HELP!Need to write a reflection on Shirly Jackson's "The Lottery". I'm beyond lost. Any tips or advice?
443745
you should write about mob mentality, how people do things they know are wrong or that they disagree with just because everyone else does it.  or something about following tradition despite moral or religious objection.
657641
i would write about time management or stress management. like how if everything is incredibly stressful u just wait for the weekend. or how u balance everything together to be a successful person and a successful student. or write about something you learned about yourself. take up a new hobby? sport? hung out with different people? read a book that changed your outlook on something? good luck!
911925
I love the poem.. made me kinda teary-eyed.\nThen when I read that you had not met the woman that you wrote it about till recently.. it made me sadder yet.\n\nShe will be sad reading it, knowing she just met you.\n\nMaybe she will be happy knowing you love her enough now to write it.\nWell written poem... very kid of you to write it for your mom.\n\nI am wondering if you remember staring at her... if you just met her.\n\nNice poem though.
603073
sorry, i searched poetry sites,quotation sites, by author,firstlines,subject. best i can think of is contact nearest university library or professor of lit. wish you luck, it sounds like a really heartfelt poem. sure wish i knew it.
522029
I would certainly try a few things to change this round a bit. \n\nWho and what is this poem about ?\n\nFrom your introduction we know but the poem does not tell us that. What emotions does this girl cause the boy to experience / suffer. Why does he like her so much ? What will happen to him if he does not tell her. What is the cause of his shyness, what is he afraid of. Does he think it would be better to suffer in silence rather than risk rejection etc.\n\nHow are you telling the story.\n\nAt the moment you have found a way to tell the basic story by using a lot of words that rhyme with each other, but you are restricting yourself by doing this. You have forced yourself to add in something with no relevance ( birthday in May ) just to keep the pattern going. Try mixing the rhymes up a bit or add a couple of lines between each rhyme. In this way you will make the poem flow more easily and allow yourself more room to develop the story you are actually trying to tell. If you think about songs you hear on the radio etc, think how they structure the words and take some inspiration from there.
1098494
Read it. How does it affect you emotionally? Try to relate to the poem. Then, just do the grunt work of memorizing. When you get stuck, try to remember how it made you feel and that can lead you to your next line, etc.
1018852
Cool thought pattern.  Then after the lottery?   My fear would be once knowing, I would over stress trying to change my fate.  One little change at the begining (like buying a lottery ticket) would change the future and thus make the current book worthless?  Does it come with free and frequent upgrades?\n\nHey, life is full of mistakes.  If I had avoided what I thought at the time were all of my really bad errors in my past, I would have missed out on so many of today's blessings (ie... children , grandchildren).    \n\nThe book I need would be the one that ACCURATELY shows my past.  Maybe if I saw it clearly and unbiased from a true perspective (not my own warped direction) then seeing what was really going on.... I would have become or been a better person earlier in life, less selfish, less critical, more forgiving.   \n\nDo not live in the TOMORROW's or YESTERDAY"S of life... today is all mier mortals can handle.
857750
OK, I'll give this a stab. Once upon a time, I taught upper elementary school in a inner city that is now far, far away. A report on NPR's marketplace inspired me to put together a unit on toys. \n\nI began by reading the short story "The Lesson" by Tony Cade Bambara aloud to the students. In the story, a "nappy-headed woman" with too much education and no makeup takes a group of kids from Harlem to the toy store FAO Schwartz in Manhattan. By doing this, she shows them that there's a world outside their Harlem neighborhood, and in this world, they don't have much power or money. The narrator--one of the Harlem kids--is angry, really angry at the woman who taught her this lesson.\n\n"You know," said one of my former students about a year later, "We hated you just like those kids in the story hated that woman."\n\n"I know," I said. By then I had learned that if you tell kids they are any kind of disadvantaged, even if you do so by telling them you grew up disadvantaged, too, they will hate you for it. \n\nBut I wasn't done with the unit. I had discussion questions for them to write about, and one of them was "Who are the people who buy the toys at FAO Schwartz?" The kids' answers were mostly some variation of "rich people".\n\nNext up, I had them go home and look at the "Made in" tags on three of their own toys, or those of a sibling, neighbor, or cousin if they were "too old" for toys. Actually, this was also a way out for kids who couldn't afford to own three toys.\n\nThe next day we compiled the results of our survey. I did that because I had two different figures for the percentage of toys made in China, and I wanted them to participate in gathering our own data: primary research. Some of the kids had obviously not done their research, but I included their made up answers (like "Made in Africa") anyway. Our results showed a percentage in between the two percentages I had from my research. In all three cases, we had figures that showed more than half the toys sampled were made in China.