In 1870, Riis emigrated to the United States and spent the next years wandering the northeastern part of the country. He didn 't have a stable job so when he obtained a job as a police reporter for the New York Tribune his life turned around. He took a position with the Evening Sun, then through his newspaper work he became closely familiar with New York 's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods. In the 19th century, he started exposing the life of the lower class in New York city. In How the other half lives by Jacob Riis, he discusses how the half that was on top really didn 't care much about other than themselves and how the poor suffer.
Introduction The book that I selected is called “Getting Life” by Michael Morton, who is a man that was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife in Texas in 1986. This book takes us from a happy young couple to the day of the murder, through the investigation into his wife’s murder, Michael’s trial and conviction, 25 years in prison, appeals, release from prison, and reintegration into society. One unique fact about this case is that is the first case where the prosecutor in a wrongful conviction case was subsequently convicted of prosecutorial misconduct, stripped of their law license and sentenced to serve time in jail.
All But My Life is a memoir written by Gerda Weissmann Klein. This memoir tells about her experiences during World War Two. Her childhood was full of happiness growing up with her Jewish family. This memoir starts two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.
In the poem, “Becoming and Going: An Oldsmobile Story” by Gerald Hill the speaker is traveling down a road in the Fort Qu’appelle Valley. He notices his father and his son are also driving down this road. The speaker then begins to list the two men’s characteristics. As he lists them we see that the father and the son have both similarities and differences in their personalities.
Riis wrote many other books such as The Battle with the Slums and Children of the Tenements. Both these books mainly focused on life in tenements, but also on work condition and living in this time as a child. Jacob Riis is classified as a Progressive because he sought to change what he though was wrong. In Riis’s case he thought having more than one family in tenements was wrong. Or the fact that working in extremely unsafe working conditions was wrong.
For my book talk, I read a realistic fiction novel called Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Miranda Evans lives with her family in Pennsylvania. She attends eleventh grade at her high school, and is also a part of her local swimming team. Her life is normal until the moon is knocked closer to the earth by a meteorite. The coastlines are under water and the weather is abnormally cold.
Half A life: a thought provoking journey How do humans deal with death? Why does tragic loss seem to take control of one’s life? The memoir: Half A Life by Darin Strauss attempts to answer questions such as these, as well as take the reader through a deeply spiritual journey. Strauss was thrown into this confusing and emotional time after he hit Celine Zilke, a girl from his high school, with his car when he was just eighteen.
Gerda Weissmann Klein’s perspective of the Holocaust, which she describes in her memoir, All But My Life, detailed the experience of a young Jewish woman surviving the Holocaust, of which she says “Survival is both an exalted privilege and a painful burden” (247). Weissmann Klein’s account of her experience began on September 3, 1939 at her home in the town of Bielitz, Poland, just as Germans enforcing the new Nazi policies began to arrive. Prior to that night, which was only the beginning for Weissmann Klein, Jews within Nazi Germany had already been feeling the effects of Adolf Hitler’s ideals for almost five years. From 1933 until 1939, when Weissmann Klein’s recount began, German Jews were subject to the passing of many racist and genocidal laws prohibiting them from everything from finding work, to
The film “Half of Anything” directed by Jonathan Tomhave was centered around a series of interviews with four different people of different backgrounds, who all identified as Native American. He asked these four interviewees the question “What is a real Indian?” This was a challenge for each person to answer in the fact that a “real Indian” meant different things to each one. For instance, the first interviewee, Christina, believed that there has to be a true definition of an Indian and that it meant more than just having a card and being enrolled in something, it takes moral responsibility. Another interviewee, Sherman Alexie, discussed that, while he saw being Indian as part of a person’s personal identity, the world seemed to identify Indians
In Atticus' closing speech and “life isn't fair- deal with it” by Mike Myatt both share the idea of fairness and what is right. Atticus describes this as the first form of rhetoric ethos, as does MIke Myatt in his argument about what is fair and what is not. Atticus' speech was a form of ethos meaning it appeals to an audience or a reader's ethics, this is shown in speech stating “I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore the defendant to his family.” This quote near the end of the speech describes how Atticus reviews the evidence in the trial and points out that all men should be treated equally but are not.
In her book "All But My Life," Gerda Weissmann Klein writes about her terrifying experience of making it through the Holocaust. She talks about the big difficulties she encountered at that time. We can see connections between her story and a serious problem facing today's world: human trafficking. People being pushed into actions against their choice, including forced labor or cruel treatment, is an issue in the modern world. Gerda and other survivors of the Holocaust suffered harsh working conditions and long hours of labor.
Though both authors wrote based on their own personal experiences. Upton Sinclair went undercover as a worker in these factories and wrote of what he saw, while Jacob Riis went to tenements, wrote or took pictures of what he saw. These two authors were trying to create change. They knew that the workers and the poor living in these tenements couldn’t go anything. So who else to help besides the public?
The theme of the compound is what it would take to survive in this situation and standing up to people who put others down. Eli shows this when he punches his dad and they start fighting (Bodeen, 2008, p. 171). He stood up to his dad because his dad was trying to make an excuse for why they really ended up in the compound. The family shows what it takes to survive by only having a limited amount of food. Surviving with limited resources van be very tough.
In today’s world, there are many people creating new chemical substances that has negative effect to our world. Rachel Carson, in her article "The Obligation to Endure" argues that the pesticides and other chemicals we use are harmful to more than just the environment. I agree with Carson in her article, in that we should reduce most of the harmful chemical use and instead use technological inventions. Carson is a person who seems very passionate about the environment and is very concerned of its inhabitants. It is hard to believe that intelligent human beings would use bad chemicals substances that would affect the environment and themselves negatively.
In the poem “Half-Caste” John Agard confronts the audience directly regarding their personal opinions and/or beliefs concerning the term “half-caste” or people of mixed heritage. He uses various scenarios using the term “half-caste” that may seem absurd and incongruous. This helps put his point across and makes people reconsider their use of the word and its implications. However, “Island Man” is the story of a man who spent time on an island, but moved back to London afterwards. This text identifies his emotions as he wakes up for the first time in England.
