Before I began elementary school I enjoyed reading picture books, the touch and feel books and pop-up books. I loved the author Dr. Suess, because he was funny and because I loved the rhyming he did in his writing. I can remember before bed my mom or dad would read to me until I got old enough to read myself. My mom has always enjoyed reading, if she is not reading a book then she is reading a recipe or a magazine. My dad on the other hand, I have only seen him read one book, besides reading manuals for his tools. Reading was not a big deal in my house, all of us kids were told that we needed to read, but they did not force us to read. This brings me to Richard Rodriguez essay, in his household reading was not as important but once he got to …show more content…
AR tests are test that you take on the computer, the questions are all multiple choice and there are ten questions per test. Not every book was on the list for AR tests, but the books that were each had a different amount of points based on the reading level of the book. Since second grade I was required to take these AR tests until my junior year of high school. This was the start of my dislike for reading. I did not think it was fair that since I was reading for enjoyment that I had to take a test over the book after spending a good amount of time reading the book. Once I got to junior high and high school is when we were required to have a certain number of points per quarter. If the students did not get the amount of points required then their grade would drop one letter grade. Since the AR testing started was when I realized that reading was not fun to me anymore, and then once I saw that my grade would drop because I did not get my points for the quarter made me mad. I would just do really good in all of my English classes then I would have an A, once the quarter ended since I did not receive my AR points then my grade would drop down to a B. To get a B in English only because I did not read was fine with me. In Rodriguez’s essay he states that he likes to read because the teacher would praise his effort. Rodriquez got praised for reading by his teachers and I got a lower grade for not reading, …show more content…
I did not have a problem standing in front of the class cause that meant all the attention was on me and I enjoyed that. My problem was that I had to read to the class, I would always get nervous because I did not want to mess up on an easy word that everyone in the class knew but me. Another thing that I did not like about reading out loud in front of the class, was that I had a couple friends in my class that would do silly stuff to make me mess up. Some of my friends would laugh or make noises to distract me and I would mess up on the words I was reading, it was funny to me but also made me very anxious to read aloud. Rodriguez talks about how he had to go see a nun to help him with his reading. Even though I did not have to go in another room and have help with reading, sometimes I felt like the teacher thought I needed to because I didn’t want to read aloud. Today it does not bother me to read out loud in front of a class, because I know realize that everyone is going to mess up, and not know every
Everyday you make judgements. Whether you realize it or not, you make a subconscious judgement whether it is based on what you have heard, or what you have seen. These judgements aren’t always meant to be cold, but often there are subjects that cause people to make harsh and stern judgements. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston uses the character of Janie to show how people judge others by what they’ve seen and heard about their social status and appearance and not by what’s inside.
My parents have always stressed the importance of reading. Throughout my whole life, they have motivated me to read and they have encouraged me to find books that I find interesting to read. Because of their encouragement, I am an avid reader today. When I was a child, just starting to enjoy reading I liked to read books that were fiction. Some of my favorite books to read as a child are series that I still love today and I think I still have every book in each series stored in my attic. They are The Boxcar Children, Junie B. Jones, and The Magic Tree House.
The book Readicide by Kelly Gallagher is the ugly truth of the policies adopted in the school system to prioritized test taking strategies for the most part of the day and killing the enjoyment of students reading. The author points out that students’ reading has shifted negatively and the reading percentage has decreased. Students hate to read and classic novels are slowly vanishing from classrooms. The findings to Gallagher’s discoveries are research based and heartbreaking as the movement of standardized testing has been reinforced in most states. There are too many standards to teach and teachers are held accountable for students testing performance. Therefore, educators are forced to do test preps where students are provided with facts to be memorized and lack of comprehension. The author emphasized that students are no longer able to choose a book for the enjoyment of reading. Students’ interests are no longer taken into consideration. Students are reading less and less at school to make time for test prep. Gallagher says that as an educator and parent young
The late first lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it." Mrs. Roosevelt means that although one person may feel alone through the hardships one faces, one has millions beside oneself who can relate to and understand what one may feel. Zora Neale Hurston shows that even though Janie's family and spouses continue to be abusive and harsh toward Janie, their hate and control left her stronger than before, preparing her for the next challenges thrown at her. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the deaths' of close relatives and family positively affect Janie because she tends to become more educated and wiser with each death she overcomes in the obstacles she calls her life.
From the beginning of society, men and women have always been looked at as having different positions in life. Even in the modern advanced world we live in today, there are still many people who believe men and women should be looked at differently. In the work field, on average women are paid amounts lower than men who may be doing the exact same thing. Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston brings about controversy on a mans roles. Janie Crawford relationships with Logan, Joe and Tea Cake each bring out the mens feelings on masculine roles in marital life.
