Ponyville Monologue

I sat quietly in my AP Lang class as my teacher, Mrs. Fisher, announced that the reading competition between the language arts classes called for the book count for September. She stood at the board, marker in hand, staring out expectantly at her large class. Hands shot up across the classroom, and my own nervous hand rose up to join them. Mrs. Fisher happily chalked up the small fortune of books that our class had read. Practically everyone read one or two books, and then there was the occasional student who 'd managed to thumb through five or six. I was one of the last to be called on.

In the essay ‘Disliking Books” Gerald Graff claims that he has an “advantage teaching literature”. That advantage is attributed to the fact he felt animosity and fear towards books growing up. He didn’t understand what he was to say about these books that never related to him. Or why he was supposed to say these things. Understanding the confusion about these things and knowing that there is more than one way to get to the goal, loving and understanding literature, is the true reason that Graff has an advantage as a literature teacher.

“You got to think Ponyboy” is one of my favorites quotes to say after my parents died. I have two jobs and also to watch out for Ponyboy and Sodapop not to go to a boys home. I am the oldest of the greasers. I slapped Ponyboy to tell him to never be late again. Also I slapped him because I can not call the police because they will put Soda and him in a boys home and they would never see me again.

This autobiography recalls Eudora Welty’s early experiences of reading in her childhood. She wrote about, how books had a great impact on her becoming a writer. The prevalent theme throughout her autobiography is her family history, as it's explained through various anecdotes, and through the intensity of her experiences. This autobiography obtains many flashbacks to her childhood, and the mood, she wanted to portray.

The literate arts have been an integral aspect of human civilization throughout history. In Richard Miller’s essay “The Dark Night of the Soul”, he poses the question, “What are the literate arts really good for?” He admits that gathering information is a clear value of the literate arts, but throughout the essay he portrays a doubtful view of their value in today’s society. Although, he brought up some interesting points, his doubts stands in contrast to the literate arts’ true role in society today. As a student, I too feel it is important to fully understand the important connections that are told within a piece of literature. Miller states in his writing that, “If you’re in the business of teaching others how to read and write with care, there’s

Bianca Brooks builds her argument through facts, personal experience, and evidence; giving a nod to the counterargument; and tying her points together with sophisticated language and questions for the reader to ask him/herself.

Stephen L. Carter saw a future without reading. He saw what life would be like without the complexity of novels and forward thinking. In “Reading For Pleasure Is in Painful Decline,” Carter illustrates how reading amongst people has not progressed but digressed. Simply being at a screening of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and seeing two girls discuss the importance of reading for pleasure, his mind was exposed to the reality of today’s world sans reading and the knowledge that is adhered with it. He justifies that by reading a fiction novel and later moving into more challenging works, people can further the boundaries of their knowledge. However, as Carter saw, most do not perceive it that way. In this prose, Stephen Carter uses rhetorical devices such as: allusion, anecdote, and humor, to delineate how the amount of reading has decreased.

Massachusetts, 1692...what an awful time to be alive. Especially for a young, timid girl by the name of Clarabeth. Not exactly the most special of girls, just a hard worker for her family, an all around fair person. Unfortunately, Clarabeth woke from an unpleasant sleep with a start on a gloomy August twilight, to the sound of people shouting and an accused “witch” tied to a stake, crying with the force of a tidal wave, pleading to be let down. “I didn’t do anything, I swear! Please, just let me go!” cried the poor lady, but the townspeople weren't hearing her wales of misery.

Today, Jack killed a pig. He and the other hunter boys painted their faces and danced to a war chant to get pumped up for the hunt. The group eventually found the pig, surrounded it, and stabbed it to death with sharpened sticks. Jack and the boys have become very aggressive and violent. They are constantly obsessed with killing pigs, rather than worrying about the fire like I do. I was disappointed in the group for going on the hunt. It feels as though Piggy and I are the only ones who have common sense about what is truly necessary at this point for survival. In fact, just this afternoon I saw a ship on the horizon!!! Had everyone done the jobs they were supposed to do, the smoke signal from the fire might have been visible to the ship and

Many times when reading, whether it be a newspaper, magazine article, an essay or a piece of literature crafted by greats such as Harper Lee, George Orwell and J.K Rowling you may have the “temptation to speed up” (355); Only because you have “so much more reading ahead of you” (355), but on the contrary the author of What Words Can Tell Francine Prose explains that “In fact it’s essential to slow down and read every word”(355). It is very critical that you analyze everything you read because in order for you to fully understand the subject at hand you must pick every word apart and thoroughly understand the meaning of each word. Francine Prose does this by using a technique called “close reading”. Prose believes that “Close reading” is extremely important and shows us how this is done by explaining a

In Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury describes a dystopian society where books are banned/ burned and technology controls the individual. The novel was written during the release of the television was released, the author uses literary devices in the novel to depict his interpretation of the mass media on the population. Ray Bradbury addresses the theme, mass media marginalizes literature, as problematic and possibly as the end of human imagination.

Is happiness ever achieved? Or do distractions just make it seem like it is? Living in a world where books are banned and creativity is nonexistent people are forced to drag themselves along day by day with only technology to get them through it. In the book, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the characters are perceived as content individuals only to later be unveiled as unhappy, mindless people distracted by technology and the world around them.

They 've just told us we need to evacuate for World War II. I have mixed feelings about hsving to leave home. It might be fun to able to go to a new place, but I will also miss home greatly. I have just packed up all of my belongings to go on the plane. At least where we go there will be no war and everything will be safe, but I 'll still think sbout home every day I 'm there.

“Meat," he said. "Potatoes, bread, coffee. One dollar, even… "They're a-workin' out there. You let me have some sugar an' I'll bring the slip in later."… "I can't do it, ma'am. That's the rule. No slip, no groceries… "For anything, ma'am." He looked pleadingly at her. And then his face lost its fear. He took ten cents from his pocket and rang it up in the cash register. "There," he said with relief… You bring in your slip an' I'll get my dime back." (Grapes of Wrath 393)

"I barely hesitated as I spurred my wary horse Buttercup down the neatly chopped marble stairs after the robber. Unfortunately Buttercup did stumble a bit on the descent causing my rather splendid hat to slip gently off my head and land at the bottom a dusty rubbish bin. This rather ruined my entrance and I felt a bit unprofessional without my hat, but I 'm sure I’ll get new a new, far more feathery one after I unmask this fiend and claim my glory.