In the short story entitled “Gryphon” by author Charles Baxter, the author begins to formulate a storyline about a young boy named Tommy and his experience with his new substitute teacher, Miss Ferenczi. Miss Ferenczi being a new substitute teacher in Five Oaks, Michigan provides Tommy’s class with a unique atmosphere. Ferenczi’s personality and teaching methods are particular features newly encountered by Tommy. Moreover, Miss Ferenzi’s is presented as a strange individual amongst Tommy’s class
The short story Gryphon A unique person in my life would be my high school science teacher. Since I was homeschooled, she taught multiple science courses, including, biology, anatomy, marine biology, health, and physical science. I took almost all of the science courses she offered because of my love for her. Her teaching style was similar to my mother’s teaching style and since I had grown up with my mother teaching me, it was a comfortable transition into high school. My science teacher always
The short story Gryphon by Charles Baxter is about a substitute teacher that challenges the way the children in the classroom usually think and encourages them to think with their imagination. Growing up, I also had a teacher that challenged me to think creatively as well. She inspired me to work hard and learn as much as I could. Both the story and my personal life have strong influences of a teacher wanting to better the student’s life in an unconventional way. The story starts with the narrator’s
Imagine a world without stories, nothing to read, nothing to learn, and right now you know nothing. In the story “How Stories Came to Earth” that was exactly their problem. A long time ago there were no stories on earth for anyone to tell before the First Spider, Kwaku Anansi came along and spread them through his webs. Both “How Stories Came to Earth” and “Master Cat” are trickster tales, In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story, which exhibits a great
The short story Gryphon, written by Charles Baxter, is about a substitute teacher that presents herself in an extremely self-assured and eccentric manner as she teaches children a variety of subjects. Miss Ferenczi, the new substitute teacher, uses every moment she can to influence the students in an unusual manner, a manner that will never be forgotten. The students continue their typical routine of attending school each day, however their perspectives are changed in the classroom about the world
The story I liked was Gryphon, by Charles Baxter. The theme of the story, as far as I can tell, was about alternative thinking. The story took place at an elementary school in 1950s Michigan. It was about an elementary substitute teacher named Miss Ferenczi who was somewhat different than how one would view a typical elementary school teacher. Of course, she did follow the lesson plan laid out by the class’s main teacher, but she also side-stepped to give the kids a different perspective in the way
and thus, he is simultaneously telling two stories, but not in the traditional sense expected of a frame story, for this is not a story within a story, but rather, a story behind a story. The frame takes Changez back to the past, but when he finishes retelling the past, the frame is no more and the reader is back in the present. Therefore, when the past is put in conjunction with the happenings in the cafe, only one story is being told. The second story is conveyed through the interaction of the
An Ex-Mas Feast Summary Uwem Akpan’s story, “An Ex-Mas Feast” is a story of the struggles that one family goes through to give gifts on their upcoming Christmas season. Akpan introduces the reader to the struggles of the main characters, which directly ties into the details of impoverished town that they live in. Jigana, one of the story’s main characters, starts off as a naïve 8 year old little boy who was anxious to start going to school. In a stark contrast, Maisha, the eldest sister
as he left his mark on literature, being the first one to portray authentic moments in American life. He tells the stories of many “faces” he saw in his dreams, describing their deeply moving lives filled with secrets. The twenty-one stories in the novel are united through the setting, Winesburg, and the main character, George Willard. The novel is character driven, and the stories have very weak plots. Winesburg is a small town, full of lonely characters whom Anderson calls “grotesques” because
articles packed with nothing but boring statistics. Sacco may be a journalist, but there’s much more to him than his notepad and pen; he’s a traveler, an artist, and someone who thinks making a difference in the world is important by putting people’s stories out there. According to his Wikipedia page, Sacco had a hard time finding a job with hard-hitting, attention-grabbing pieces that would affect his audience. So instead of working a job where he wasn’t interested in what he was writing about, he decided