16 Candles Comparison

In the poem 1958, Gwendolyn MacEwen describes the high school environment as it would have been in the late 1950’s. Popular fads among the teenagers during this era are explored in detail. The prevailing theme throughout the text pertains to the idea of belonging. The poem focuses primarily on the desire teenagers have to fit in. Throughout this response I will explore the ways in which this poem differs and relates to the high school environment today. Secondly I will analyze the connections between this poem and a modern day movie. Lastly, I will express the ways in which my personal experiences relate to the central message in the poem.

The first lesson that many people like is how all classrooms are run by fear (Esquith, 6.) Students usually remember the first day of each grade; they are usually scared to death of the teacher. They would be scared, mainly because of the things they had recently heard about the teacher, or the way the teacher was acting. However, what Rafe tries to portray is that not only the students have fear, but the teachers also have fear. All students are afraid of change. A new teacher, a new grade, and new material they have to learn. Students are also afraid they are going to get in trouble or they are afraid of failure. Believe it or not teachers are also fearful. They are more fearful of not knowing the material they have to

This experiment was performed to compare how quickly a scented and an unscented candle will burn. The tests were done by comparing the length that the candles will burn in 30 minutes - using unscented, rose scented and apple scented candles.

Graff starts out his work, hooking the audience, by saying what multiple students think about their school, that schools are making mistakes teaching us the things they do. Graff essentially calls out schools for the pickle that they have put their students in. Graff describes some curriculum, using Plato, Shakespeare, the French Revolution and Nuclear fission as examples of the mind-numbing topics that schools teach about. Graff then brings up topics, such as Cars, Dating, Fashion, Sports, TV, and Video Games, that many kids today enjoy talking about and discussing with one another. Graff emphasizes that despite the lack of “connection… established between any text or subject and the educational depth and weight of the discussion it can generate,” schools continue to assume that there is a connection (par. 3).

There were many diverse aspects to this book. Most of this book is a recall from either the main character, or one of his students. This book is intended to open people’s eyes to see that in order to change the world we must first change ourselves. Being able to go through this story and see the mistakes, and the good decisions, teachers in Michie’s life have made, has taught me that the best way to teach is through love, justice, cultural empathy and imagination. Some of the points brought up in this book include the positive and negative sides of physical contact with a student, classification/stereotyping, race, gangs, police brutality/lack of justice, and children not being able to escape peer pressure.

In Gina Wisker’s article “Vampires and School Girls: High School Jinks on the Hellmouth”, she makes the point that Buffy is a new kind of women within vampire fictions. She supports this point by showing how Buffy is not a stereotypical helpless woman in a vampire film; Buffy is a strong independent woman who kills vampires and other creatures. While Wisker makes a very strong argument, this idea of a new kind of women could be extended to Willow and a new kind of men shown in Xander and Giles.

Also when the lunch lady says “ Sorry, kid…. That’s it.” He is trying to pull the information from the education reform that is happening that it mostly focus on how proficient a kid is and therefore a teacher is forced to teach more test prep and things that will be on the test. We see the little child in the background but the two bigger kids in the front representing that the No Child Left Behind Act and how the child is left behind with a little idea on other things but knows about test prep.

Mr. Wray was the first teacher and the only male teacher I observed. The class was a 7th grade Social Studies academy class. Throughout the observation I noticed he really cares about his students. He took his time going over the topic of discussion, and when some of the students couldn’t catch on he stopped to help the individuals. His class was very well behaved. The only time I really noticed any of the students socializing were when Mr. Wray put them in groups to complete a study guide. The second teacher I observed was 6th grade teacher Mrs. Dunn. She was teaching English to her students. She went over verb phrases and helping verbs throughout the class. I noticed whenever she asked questions quite a few of the students participated by answering. Mrs. Dunn had a positive attitude throughout the class period. I felt she truly enjoyed all her students and treated them the same. Even when some of the students didn’t answer questions correctly she didn’t make them feel dumb. She would just tell them good try. I could tell her students really liked her as a teacher also. The last teacher I observed at Westside Junior High was 7th grade Science teacher Mrs. Dugas. This lady came off as a very strict teacher compared to the other two I had observed. Her students were very talkative, which only made her become more annoyed when having to fuss at them. At the beginning of class the students had a bell ringer to complete. On the particular day I went the bell ringer

With Buffy the Vampire Slayer taking the Australian television market by storm, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Buffy does more than just kick vampire butt.

