The Taker Theme Analysis

In the book, The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen Rosa shows that she is a very helpful person. Rosa was a very sweet girl who just so happened to be in Jessica's math class, even though she was a freshman and Jessica was a Jr. Rosa is a brilliant girl and she loved math and helping Jessica with it. “Hey!” Rosa calls,…… I hobble in and sit in a chair near her. “I am so lost in math.” “I’ll help you!” she says”(136), when Rosa see’s an opportunity to help some she will go right for it help them and she won’t stop till they get a 93% on a test. Rosa only being a student herself takes the people she tutors and shows them a more helpful and easy path when it comes the math school or life in general. Rosa is mainly known to be a

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a novel regarding Melinda Sordino, a 14 year old girl, who gets raped at the end of summer party. Melinda ends up calling the police, causing all of her friends to absolutely despise her. The story begins as Melinda arrives to her first day of 9th grade friendless, receiving dirty looks from everyone in the halls. Her once happy personality, entirely transforms into the opposite. “I cry to let everything out” Initially, Melinda befriends Heather, a new girl to the school, but later Heather realizes that Melinda being her friend ruins her social reputation. When Melinda loses her only friend, her depression grows and she begins skipping class. Mr. Freeman and David Petrakis are the only people who notice Melinda’s

The Holocaust is a destruction on a massive scale, it was significant part of today’s history because it teaches people how and where genocide can take place in. Although, the violence was targeted towards the Jewish people, non-Jewish people were also killed during this traumatizing event of world history. The memoir Night by Eliezer Wiesel tells the story about Elie’s Holocaust experiences. In his story, Elie experiences and encounters several relationships involving himself and other characters. The theme relationships are essential for physical and psychological survival are shown throughout the book when situations involving Mrs. Schächter, Stein, and Elie occur. The situations take place in the story are evidence for the theme.

According to Merriam Webster, a novella is an Italian term, which derives from the word “novel,” and means a short novel or long short story. There are numerous novellas in the world of literature; some significant examples include Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. A theme of “influences” is displayed throughout these novellas and can influence our perspective on life. Another popular high school novella is Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, where protagonist, Esperanza Cordero encounters multiple characters, such as Sally, Sire, and Nenny, who help influence her life in both negative and positive ways.

In the beginning of the book, Phillip Malloy was passionate to make it into Harrison school’s track team. He thought that being only good at running would automatically make him into the team, but his grades interfered with his chance at the team. He didn’t make it into the track team because he detested Miss. Narwin’s class and felt the book, The Call of the Wild was useless, so he put the most unnecessary response to an answer of his exam. Therefore, he received a failing grade which is a “D”. With his failing grade, Phillip couldn’t make it into the track team and he blames Miss Narwin for the whole problem. Then when the faculty committee changed homerooms, Philip is now assigned into Miss Narwin’s homeroom class, making matters even worse.

“The First Day” by Edward P. Jones is a short story written in 1992. The short story is about an African American mother taking her young daughter to school for the first time. The daughter becomes ashamed of her mother because she sees where her education level is at. The mother is also ashamed of herself because she didn’t get education throughout her life. In “The First Day” the opening scene sets the tone for challenging the status quo and creating a life of success.

Gabriella Montez’s primary stereotype is the “nerd.” The first time Gabriella is seen, she is reading a book. This is a common indication used throughout the film industry that leads viewers to make the assumption that the character in question is introverted and intelligent. When Gabriella transfers to a new school, it is made clear that she is in fact academically talented. She is referred to as a “freaky genius girl” and “an Einsteinette.” Gabriella is almost immediately recruited to be a part of the school’s prestigious Scholastic Decathlon Team. “Our Scholastic Decathlon team has its first competition next week and there is certainly a spot for you!”

Estrella appears to be a child from a different country who has moved with her family to

“Student” and “Crow Lake” these two articles both talked about the relationship between teachers and students. Wayman, the teacher in “Student”, he insisted on attracting his students’ interests, but it didn’t work out very well. Katie, the teacher in “Crow Lake”, she recalled a childhood experience during her class, it came out that students got bored by her voice. Wayman tried very hard on helping students learn better, but the students only care about their grades instead of learning things. Katie tried to teach her students, but there had no connections between Katie and the student. In both articles, the teacher showed no connections with students. However, Wayman didn’t give up on helping his students but Katie did walk away from her class.

The hispanic girl was just fourteen years old when things came crashing down on her. Depression seemed harder than everyone in her life made it seem, but for her it was like a thousand pound weight holding her body down in the middle of her own personal ocean with no one around to help her. It was like she was afraid to cry because it would only make her ocean rise and drown her quicker.

Liz Murray’s mother and father were drug addicts living in the Bronx. She was born in 1980 with drugs in her blood because her parents religiously uses cocaine and heroin. (Murray 11). A vicious cycle of her parent’s use of drugs and mental illness seem to carry throughout several chapters. Murray and her sister survives on egg and mayonnaise sandwiches, toothpaste, and even cherry-flavored chapstick. They reside in a freezing cold and filthy apartment. Her parents just focus on how to maintain their high. From the time she was five, Murray recalls, we were a “functional government-dependent family of four” (Murray14). Her mother was legally blind and a schizophrenic, which qualifies their family for welfare to only pay for her parents’ drug ritual. Throughout, the years of drugs the girls are brought around other users and Liz receives abuse from Ron while her mother is gone to the liquor store one night. Her mother also eventually breaks the news to Liz that she has HIV. The drugs drive a wedge in between her parents which leads them to separation. This seems to really affect Liz along with the new diagnosis of her mom.

On the corner of School Ave and 5th Street a small playground rests on a sandy pit dusted with footprints of different shapes and sizes. Each day a surfeit of students stomp over the play equipment during their fifteen minute recess. In an office close by this playground, Principal Harriet Taylor is hard at work as she reaches the final stride in her career as an administrator at Springfield Elementary School. In June when the kids abandon the playground for summer, Harriet will abandon the office, relinquishing her duties as principal for the lure of retirement. Before Harriet could even dream of the office she works in today, she was romping all over the same playground many Springfield students use today. Harriet Taylor’s family moved to Bay County when she was eight years old and Harriet began third grade at none other than Springfield Elementary School. “It’s kind of cool that I got to start here and now I’m ending here.” she says with a proud smile, a Springfield tiger through and through.

Without a theme in place readers would not know the ways Taylor was affected by her abandonment. By having the theme of belonging, readers gain a deeper understanding of Taylors world and thoughts. She’s felt neglected and alone from the time she was seven, resulting in a desperate need to belong. Family and Friendship are also main aspects of Taylor’s life, along with other main characters in the story, namely Jonah. As these are big themes of the characters lives, they become themes of the novel.

Hollywood has made many movies that involve teenagers and their lives in high school. In most of those movies, they portray high school differently than actual high school. One of those movies is Mean Girls. The movie is about a girl named Cady Heron who moves to a new city from Africa and attends a public school for the first time. She gets in trouble a lot at first because she does not know the rules and customs of an American school. She quickly becomes friends with social outcasts Janis and Damian who warn her to avoid the school’s most popular girls. The popular girls take in interest in her, so Janis asks her to pretend to be friends with the popular girls, so they could mess with them. She

In the short story “Norma” by Sonia Sanchez it describes the perspective of a character named Sonia. Sonia is a shy person who attends George Washington Highschool. She is a character who sees herself as an average learner. She needs help a lot of help in many subjects and studies hard after school. Norma steps in and helps Sonia. After Norma was done helping Sonia starts to look up to Norma as a mathematical genius and will easily past college. She assumes good things about the way she is a mathematical genius and that she would easily get into college.