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Addressing cultural diversity in the classrooms
Addressing cultural diversity in the classrooms
Addressing cultural diversity in the classrooms
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Imagine someone being accused of something horrible where both sides, innocent or guilty, have equal evidence and no one can decide what to believe. This is what the book Doubt by John Patrick Shanley is about. Doubt is about a religious school called St. Nicholas. In this school there is a new African American student with little to no friends, and is completely alone. The father of the school, Father Flynn, takes the young African American boy named Donald under his wing. One of the sisters is suspicious about the relationship between Flynn and Donald, and that is what leaves the reader with doubt. It is up for the reader to decide if the Father is guilty of innocent for possibly have relations with the young boy. In my opinion, I find that …show more content…
Donald Muller is a new student at St. Nicholas and is an outcast because of it. Not only that, but he is also an African American living during the 60’s, which was a racial time period in our nations history. Others may think that Father Flynn was just trying to take Donald under his wing, because he was an outcast, “There were tears. He begged not to be removed from the altar boys. And I took pity on him. I told him if no one else found out, I would let him stay on” (Shanley 34). Flynn cared about Donald and his well-being and was willing to stretch the rules for him as long as no one found out about him drinking the altar wine, but eventually someone did, so he was removed. Not only did Father Flynn take Donald under his wing, but also some may say that Donald even trusts Father Flynn. While reading the book, it is hard to see how Donald trusts Flynn, but when watching the movie, Donald always seems to cheer up whenever he sees Flynn, “I stopped speaking to him for fear of it being misunderstood. Isn’t that a shame? I actually avoided him the other day when I might’ve passed him in the hall. He doesn’t understand why” (Shaley 39). Father is avoiding Donald, and he almost seems sad that he is avoiding him. Even with all this evidence of Father Flynn really just being “kind” to the boy, I still think that he is guilty. I think that because he is an outcast, it was an easier target for Flynn. A young African American boy who has no friends to tell what happened, sounds like an easy target to me. My opinion on the rectory scene is that Father Flynn gave the young boy the wine and someone came in, so Flynn fled the scene and only Donald was caught and Father made of the story about Muller drinking the wine to cover up his own
The prosecuting attorney holds the burden of proof and has to prove that Aaron is completely guilty and does not exist third party or other possible explanation of the murder. If the jury has a reasonable doubt about it, Vail and his client Aaron will have won the case. Therefore, Vail’s goal is to place an element of reasonable doubt on the
Reasonable doubt is defined “as uncertainty as to the guilt of a criminal defendant.” This ideology has been the basis for justice systems in many modern countries for centuries. A panel of twelve men and women who have the immense responsibility of choosing the fate for one person. This principle is the basis for Reginald Rose’s satire, Twelve Angry Men. A play that describes the scene of a New York jury room, where twelve men have to decide between life and death for a inner-city teen, charged with killing his father. These jurors have to sift through the facts and the fiction to uncover the truth about the case and some truths about themselves. Reginald Rose outlines through the actions of juror number three, that no matter the consequences,
Most people have had some sort of conflict affect their lives at least once. That conflict could alter a person’s views of the world around them. In the play Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, conflict is used to grasp the reader’s emotions and cause the reader to rethink their preconceived notions about the characters in the play. Doubt takes place in 1964 in St. Nicholas, which is a school and Catholic Church in New York. The play focuses on a priest named Father Brendan Flynn and a nun named Sister Aloysius Beauvier. The conflict highlighted in this play is between these two characters. After Father Flynn starts taking an African American student under his wing, named Donald Muller, Sister Aloysius suspects Father Flynn is up to no good. She
The first vote ended with eleven men voting guilty and one man not guilty. We soon learn that several of the men voted guilty since the boy had a rough background not because of the facts they were presented with. Although numerous jurors did make racist or prejudice comments, juror ten and juror three seemed to be especially judgmental of certain types of people. Juror three happened to be intolerant of young men and stereotyped them due to an incident that happened to his son. In addition, the third juror began to become somewhat emotional talking about his son, showing his past experience may cloud his judgment. Juror ten who considered all people from the slums “those people” was clearly prejudiced against people from a different social background. Also, Juror ten stated in the beginning of the play “You 're not going to tell us that we 're supposed to believe that kid, knowing what he is. Listen, I 've lived among 'em all my life. You can 't believe a word they say. I mean, they 're born liars.” Juror ten did not respect people from the slums and believed them to all act the same. As a result, Juror ten believed that listening to the facts of the case were pointless. For this reason, the tenth juror already knew how “those people” acted and knew for sure the boy was not innocent. Even juror four mentioned just how the slums are a “breeding ground
His slapstick films seem to be wackier than some of his early teen films, but Sixteen Candles and the Breakfast Club had their fair share of wacky moments. Many of John Hughes's later comedic films have their fair share of heartfelt moments, as well. Blending farcical elements with more dramatic elements seems to be another consistent feature of most John Hughes films, whether he was the writer, director, producer, or all three at once.