Written in seven weeks, Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God post-Harlem Renaissance in the Caribbean. Although sternly critiqued by the male African American in the literary community, Alice Walker who is a prominent female figure in the literary scene, shed light on the novel reviving and revealing the richness of themes the book holds. The setting takes place in Eatonville, Florida which was the first all-black community in the United States, and also where Hurston grew up. (citation) In the midst of a hostile, externally and internally racist, and sexist environment Janie Crawford is put in, Hurston portrays a female character who is fiercely independent and bold in her ideology of love, marriage, and sexuality. Throughout the novel, the reader is brought through Janie’s journey of self-identity. In this, Hurston expresses her views on how society looks at women, specifically African-American women, without explicitly stating it. Hurston cleverly creates Janie to be the unideal women of society during that time to able
Zora Hurston was an African American proto-feminist author who lived during a time when both African Americans and women were not treated equally. Hurston channeled her thirst for women’s dependence from men into her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of the many underlying themes in her book is feminism. Zora Hurston, the author of the book, uses Janie to represent aspects of feminism in her book as well as each relationship Janie had to represent her moving closer towards her independence.
Adding to the recurrent references to feminism, the use of animalization is used in Their Eyes Were Watching God as a vehicle to drive symbolic weight. Throughout the novel, written by Zora Neale Hurston, the animal symbolically used is a mule and is episodically brought up throughout the novel. In addition to the mule casting the load of burden and weight to African Americans, Hurston sympathetically uses it as a symbol to represent the struggling independence of black women during this time period. The protagonist, Janie, can allegorically be seen as a mule in this novel through the harsh burdensome treatment of her husbands, her constant struggle with the patriarchal system of early 20th century
Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston focuses on the evolution of an African-American woman as she goes through adulthood and three marriages in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston expresses the framed narrative through Janie Crawford’s point of view as she recounts her story to her friend Phoeby, and uses two dialects throughout the novel. The clear dichotomy of the narrator’s diction and the characters’ African-American dialect gives importance to Janie’s struggles and progress in finding her strength and independence. Hurston magnifies the theme of voice and language, not only with the characters’ personalities, but also with the form of the novel as she employs a third person omniscient point of view, provoking imagery and shifts in tone. After two failed marriages, Janie finally gets a sense of freedom.
As a child, I have always been fond of reading books. My mother would read to me every single night before I went to bed and sometimes throughout the day. It was the most exciting time of the day when she would open the cabinet, with what seemed to be hundreds of feet tall, of endless books to choose from. When she read to me, I wanted nothing more than to read just like her. Together, we worked on reading every chance we had. Eventually I got better at reading alone and could not put a book down. Instead of playing outside with my brothers during the Summer, I would stay inside in complete silence and just read. I remember going to the library with my mom on Saturdays, and staying the entire day. I looked forward to it each and every week.
Zora Neale Hurston was a remarkable woman and writer of the early 20th century. Her works were thought provoking and radical for a woman of color in the early 20th century. Her works evoked a sense of control for women of color. Hurston’s work did not go without ridicule; some of the ridicule came from her fellow African-American counterparts, such as Alain Locke and Richard Wright. These two ridiculed the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and her place in the literary canon. Over the course of the years, many professionals have argued the need to include Hurston and her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, many people have argued what part of the canon she belongs in and what novel can teach students. Genevieve West, Gay Wilentz, Carla Cappetti, and John Lowe argue their cases of why Hurston is relevant to teaching students in Approaches to Teaching Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works. One also has a theory as to why the novel should be taught.
Some early memories I have of reading are very few. My mother loved to read, but she hardly ever had a lot of time to read to me while being a full-time worker and a younger first-time mom. I do remember her reading me books with fussy pictures like a book about animals and their fur. Books like that helped so that I had a better
Maybe, my sister and I inherited this live of reading from my father, or perhaps, our environment influenced us, but we were hooked onto books from a very early age. We would even take them to social gatherings, where we sure that we would get bored, and then just disappear into a quiet corner and spend the evening reading.
As young girl I growing up I do not remember my parents or brother reading just for the enjoyment. The only parent I would ever see reading anything was my father and usually that would be the bible because he would have a lesson to teach at church. My mother till this day I have yet to see her read a book period. Do not get me wrong my mother does know how to read but does not find it enjoying at all therefore if it not a necessity she refuses to do it. And there is my brother, who I would see reading but that was only because he had a book report to complete.
My parents instilled a passion for reading in me even as a toddler; years later, an excellent,