\n\nNext, I prepared them for an article I'd adapted from the newspaper by bringing in maps and coffee table books about China. I showed them, for example, terraces on the sides of mountains and a photograph of people in western Sichuan province with 100 pound tubs of manure on their backs, preparing to hike five miles into the mountains to lay manure on their fields.\n\nAt this point, I always asked the small group I was showing this particular photograph a question. Given a choice, would they rather come to school, read some stories, do some science, work some math problems, have recess, lunch, and maybe computer class, or would they rather hike five miles into the mountains with a hundred-pound tub of manure on their backs?\n\nWell, most of them would rather come to school. But there was always one or two who would say, "Give me the tub of manure."  These are your "kinesthetic learners", the kids who learn best by moving. In one case the kid was also a student with a high naturalistic intelligence (who happened to be born into a family with no interest in nature) and a truancy problem. I often think of that kid, and how happy he would be if he lived where I live now. \n\nAs a general rule, kinesthetic learners are more likely to be put in special ed, to drop out of school, and to end up in jail. They are the group of students that we as educators fail the most. And by fail, I mean we don't do right by them.\n\nAnyway, in the next part of the lesson, my students were to read an article I'd adapted from The Washington Post. The article told the story of a teenager who had travelled from western Sichuan province to the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen, outside Hong Kong. \n\nIt explained how she'd gotten a job in a toy factory as a sort of human conveyor belt, moving partially manuf
357952
This'll be a great help:\n\nRead the story and take notes on all the characters, what they're like, etc. Then take a different section of notes on their opinions. If you want, take additional notes on age, related to whom, and friends with whom. Then, when you get projects like this, all you have to do is skim through a few notes and not the whole book.
990997
For any paper, here's a few good fool-proof tips. \n\nFirst of all, no whether you enjoy outlines or not, make one, and  you can't fail. Just think about what "social" or "cultural" effects your family, culture, or even home town have on you, and seperate those effects into what will later be as many body paragraphs as you want. \n\nSecond, somewhere in your introduction you need a sentence that states your number one main point in the whole paper. This should include a "what" and a "why". For example: My mother taught me to be an independent latina by raising me alone in a strange city when she moved to Chicago from Spain.\n\nNext, each paragraph has a topic sentence, which includes one of the "effects", and this topic sentence should relate to or prove the main sentence in the introduction paragraph. \n\nAdditionally, any following sentence should relate to your topic sentence, and should go in the order of fact, and then afterthought. \n\nIn the conclusion, keep it light and simple, and just quickly wrap things up. \n\nOfcourse we've all learned these things in elementary school, but when you lay it out like this in a formulaic type of way, it all just sort of seems to flow. Take it easy, and stay on topic. And more importantly, whatever class this paper is for, include as many vocab words relating to it as possible. \n\nThis formula on its own can get you a B. With a little hard work, you got your self an A. Good Luck!!
1008977
I would be happy to help you write your essay.  Please pick a topic that you are familiar with.  Have you ever been to the fair or public library?  Well, which ever situation you have been in tell me and we will get started.  You can reply to this message by clicking on my name or pic and then clicking the contact coloryst button.  Best wishes
77351
Good person to write about!!  I agree with everyone else's answers; Mark Twain captured life in the 1800s, the human spirit, and he did it with a brilliant sense of humor.  He used a lot of sarcasm, which most people your age can relate to!  Although his books are fictional, they are a great resource for learning about American history- people's accents, slang, and what they did for fun.\n\nGood luck w/ your paper, I'm sure it'll be great!
257500
Oh! I love that story. We read it last semester. Have you read the story? It's really funny to read it and then think in the gutters. Our sub, Scott, taught us that. lol Anyway... okay... hm... thesis statement. \n\n"There are stories about fish and the like, but none quite like this. The boy in the story learns to grow after learning that his beloved Sheila is not what he thought she was. In the story the boy struggling with what he loves and what he thinks he is in love with. ([The story teaches about letting go, forgetting and growing up] <-- thesis)." \n\nOkay, to clarify the thesis:\n\nLetting go: Letting go of the fish and moving on.\nForgetting: He forgets that he can't very well catch a fish without her seeing, so he loses it. \nGrowing up: After he learns that Sheila Mant is not what he thought she but, but in fact a skany who9re (lol) he learns to move on and grow up. \n\nI hope this helped.