To support their conclusion the board tells the story of two men who were exonerated after spending thirty years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Days after the rape and murder of eleven year old Sabrina Buie, half-brothers Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown confessed to the crime. Not only were their confessions made under pressure without parents or an attorney present, but the prosecution failed to present multiple pieces of evidence to the defense lawyers, DNA evidence that proved McCollum and Brown were not responsible for the murder. In fact, the DNA belonged to a Roscoe Artis, who was a suspect all along and was convicted of a similar crime just weeks later.
Around 20 years ago from our frame in time, from within the town of Robin Hills was an event of tragedy involving gruesome deaths of children. No matter the point in time the importance of the event that transpired has never changed. The film is based on the murders titled, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hills, focuses on the lives of the families before, during and after trials. Not only does it focuses on the deaths of the children, the film focusses on an internal theme that explores the riddle; “Is justice still served when given or taken from the undeserved?” Whether the accused teenagers are proven innocent or proven guilty that is what the directors were on the prowl for. Berlinger and Sinofsky documented every aspect they could to convey an honest and unbiased judgement into the trial. The methods the directors used is connected with how the audience will possibly judge the trial. Possibly meaning that the directors, no matter how hard they tried to be unbiased, grew emotionally attached and actually agreed at some point that the teenagers who committed the murders were actually either innocent or guilty. By the ways the filmmakers edited their film, on certain scenes suggest they had their opinions. As they
A reputation can be so well established that if one person in power does a wrongdoing people will not believe it. For example when Mrs. Muller says, “Let me ask you something. You honestly think that priest gave Donald that wine to drink?” (47). Donald’s mother is questioning sister Aloysius because she does not believe Father Flynn would do something like that. He has a reputation of being a great priest and his reputation is better than Sister Aloysius’. Mrs. Muller states, “You’re not going against no man in a robe and win, Sister. He’s got the position.” (47). Just by Father Flynn being a male he has a higher reputation than a nun, which he knows and can accumulate for his actions. In the hierarchy of the Church, the head male priest is the most dominant. Therefore, nobody questions what he is doing; he has a reputation of being this influential priest who gives great sermons. He knows that he has the power to do what he wants and has his fellow Monsignor and other men in the ...
The movie leaves little to viewers' imaginations. In order to be entertained by literature or art, the viewer needs to feel that they can use their imagination and not be confined to a plot that reveals all. In the parable Doubt, the controversial topics presented by John Patrick Shanley sparked differing views that the reader was torn between. It introduced a storyline revolved around a nun accusing a pastor of partaking in inappropriate engagement amongst the alter boys. Since the plot was open-ended and there were no pulmonary guidelines, the reader resolved to using their imagination to deem what direction, and whom they would agree with.... ...
