White Teeth By Zadie Smith

The steam from the kettle had condensed on the cold window and was running down the glass in tear-like trickles. Outside in the orchard the man from the smudge company was refilling the posts with oil. The greasy smell from last night’s burning was still in the air. Mr. Delahanty gazed out at the bleak darkening orange grove; Mrs. Delahanty watched her husband eat, nibbling up to the edges of the toast, then staking the crusts about his tea cup in a neat fence-like arrangement.

Listening is ‘Not an attempt to understand something that is being said’ but ‘Just an attention to the activity of sounds’

Under the lights by Abbie Glines. There are three teens that grew up together in a southern small town. Willa’s mom had her when she was a teenager. Willa had gotten into some trouble at a young age and had to stay with her Nonna. Willa’s two best friends were Gunner and Brady. Willa has made some bad choices in her past life which made her go down the wrong path in life. Brady’s a high school quarter back now and with the choices Willa has made Brady sees Willa as a different person. Gunner is also a football star in high school. Gunner is living a good rich life the only matter though he cares about himself only, except for Willa. He understands the person she has grown into over her time. As they were known to be child hood friends secrets start to come out and the truth may be the reason of them losing each other.

Literature can be a powerful tool for social change. Red Rooms by Cherie Dimaline is about the weaving of indigenous stories through the common element that they were patrons of an urban hotel. The narrator, Naomi, works as a housekeeper at the hotel and imagines the past, present and future existence of the patrons by what they left behind. Dimaline shows how indigenous histories and knowledge operate, in that they are not linear, and they do not have a definite beginning or an end. The novel subtly shows the need for an Indigenous resurgence, but the book itself is an act of resurgence because it shows the importance of indigenous literature. This paper will argue that Red Rooms itself acts as an act of indigenous resurgence

‘48 Shades of Brown’ by Nick Earls is a novel that follows Dan Bancroft, the main protagonist, and his troubling experiences as he goes through his final year of school. Dan is thrown into a world of unfamiliarity, where he makes many comical and embarrassing decisions. This novel expresses the theme of having or not having control subtly through the choices Dan makes, and their consequences. This theme is also successfully revealed through the four elements; characters, plot, motifs and setting. The relationships between the characters are vital to providing an insight into the theme.

Girl Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen 's memoir a series of recollections and reflections of her nearly two year stay at a residential psychiatric program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. She looks back on it with a sense of surprise. In her memoir she considers how she ended up at McLean, and whether or not she truly belonged there. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of her experience. Founded in the late 19th century, McLean Hospital had been a facility for troubled members of wealthy and aristocratic families. By the late 1960s, however, McLean had fallen into a period neglect. This was a time of great change in the mental health care field. Kaysen grew up in a wealthy and prestigious family. Like most teenagers, she was rebellious at times, confused and unsure about her future. She didn’t want to go to college and slept with her high school English teacher. She witnessed firsthand the widening generation gap that was developing in the late 1960s. Older generations looked at Kaysen’s generation 's world with alarm.

“Shooting Dad,” by Sarah Vowell, is about two completely different groups, with contrasting views, that can learn to get along with one another. The reader learns through unsubtle clues that Vowell is a Democrat and her father is a Republican. These collective groups offer completely different viewpoints on many topics, therefore Vowell has a hard time getting along with her father. Vowell is not a strong supporter of guns; however her father has magazine subscriptions devoted to gun ownership, owns many guns, and belongs to an association for gun enthusiasts. Each group had their own areas devoted toward their favorite candidates and used the kitchen and living room for neutral zones. Vowell and her father both share the trait of a messy work area, but in their own way. Her father’s work area, in the shop, consisted of a “museum of death,” that displayed antler from deer that he had previously shot and metal shavings from ammunition covering the surface of the floor. Vowell spent her free time in the music room, which had musical instruments and staff paper covering her available surfaces. Vowell decided her opinion on all firearms when she was six years old. After shooting it once, she knew that guns were not made for her use. She disliked the gun so much that she whispered to it the gun as if it were a possession of Satan as soon as it went off. Years later her father completed a replica of the Big Horn Gun. It was a cannon that was used by white merchants

In the book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, by Seth Holmes he mentioned the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his philosophy “Bad Faith”. Holmes explains “The phrase “bad faith” was introduced by Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the ways in which individuals knowingly deceive themselves to avoid acknowledging realities disturbing to them(Holmes86). The phrase explains us, when something bad is happening in our lives, we lie to ourselves to escape the truth that we don’t have to face them. This happens to everyone when we commit a really bad mistake and we don’t want to accept it. Another way this may happen is when you’re in a bad situation and you try to replace it with something else to get your mind off of it. Basically it’s a distraction, so we don’t think about what’s actually going on.

