Comic Evaluation Essay

Calvin and Hobbes embodied the voice of the Lonely Child is an article written by Libby Hill. In this article, Hill digs deep into the famous comic strips of the 80’s and 90’s, and uses her now adult mind to examine the deeper meanings of the comics and how they shaped her childhood. Hill’s main focus is on the theme of loneliness, and how Calvin is able to find ways to cope with the loneliness that often plagues children in the modern world. As a child, she related to Calvin, because Calvin’s character, despite being complex in nature, was portrayed in such a way so that children could relate to him. As the article progresses, she begins to draw comparisons to reading the strips as a child and then rereading them as an adult, and she explains

In the beginning of his work, Gatto opens by conveying the fact that kids and young adults that are attending schools today all are alike in the same sense: they feel immense boredom. He then describes the common pattern that a normal classroom would call for. This usually consisting of around “six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years”(Gatto 116). While employing this regular pattern that schools are in session, Gatto uses set amounts of time, one right after the other, in order to set in motion an unseen feeling of tediousness as well as monotony. In doing this, the author triggers the emotions of those who have or are currently going through the modern school system. To each of them, he taps into their own feelings of boredom that they may have experienced. These nostalgic sentiments that Gatto now, so carefully, wields

The essay ‘Against the school’ by John Taylor Gatto draws our attention on to all the cons of attending twelve years of high-school. Gatto has experience in teaching profession for twenty-six years in schools of Manhattan, he shares from his experience that he majored in boredom and could see that everywhere around him. He also points out the initial reason why schools came into existence and what the purpose it fulfils now. He also educates us on the fact that all the great discoverers never attended school and were self-educated.The main idea Gatto addresses in his article are that public schooling is doing the youth an injustice.He implies that the purpose of schooling, now is to turn children into good employes and someone who follows orders.

Time and time again I've found myself declaring education as the central pillar of my growth and development, that of which has been consistent throughout my life and educational career. From the age of 8 I've attributed school and learning as a way to escape the outside world, both willingly, and as an involuntary coping mechanism; school was a refuge, a safe place where I could build healthy relationships and escape my worries. I felt valued by my teachers, and I was given opportunities to contribute to a community, and for the first time felt autonomous- and that I could control my future.

This schooling occurs close to three quarters of the course of the year, for twelve years and maybe even more. He calls this routine “deadly,” and the schools in which this is occurring are “forced confinement” and “virtual factories of childishness.” Children are told when they are going to do something, they receive a schedule made for them and must go to them at the assigned time, usually at the sound of the bell. The schools themselves “all too often resemble prisons.” This abrupt truth makes people realize that getting an education would be difficult to do, considering the teachers closely resemble the boring and controlled environment, the students must learn in. These factories where children are “shaped and fashioned” into a product of society’s “specifications.” This negative tone and views really allows the reader to see that school environments are not beneficial to everyone and can be quite negative.

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).

Education and school. Some of you are now grimacing at the prospect of being trapped inside a classroom. Others are now thinking what I wouldn’t do to be able to go back and start all over again. Now don’t worry, I’m not going to convince you that you should love school. My job isn’t to change your perspective on school like a politician would do.

Class after class, day after day, I often sense a massive amount of repetition with school. Each lesson feels more like a chore than an actual learning experience. That’s the way school has always been though, like a job. It is hard to note that there is any sort of progress being made in terms of the everyday learning experience. In his essay, Against School, educator John Taylor Gatto claims that the everyday boredom of school is truly meant to demoralize and dumb down students, destroying individuality and the ability to create independent and critical thinkers. Gatto explains how children are not really growing up, they are only getting older, indicating that public schools exist only to “cripple our kids.” By using his experience in the classroom, Gatto creates an element of pathos and develops a structure which almost fools readers into inferencing what his opinion truly is. Gatto ultimately, through these rhetorical devices, wants to ignite thoughts about what the true purpose of school is, displaying the modern day public school education as a factory to create a mindless population of students.

School, everyone summons different thoughts and connotations whenever they hear that word. Although people range in their opinions of school, many can agree that schools all have the same goal: to educate their students. This is proving to be false; John Taylor Gatto provides evidence of this in his essay, “Against School.” Within this text he explains how schools are not educating students to be the best they can be, instead teachers are teaching them to become role players in today’s society and to be desensitized from their natural creativity. Gatto, a three time New York Teacher of the Year, has had his fair share of teaching. Gatto provides evidence to the audience that they have been wrong all along about the way a school functions. His ideals prove that the schooling systems in today’s society are not what they seem; schools are thought to develop and help a student unlock their full potential but through the evidence that Gatto provides us he shows that the education system does anything but that. He shows us this by appealing to the audience’s logos and pathos or their logical and emotional natures.

When children dread going to school, do you ever question why the child has already lost their eagerness for learning? In Chicago, Illinois, and numerous other places in the US, you can come across kids walking with their heads down and hands behind their backs in a single file line as if they are inmates. You’ll also discover that the cafeteria is dead silent to avoid the “overwhelming noise” of children enjoying their food and friends. With all of this being said, these schools sound more like boot camps than a place of learning. In the article, “Why some schools feel like prisons?” the writer, Samina Hadi-Tabassum, begins with a brilliant introduction, provides outstanding personal stories, and detailed examples to support their claim. The

“The child soon learns not to ask questions - the teacher is not there to satisfy his curiosity” (Holt 73). This is what John Holt thinks the American education system is all about. He thinks that school is a place where individuality and creativity come to die. He wrote an essay that explains his belief further that is titled, “School is bad for Children.” Holt uses several rhetorical devices and logical fallacies such as generalizations - stereotypes, making assumptions, and “either or fallacy” that weakens his argument.

A show about a seemingly normal family might not be a show that doesn't catch a lot of viewer's attention. I have to disagree because Family Guy is one of my favourite televsion shows, and i rarely watch TV. Family Guy is comedy based off a normal middle class family, but like all families they have their problems that can be very strange. I admire shows that are different than any other shows that are out there. I find the show to be very interesting for various reasons such as their use of stereotypes,violence, and its slight case of predictibility which is why I love the "Patriot Games" episode.

Have you heard of Calvin and Hobbes? If you have, consider yourself lucky! Calvin and Hobbes was a comic strip by cartoonist Bill Watterson. It ran in newspapers from 1985-1995. Calvin and Hobbes is the story of a cantankerous boy whose best friend is his stuffed tiger Hobbes.

School, to me and among many peers of my age, is not a distant term. I have spent one-third of my life time sitting in classrooms, every week since I was seven years old. After spending this much time in school, many things and experiences that happened there have left their mark in my memory. Some are small incidences while some have had a great impact on me. However, regardless the degree of significance, things that happened all contributed to shape the person that I am now.

From an early age I loved to read. At just two years old I would beg my mother to enroll me into school. I watched as my older sister meticulously picked out her outfit each night in preparation for the next school day. At such a young age I somehow knew that this thing called “school” was the answer to something spectacular. My home was chaotic and reading became an escape and helped distract me from the unpleasant family dynamic.