The movie that I have chosen is a classic film from 1988 called Heathers. Heathers is an American cult black comedy film written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann. The film portrays four teenage girls—three of whom are named Heather—in a clique and a teen named Veronica Sawyer who desperately wants to fit in, as well as a crazy and unstable boy named J.D that plans to ruin it all. The focus of this essay will be on three characters. Analyzing their internal and external battles, as well as their social interactions with loved ones and other members of their fictional society.

The main character of the series is a young woman who is named Buffy Summers. Buffy's character is summarized rather neatly by Elana Levine in her essay, “Buffy and the 'New Girl Order”. Levine

In the movie Chalk, it talks about the lives of three teachers and one assistant principal. The movie takes place the course of an entire school year. Each of the teachers had their part in the movie about how life is teaching inside the classroom.Mr. Stroope, a 3rd year history teacher is campaigning for Teacher of the Year, but many of his students are a bit smarter than him. Mr. Stroope is one of the teachers who are disorganized and does not seem make students learn in the classroom.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s debut in 1997 reinforces the concept that “...since the late 1990s/early 2000s, the sympathetic vampire…has become distinctly more common in popular fiction and film than the monstrous stereotype as a vicious killer” (qtd. in Parke and Wilson 179). Throughout the Buffy series, one of Buffy’s main love interests has been Angel, an outcast vampire who has empathy for humans (e.g., he does not harm humans unless provoked, he protects Buffy and her friends from other vampires). As opposed to the other vampires in Buffy, Angel has a soul and experiences guilt for his past crimes. Writer Lorna Jowett (of Buffy, Dark Romance and Female Horror Fans) introduces the idea that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has impacted science-fiction (paranormal, in particular) by a theme of “dark romance”: “…its male protagonists are powerful and dangerous, often presented as stereotypical bad boys, and the fact that they are vampires or werewolves positions them ‘naturally’, both monstrosity and masculinity” (qtd in Stuller 92).

Clark wasn’t afraid of a challenge and demanded to be put within this classroom. Before starting his first day in the classroom Clark went to all of the homes of his students to introduce himself to the parents and to get a feel of where his students were coming from. When he went to one of the homes of a female student within his class named Shamika, he saw that she was home alone taking care of her three siblings. She cooked, cleaned, and made sure her siblings were cared for. This student in the film reminded me a lot of one of my students in my Tuesday field. She has multiple siblings and her mother requires her to help take care of them. Shamika is one of the main students within his class that he has a lot of trouble with in the beginning but creates a strong relationship with in the end. The process that Mr. Clark goes through to get his students in his class to respect him as a teacher was tough. His students just saw him as another teacher who was going to give up and leave them. Clark set out to make sure that he didn’t leave he wanted to form a bond with his students. He set rules for the class but they quickly saw all of the rules as one giant joke. It wasn’t until one day that Clark couldn’t take the fact that his students didn’t see him as a teacher figure and he just walked out of the class for the day. The students then saw that he gave up on them like the rest of the teachers. But the next day Clark was back in

"Some teachers may work with students to create the class environment; others may force a class environment upon students" (Zawondiak 124). Regardless of the approach the teacher might decide to take, she holds the power even before a student walks into class. The teacher is the one that chooses what materials are going to be used during the school year. She creates and plans lessons that are going to be used during class time. How children are going to be assessed and placed in levels that fit the children's capabilities. And finally, the teacher decides what set of goals she might have for the class, the different set of teaching techniques she would like to use and the set of expectations she might have for each students. The teacher is the one that decides what she wants to concentrate on, how to go about teaching it, and the outcomes she expects from the students.