Summary Of On Being 17, Bright, And Unable To Read

If you’re looking for a great story to read that’s about a young boy who learns a life lesson I have an example for you. Gary Soto’s essay “Looking for Work” is a short story narrative about his experience with work when he was nine years old. Soto idolizes the T.V. shows that are the traditional families, which have wealth and have a daily routines. Soto wants to mirror his life to the T.V. shows but realizes that his family can’t and won’t, due to their poor living conditions, so he decides that he is going to make money so his life will be the way he wants. Soto then explains his experiences with working at his young age and other short stories but in the end realizes he is a nine-year-old boy who doesn’t need the “Perfect Family” to be happy.

David's instructor was intimidating, rude, and somewhat abusive, but despite these things he used her behavior as a motivator to succeed. David was not about to give up and he: "refused to stand convicted on the teacher's charge of laziness," and due to that, he studied for 4 or more hours every night because he was determined to stand out (Sedaris, 1999). David clearly had a reaction to his teacher’s approach, which created a sense of urgency and a need to excel. His choice to persevere, despite her attitude, caused him to work hard, and he was once again able to use humor to get through by adding jokes to his responses to her quizzes. This whole experience shaped him into a better person and made him

Therefore the residential impacted him a lot.But in the end it showed him what is good and what is not. How to act,How to not.Later on he is going to find something that impacts him even more than the residential school;Hockey.

Although life presents you with many obstacles, if you continue to persevere, eventually you will achieve success. Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt, is a good example of this. Frank is constantly limited by his poverty. We watch him stick with his goals and eventually accomplish them in the end. He also watches his mother continually try to stretch the family budget in order to get meager amounts of food. Death is also very prevalent in this book as Frank and his family have to adjust to the death of loved ones.

One reason why students are not successful in college is that of drugs. When students leave their homes to go off to college they meet new people, and experience overjoy of new freedom. When students notice that they are experiencing new freedom, they try new and different things. One of the main things students try that are new and different, depending on where the student is from, are drugs. Students use drugs for a lot of different reasons. Students use drugs to cope with stress, try to maintain course load, and they are influenced by peer pressure. In college, drugs are taken too far once students start to use them. “Those who are enrolled in a full-time college program are twice as likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than those who don't attend college” (College students and Drug Abuse). The students who abuse drugs in college are the students that are normally not successful in college. The drugs take over the mind and students become unfocused and behind in school work, which leads to students failing out of college.

David Weiss. A man with mental illnesses that causes him to become homeless. When David was talking with students about life with mental illnesses he

I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, an obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices.” (117). This quote found highlighted in one of his books shows just how important finding the truth about his father was to him. He valued the truth and knowledge over all the other nice things in life. He felt like he was not getting the truth out of his family about what was really going on early in their lives. As a result he felt like he wasn’t himself anymore once he was given that truth of his father’s past. He felt like “his ‘entire childhood seemed like a fiction’” (123). He was not in a right mind and ultimately felt like it was in his best interests to find himself. One could argue that he did find his truth and should have returned home. While this is certainly a valid argument one must look at it in a less black and white manor. He did find the truth about his father but he had not yet found the truth about himself, which was arguably more important than anything else.

In Learning Outside the Lines, Jonathan Mooney expresses what it was like growing up with Dyslexia throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. This proved difficult to him because during this time many public schools lacked the resources to help children like Jonathan, with their disabilities. Mooney writes in his book detailing constant narratives scattered throughout his schooling in which teachers and administrators would put him down and tell him that he was of below average intelligence. Mooney would express that at a young age in second grade, he would hate going to school because his teacher, Mrs. C, would constantly shame him for not being able to read and spell like the rest of the children. They placed him in a lower reading circle with other struggling students while he was teased by the other kids with higher reading levels. He was treated differently because he was different, but the school did not have the awareness to understand that he

At the age of 5 years old, not only did he began to take showers with his father, but when they went to the beach club, his mother bathed him in the shower in the presence of other naked women. By the age of 6 years old, David noticed the power men had over women, “when a male entered the women’s side of the bathhouse, all the women shrieked”. (Gale Biography). At the age of 7 and 8 years old, he experienced a series of head accidents. First, he was hit by a car and suffered head injuries. A few months later he ran into a wall and again suffered head injuries. Then he was hit in the head with a pipe and received a four inch gash in the forehead. Believing his natural mother died while giving birth to him was the source of intense guilt, and anger inside David. His size and appearance did not help matters. He was larger than most kids his age and not particularly attractive, which he was teased by his classmates. His parents were not social people, and David followed in that path, developing a reputation for being a loner. At the age of 14 years old David became very depressed after his adoptive mother Pearl, died from breast cancer. He viewed his mother’s death as a monster plot designed to destroy him. (Gale Biography). He began to fail in school and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania. He sets fires,

Throughout my years of schooling, I have become ambivalent about reading and writing. I have struggled in school to make myself enjoy writing. I didn’t mind reading as much, as long as it was to my interest. It has differed throughout the years I have been in school. Some years I have enjoyed both, reading and writing, and other years I have not liked either. Getting myself to enjoy reading and writing has been quite the adventure.

Had trouble connecting with children his age and as he entered school he was constantly bullied, often in front of girls.

The two stories I chose are A&P by John Updike and Araby by James Joyce. Both stories tell a tale of social and philosophical differences of middle class adolescent boys, when compared to the adults in the stories.

Psychology is the study of human and animal behavior. This study includes abnormal human behavior. You can't get very much more abnormal than David’s situation. This book demonstrates severe mental problems and the effects it brought about.

Since the beginning of time, people that had disabilities were singled out and treated inhumane. For me it felt cruel that Alan was sent to a mental institution at such a young ago, but during the 1950s resources was limited for parents of children with autism. In 1958, Alan was diagnosed as an idiot by doctors. People with disabilities were called names such as brain dead, bastards, mentally retarded and so forth. At this time, many medical professionals believed that they needed to fix the person in order to get to the problem. Conditions in the institutions were filled with cruelty such as beaten and people wore straitjackets. Letchwood village had only 5 staff and about 70 patients during the time Alan was a patient.

As an example, I will talk briefly about my cousin, born into a broken home and forced to deal with illiteracy on a daily basis. Steven was brought up in a bad neighborhood and raised by the streets. His family simply didn’t care about anything other than how they would afford their next bottle of booze or pack of cigarettes. Growing up, he was never told he had to go to school; therefore, he only went on occasion. His lack of schooling in his younger years took its toll on him by the time he hit high school. Living in a bad neighborhood and brought up by gangs, Steven’s life was in a bad condition.