145307
Try the poet Emily Dickenson. She wrote a ton of material, and there is a ton of material about her!
510924
wow thats really...deep. is this a true story? i dont think i could handle reading that, it may make me too depressed but if its true im glad you overcame it all...if you need a new character though, add a love interest for yourself, a girl who helps you through everything and stands by your side and in the end realize the reason why she did it is becuase she grew up in the same foster home as you and was seperated when you were sent back to your dad and you just didnt remeber her becuase she looks better and aged more maturly or whatever. good luck :)
398351
Hi! Maybe this would help. Try this. www.tntstone.com/amlit1/writing.htm
808620
Go to Yahoo or Google and do a search for the title.  You'll get a lot of hits.  This one is really good, from an online review at amazon.com:\n\n "Black Dogof Fate" Is a Fuzzy Grey Beast at Best , May 24, 2005\nReviewer:Bedros Afeyan "Bedros Afeyan" (Pleasanton, CA) - See all my reviews\n(REAL NAME)   \nPeter Balakian's book, "Black Dog of Fate," tries to be too many things\nand sadly fails at many of them. In essence, it is an attempt to tell a\nsort of Armenian-American story which I find not overly interesting or\ncompelling. I wish the author had done a bit more in-depth work to learn\nabout his people and their rich heritage before embarking to represent it\nor explain it or share it with non-Armenians, for he has much more to absorb\nand understand himself first. I find the Armenianness in this book to be\ntentative, unengaged and unconvincing. Pity, since the author seems to\nhave a lot of passion in his pursuit of other aspects of his life such as\nfootball, the Yankees, modern poetry, and exposing Turkish attempts to\nbuy (among others) Princeton professors to act as mouthpieces giving\nlegitimacy to their vile historical revisionism, practiced by the\n"modern" Turkish state and its organs.\n\nIt seems to be all the rage these days to elevate personal histories and\nfamily testimonials into the realm of fiction and novels. The "I" and "we"\nand "us" occupy center stage and the reader is invited to enjoy the\nintimacy that must surely be in place via this artifice. But is it realy?\nSince in order to make this legitimate, the writer must distance himself,\nat least initially, from all this old world exotica, and like the reader,\nquestion their validity or relevance in present day North American\nsociety. What are all these old world, old fashioned ghosts and traditions?,\nis the first cry of writer and reader alike, only, ofcourse, to be followed\nby a sharp bank turn where the writer steers the satisfied and in-place\nreader towards the opposite viewpoint wherein *this* culture and *this*\nlifestyle become suspect in light of some tentative spotting of cultural\nwealth that has been traded in or abandoned in order to swim swiftly towards\nmaterialistic, memory-free, self-redefining, "comfort" seeking and buying\nmores.\n\nIn the Balakian tale, one encounters suburbia instead of substance,\nworldly goods acquisition instead of deep roots that steady the soul,\nimmediate family and relatives running away from their true identities either\ntowards surrealism, the abstract and unemotional, or else towards medicine,\nrespectability and detachment. Young Balakian observes but never\nunderstands "the grandmother" for she is shielded culturally from being\nable to reach him by her very offsprings who can not and will not instill\nthe Armenian identity he will eventually seek but never quite find. Their\ncrime is self-denial and a march to the tune of America's mixmaster\npiper. "Be unlike your past and your future will be brighter," seems to be\nwhat America promises, at the very least. The intermediate generation listens\nand adopts this credo and Peter is left to find out but never quite\nunderstand just what cost his ancestors have paid to remain Armenian and\nto preserve our culture before the final denials on New Jersey pateos while\nenjoying, as if to serve sweet irony, full course Armenian meals and the\nmixing aromas of delicacies from the old country every Sunday.\n\nPeter is lost alright, but as the book sadly shows, he remains lost.\nParaphrasing or quoting Ambassador Morgenthau does not an Armenian genocide\nexpert make. Personal family testimonials of the Turkish atrocities does\nnot a genocide history make (For that, read Vahakn Dadrian's "The History\nof the Armenian Genocide" Berghahn Books, 1995). Episodic accounts can be\ndismissed by the Turks as hear-say and as mere isolated incid