The election of Barack Obama as the 56th president of the United States raised many hopes that the “Black struggles” was finally over. For conservatives, Obama victory reassured their beliefs that there was no longer such thing as racism and that every American had equal rights and opportunity to pursue the American dream. While many people have come to believe that all races have equal rights in America, Tim Wise argues in his documentary “White Like Me” that not only does racism and unconscious racial bias still exist, but that also White Americans are unable to simply relate to the variety of forms racism and inequality Blacks experience. This is mainly because of the privileges they get as the “default.” While Wise explores the variety forms of racism and inequality today such as unconscious racism, Black poverty, unemployment, inadequate education system, and prison system, the articles by the New York Times Editorial Board, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Adam Liptak further explore some the disparities in the criminal justice system. Ana Swanson points out in her article, “The Stubborn Persistence of Black-White Inequality, 50 Years after Selma” that while the “U.S. has made big strides towards equal rights,” significant gaps still remains between the two races. With the Supreme Court striking down a “portion of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement,” civil

While reading the story Opening Skinners Box wrote by Lauren Slater there was a chapter that made me look at the world like I do and how sometimes the world relates to a story. The chapter was On Being Sane in Insane Places” while reading this chapter I seen and I was thinking that some of the things being said in the book was true. Sometimes people make wrong choices and they chose paths that lead them to bad consequence. Then we have those people that are born with this, bad consequences. Sometimes we have to face the world and how the world is. Sometimes it is not their fault that they are the way that they are. Some of them are just born that way because of their chromosomes that are way too much or some that don’t fully develop.

Eat That Cookie written by Liz Jazwiec focuses of workplace positivity. The author, Liz Jazwiec is a former emergency department nurse, former emergency department director, author of other workplace books, and is currently a speaker and strategist of how to make the workplace better. She writes about her experience in the work place as it evolved over time from a negative, pessimistic mind set, to a positive mind set created by individuals within the workplace regardless of the current situations. Not only does Liz Jazwiec explain that creating on optimistic working environments are extremely beneficial for all employees, but they also have a positive effect on patient perception of provided services. She addresses many issues and even naysayers throughout the book providing ways to improve and even eliminate negative attitudes. The key message throughout the book is that positivity comes from within and is more beneficial than negativity.

The book I chose to do an integrated unit on was The Skin You Live In by Michael Taylor with second grade students aged 7-8 years old. The big, colorful pages are vibrant and easy to absorb. This book delivers an important message about acceptance to young readers. It also has a great message that we are all different and the same and we should love ourselves for who we are. I have developed three activities that introduce concept explorations and challenge students to accept all cultures. It is very beneficial to involve learning students cognitively, emotionally, and physically. These lessons demonstrate learning experiences that are beneficial and relevant to children all over the world (Davis, 2011).

The most interesting book I have read in the past year was “Still Alice,” written by Lisa Genova. This book narrated the life of Alice Howland, a successful Harvard psychology professor who loses herself to Alzheimer’s disease. Alice is an intelligent, ambitious woman with a loving husband, John, and their three children. Initially, Alice starts off forgetting minor details, such as words during her presentations or where she might place some of her belongings. Dismissing it, Alice goes for a run in her town square where she’s run for several years. She suddenly finds herself lost and panics because she could not figure out how to get home. Eventually, she finds out she’s diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s and she is left to deal with her family and work life as well as do as much as she can each day before she loses herself completely.

Realising “what Arabanoo was asking” on his deathbed, Surgeon White says, “I’ll look after the lad. I promise.” Keeping this word, Surgeon White tells Nanberry, “I am going to adopt you. You have no family, and nor do I. Your new name is Andrew Douglass Keble White.” As such, Nanberry is given a new identity; he learns the English language and is instilled with the views, values and the lifestyle of the English, even though his real home is in the Aboriginal community. Nanberry acknowledges this part of his identity, stating that “this was his home and the Cadigal were his people”. As a result of his displacement, Nanberry experiences immense grief and isolation, ultimately acculturated to the standards of the English. Here, French explores the displacement of Aboriginal people in the time of early

1. One of the main characters in the book Black and Blue is a woman named Frannie Benedetto. Some of the roles that Frannie had were being a wife, a mother, a Catholic, and a nurse. Her role as a wife was very challenging, due to the fact that she was in an abusive relationship and was married to a New York City Police Officer. Frannie had been married to her husband Bobby Benedetto for almost twenty years. Her entire relationship with her husband has been traumatizing. Numerous times Frannie had been physically assault, raped, and belittled. Bobby physically assaulted Frannie when she was nineteen years old for the first time in their relationship. Frannie recalls many times that Bobby came home drunk and would rape her. Bobby belittled his wife by accusing her of sleeping with the doctors she worked with and by making her feel like she had deserved to get beaten up by him. One of the major reasons that Frannie stayed in the relationship with Bobby was because of their son.