The Truth About Helen Keller
In Learning Dynamics, the authors, Marjorie Ford and Jon Ford, choose to include an excerpt from The Story of My Life by Helen Keller to show learning from experience. The excerpt titled "The Most Important Day of My Life" mainly draws from Helen Keller's early childhood as she begins her education on the third of March in 1887, three months before she became seven years old. Keller recounts her early experiences of being awakened to a world of words and concepts through the brilliant teaching methods of her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Sullivan taught Keller new vocabulary by spelling words into the young girl's hand. At first, she does not understand the meaning of each word, but eventually learn to connect a word with the physical object it represents. Sullivan often left Keller to spend much time in nature as a way to develop her senses. In time, Keller not only discovers the physical world, but also a world of intangible concepts, ideas, images and emotions. Furthermore, she contributes much of her learning to Anne Sullivan, which she wrote, "I fell that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her."
Realizing that words could be put together to evoke a mental image, Helen Keller is able to paint many visual images in the readers' minds through her unique and eloquent usage of poetic language. Her writing style captures both her emotion and experiences. She writes, "Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line and you waited with beating heart for something to happen?" He...
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...ucation does not stop at the word "W-A-T-E-R", but she went on to universities and learned many other languages as well.
Keller makes a strong argument that her succeed is a result of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, "My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her." Even the Fords stated, "Anne Sullivan showed her (Keller) that love and learning are intimately connected." Keller is an extraordinary person not because she overcomes blindness or deafness rather she should be great for her contribution to achieve social changes. Helen Keller should be appreciated for her honesty in realizing that she was privilege to an education, and uses her knowledge and wisdom to help those less fortunate.
Works Cited
Ford, Marjorie, and Jon Ford. Learning Dynamics (Streamlines : Selected Readings on Single Topics). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing, 1997.
Authors use many different types of imagery in order to better portray their point of view to a reader. This imagery can depict many different things and often enhances the reader’s ability to picture what is occurring in a literary work, and therefore is more able to connect to the writing. An example of imagery used to enhance the quality of a story can be found in Leyvik Yehoash’s poem “Lynching.” In this poem, the imagery that repeatably appears is related to the body of the person who was lynched, and the various ways to describe different parts of his person. The repetition of these description serves as a textual echo, and the variation in description over the course of the poem helps to portray the events that occurred and their importance from the author to the reader. The repeated anatomic imagery and vivid description of various body parts is a textual echo used by Leyvik Yehoash and helps make his poem more powerful and effective for the reader and expand on its message about the hardship for African Americans living
The effective use of color and imagery by an author, combined with poetic language can give the reader a detailed image in their mind. Edith Wharton uses this technique in her writing in the novella Ethan Frome. Using imagery, the author paints a vivid picture with words using color to set moods, develop characters, and foreshadow coming events allowing the reader to fully experience the world of Ethan Frome.
I really admire the phrases author used to describe the feelings , emotions , visions and thoughts of that woman .
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Helen Keller believed that in order to be successful and make a difference, problems must be confronted, tried, and solved. Keller’s words of wisdom go hand in hand with the American way of success today. Without argumentation, criticism, or suffering, the nation cannot progress and succeed. With people like Helen Keller in society, who are always ready to challenge popular beliefs, America can and will continue to progress.
Keller used a variety of methods in her speech. The majority of her words used pathos. For example, Keller said “The future of America rests on the backs of 80,000,000 working men and women and their children. We are facing a grave crisis in our natural life. The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists.” Here, she used pathos to elicit a scared or angry response fr...
From infancy to adulthood, organisms are always learning. The conscious and the subconscious are taking in information and sorting it, discarding irrelevant information and storing the relevant. The most common mode of gaining knowledge is through repetitions and memorization. These methods are effective for knowing exact definitions but do not develop understanding. In O Americano Outra Vez, Richard Feynman describes his teaching experiences while at the Brazilian Center for Physical Research. There he discovers the flaw in the modern education system, students are memorizing material but are unable to apply it to a real life scenarios, demonstrating they are gaining knowledge but not understanding it. Similar to Feynman’s Brazilian class,
childhood and renewed life style were she learned how to distinguish one language to another
Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans”, Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem”, and John Donne’s “Song” all demonstrate excellent use of imagery in their writing. All of the authors did a very good job at illustrating how the use of imagery helps the reader understand what the author’s message is. However, some of the poems use different poetic devices and different tones. In Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans” and Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, both poems display a good use of personification. However in John Donne’s “Song” and John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem, they differ in the fact that the tone used in each poem contrasts from each other.
Piper’s use of imagery in this way gives the opportunity for the reader to experience “first hand” the power of words, and inspires the reader to be free from the fear of writing.
Personal fulfillment has to do with achieving life’s goals which are important to an individual. The two authors, Helen Keller in The Story of my Life and Frederick Douglass’ in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, share a similar goal to learn to read and write during a time in their life of extreme hardship. Both Keller and Douglass demonstrate the necessary attributes required to develop as individuals and progress in life. Their dedication and determination, their positive attitude and gratefulness along with their life experiences are what drove Douglass and Keller to achieve what no one could believe they were capable of due to their backgrounds.
Helen grew up with her parents' passive parenting style because her parents have a pity for her. Helen can do whatever she wants because her parents do not want to deal with her tantrum, and they did not know how to explain to her what is right or wrong. It is easy to feel a pity for Helen but is very hard to give her what really she needs.
Feist, G. J., & Rosenberg, E. L. (2012). Learning. In Psychology: Perspectives & connections (2nd ed., p. 310). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
On January 5, 1916 Helen Keller gave the speech Strike Against War, calling for working class people to use the power of the strike to end to America’s involvement in World War I. Keller makes many valid points about the way war affects the working class of America; however, I disagree with how easily she suggests that the working class can rise to action, especially one as drastic as strike. The way that war is used to exploit has not improved since the World War I era.
Helen Keller took an autobiographical approach to her writings, accounting for moments in her past and how she perceives the world. Although informal, her writing style is intimate with a desire to communicate her struggles in a confident, overcoming manner. Helen Keller uses figurative language and descriptions as well as many rhetorical strategies including metaphors, similes, personification and diction to expose her emotions.
The sixth president, John Quincy Adams stated, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader" (Inspire Quotes). An individual one should admire is someone that inspires people to do great works. A good leader is a person who has gone through challenging situations and has overcome them. Helen Adams Keller proved that the odds were not against her. She learned to read, write, and spell all while she was blind and deaf. As a young child, she was referred to as a "tiny tyrant" that should be put into an asylum (Garret 32). With the help of her teacher, Helen Keller would be transformed from a tyrant to a beautiful woman who many looked up to.