much a part of the appeal of this series.
The series of events that happened though caused Harry to grow in unexpected ways. While he still doubted his abilities and compares himself to others around him he becomes more able to handle traumatic situations that his peers are not able to deal with. Which we see when Harry is one of two students who make to through to the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament but the only one to make it back alive. Even though he had to deal with the trauma of watching someone else die Harry was able to bring back his dead classmates body to his family. Still for Harry “The worst, perhaps, was meeting with the Diggorys that took place the following morning” (716). Despite everything that he has been through Harry is still able to make reflections that a child his age would and does not become over mature instead he just adapts as the situation calls for.
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Writing Assignment: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (ch. 1-14)
Note: If you are my Professor and you have found this paper please be assured that I did not copy it from someone else. This paper was written for Prof. Tim McLaughlin at BHCC for his Children's Lit 2 class for the Spring of 2005.
Writing Assignment: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (ch. 1-14)
During an age where movies and video games are children’s primary source of entertainment J.K Rowing seems to have struck some special cord with her Harry Potter series and each year more and more children start to read because of these books. In her fourth book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Rowing takes her readers further into the world of wizards and magic that she has created and allows the reader more insight into the character of Harry who seems to have such a mysterious past.
The first half of this book begins with a chapter in which Harry has no involvement in until the very end which feeds into the second chapter which in turn does not give too much insight into the character of Harry at first but slowly the reader starts to get a small review of the events that have occurred in his life up until this point. Starting the book this way gives the chance for readers who are new to the series to catch up while at the same time giving older readers new information. All the while keeping the story interesting by introducing elements from the magic world and showing the differences between that world and the world of the humans, or muggles.
Even though this story takes place in another world it part of the reason it is so good is that the characters still have the same type of concerns and believes that we do in the real world. This gives the book a humanistic aspect to it instead of it being all about magic. In one scene Harry and his friends, Ron and Hermione, find out that their meals at the school are being made by a group of house elves, who are basically like mini servants in the wizard world who are bound to do whatever their masters ask of them by magic. This really disturbs Hermione who believes that all creatures should be treated equally and fairly. When she found out she, “[…] looked down at her hardly touched plate of food, then put her knife and fork down upon it and pushed it away from her” (183). While Harry and Ron seem not to be disturbed by this Hermione’s believes cause her to start a sort of protest against the fact that these house elves are being used at her school. Her reaction is something that a non-magical person with her same believes would have and adds to the book even though it seems to only be a sort of sub story point because it shows that even though these characters seem to have advantages over the rest of us they still face some of the same challenges as we do. Having story points like this through out the book show how well crafted is even in it first half and adds to the already enjoyable experience.
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Writing Assignment: Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
Note: If you are my Professor and you have found this paper please be assured that I did not copy it from someone else. This paper was written for Prof. Tim McLaughlin at BHCC for his Children's Lit 2 class for the Spring of 2005.
Writing Assignment: Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
In the past when stories were written for children they were not created for entertainment but rather instead to teach children how to behave and what values to believe in. These types of stories and poems were popular to have children learn or memorize around the time that Lewis Carroll first published Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. Children were expected to behave as mini adults, always calm, collected, and obedient. This of course is not a child’s nature and Lewis Carroll saw this and was able to create a story that children wanted to hear, full of nonsense and turning poems that they were taught as lessons into silliness. In the book when Alice is feeling overwhelmed she tries be serious as an adult and scolds herself for being idle and not finding a way out of her situation. Doing that is difficult for Alice because she is just a child but the trails that she goes through make her believe that she has changed much since she fell through the rabbit hole. She believes in these changes so much that when the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon she encounters ask her to tell them about her adventures she replies, “I could tell you my adventures- beginning this morning […] but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then” (119).
Alice has changed some but not enough to say that she is a different person. In the beginning whenever Alice would get herself in trouble she would start to cry. However at the end of the book when the Queen of Hearts yelled at Alice to, “Hold your tongue!” (140), Alice yelled back at her that she would not. Part of the reason she did this was because she realized that she was bigger than everyone else there but the other part is because she had started to see how silly everyone there was being and she was not scared of them anymore. By learning to overcome her fears Alice has changed but she is still a child at heart which we see when she tells her sister of her dream that even though parts were hard for her to deal with she still had enjoyed it. Showing that she is still a child but she has learned how the difference between being silly and being to serious which can make you look silly.
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