Guilty or not guilty? This the key question during the murder trial of a young man accused of fatally stabbing his father. The play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, introduces to the audience twelve members of a jury made up of contrasting men from various backgrounds. One of the most critical elements of the play is how the personalities and experiences of these men influence their initial majority vote of guilty. Three of the most influential members include juror #3, juror #10, and juror #11. Their past experiences and personal bias determine their thoughts and opinions on the case. Therefore, how a person feels inside is reflected in his/her thoughts, opinions, and behavior.
However, in Twelve Angry Men, Juror Eight defies prejudices in his own beliefs, and eventually in the final verdict. When the eleven jurors are asking the Eighth Juror why he voted “not guilty”, he responds with “It’s just that we’re talking about somebody’s life here. I mean, we can’t decide in five minutes. Suppose we’re wrong?” (12). Even if the Eighth Juror may think that the boy might have actually killed his father, doesn’t mean he did just because the boy grew up in the slums and is a tough kid. No matter where the boy is from or what he looks like, his life is on the line. Thus, don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Later on, when the jurors are talking about the knife that the boy had, Juror Eight was “saying it’s possible that the boy lost the knife and that someone else stabbed his father with a similar knife.” (22). Just because a violent boy who grew up in a violent family had a knife, doesn’t necessarily mean he is guilty of murder. Thus, things may not always be the way they seem, so don’t judge a book by its
Pennington and Hastie (1992) found that when jurors were presented with the evidence in a chronological manner, they were much more likely to find the defendant guilty than when this evidence was given in a discrepant and non-structured way. This led them to propose a story model which is believed to be widely used by jurors to make sure they evaluated all the evidence in a strategic and sensible way. The model consists of creating a narrative based on a careful evaluation of all the collected evidence to assure that the jurors fully comprehend the case. This appears like a fairly reliable system to assess a crime. So why so much controversy? Yet again we should remind ourselves that jurors are untrained laypeople and as laypeople they do not always use the most systematic way of approaching incoming information. This might for example occur when the presented information is out of the jurors’ expertise and they are having hard time making estimations about the extent of a crime; in that case they are more likely to rely on heuristic processing (Bornstein & Greene, 2011). This is quite a rapid and automatic process enabling people to use shortcuts that help them to understand the issue better. When using this technique, jurors are more likely to attend to the peripheral cues, such as the confidence of an eyewitness, credibility of an expert,
Father Flynn tells Sister Aloysius, “Even if you feel certainty, it is an emotion and not a fact.” I think he means that without concrete evidence, you cannot rely on your emotions for the truth. In Father Flynn’s sermon he discusses doubt and truth. He says, “Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty.” Sister Aloysius treats her doubt as the truth, and ignores any uncertainty she has. Throughout the story, Father Flynn denies and wrong doing and cites that there is no evidence of any misconduct. Doubt becomes battle with two viewpoints. When questions are asked, they are answered with more questions, leading to more
Tristram Shandy begins the narration of his life by rewinding to the moment of his conception, which his mother disrupted with a question: “Pray, my dear, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?” (Sterne 6). In this introduction, Tristram ironically reveals the main anxiety of the family: that time will, metaphorically, stop for them. Just as Tristram traces his misfortunes to his nearly derailed conception, the rest of the Shandys suffer from fear that their family legacy will not continue, especially considering that their one surviving son, Tristram, has squandered his prime years for potential courtship and fatherhood on meticulously recording the events of his childhood. The cornerstones of the novel, including Tristram’s conception, his Uncle Toby’s groin injury in the war, Tristram’s brother’s death, and Tristram’s accidental circumcision all reveal literal and metaphorical castration anxieties that are deeply tied to the family’s thinning bloodline. Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy documents the fear of thinning legacy and declining
... believed in the innocence of the young man and convinced the others to view the evidence and examine the true events that occurred. He struggled with the other jurors because he became the deviant one in the group, not willing to follow along with the rest. His reasoning and his need to examine things prevailed because one by one, the jurors started to see his perspective and they voted not guilty. Some jurors were not convinced, no matter how much evidence was there, especially Juror #3. His issues with his son affected his decision-making but in the end, he only examined the evidence and concluded that the young man was not guilty.