Personal Narrative My Fathers Death Essay - 730 Words

My father passed away in 1991, two weeks before Christmas. I was 25 at the time but until then I had not grown up. I was still an ignorant youth that only cared about finding the next party. My role model was now gone, forcing me to reevaluate the direction my life was heading. I needed to reexamine some of the lessons he taught me through the years. One of the earliest memories I have of my father is when he would take me to the park and we would play baseball. My father was eager to teach me everything he knew about the game, and I was eager to learn. He took it easy on me at first, allowing me to overcome my fear of being hit by the ball. Each time we went back to the park he would throw the ball a little harder. It was not long†¦show more content†¦I began to rebel and grades were no longer as important to me as they were to my father. My grades slipped to a C average, and that was not good enough. Instead of getting upset, my father encouraged me to apply myself. It too k a couple of years, but he made me realize the importance of school, and that I only had one shot at doing it right. I graduated high school in the top ten percent of my class, thanks to my father. As I entered my teen years, my father expected more out of me than just being a good student. Dad always seemed to have projects going on around the house, and I became his helper. It did not matter what the project was, he always seemed to need my help and I was not happy about that. I had better things to do than wasting a weekend working around the house. Somehow my dad knew how to do everything and felt it was his job to teach all of it to me. I was a teenager and had all of the knowledge I would ever need, so I thought. As it turned out, most of the skills I obtained helping my father led me to a rather lucrative career in manufacturing a few years later. Dad was a very stable man, holding the same job at an office furniture retailer for 25 years. In 1985 he decided to take a chan ce and open his own furniture business, a retail store that competed for sales with the very store where he spent most of his life working. It did not take long to make the new venture a success. Most of my father’s customers from hisShow MoreRelatedEssay about Baldwins Notes to a Native Son1712 Words   |  7 PagesJames Arthur Baldwin helps to bring about one of the main points of his essay, â€Å"Notes of a Native Son.† Baldwin’s composition was published in 1955, and based mostly around the World War II era. This essay was written about a decade after his father’s death, and it reflected back on his relationship with his father. At points in the essay, Baldwin expressed hatred, love, contempt, and pride for his father, and Baldwin broke down this truly complex relationship in his analysis. In order to do thisRead MoreSandra Cisneros And Reyna Grande’S Representation Of Their1220 Words   |  5 Pagesdo not recognize transnational identit ies. 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When discussing a memory of spending the day with her father when she was nine years old, MacDonaldRead MoreEssay about Baldwins Writing Style in Notes to a Native Son1507 Words   |  7 PagesRegrettable James Baldwin is known to be one of the best essay writers in the twentieth century who wrote on a few topics including race, discrimination, sexuality and most of all his personal experiences. In â€Å"Notes of a Native Son†, he uses two main strategies to get his point across. First, he likes to tell a story in a narrative view. Following is normally his analysis of the event. He describes the event and then gives his theory on the matter. By doing this, he grants the reader a chance to decipherRead More Narrative and Opinion in Notes of a Native Son Essay1912 Words   |  8 Pagesis most often cited is his ability to interweave narrative and opinion seamlessly into his essays. One example of this ability is in his â€Å"Notes of a Native Son† essay. He interweaves narrative of his father and his death with his opinions about the relationship between blacks and whites at that time. James Baldwin uses contrasting ideas such as public vs. private, father vs. son, and p ast vs. present to switch back and forth between the narrative and his opinions. The major contrastingRead MoreBeing Raised As Slaves By Harriet Jacobs And Frederick Douglass953 Words   |  4 PagesDouglass devoted their professional life for telling their true story based on their own experience. As a matter of fact, their works â€Å"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl† (1861) and â€Å"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave† (1845) are considered the most important works in the genre of slave narrative or of enslavement. Thus, this paper will compare and contrast between Jacobs and Douglass in terms of the aforementioned works. Losing their mothers and realizing their status asRead MoreRomulus My Father and Comparison Text1246 Words   |  5 Pagesarrived in a foreign land. In Romulus my father we are repeatedly forced to read about various people in the book who suffer from mental illnesses such as depression, this depression motif is used to emphasis the feeling of loneliness, desolation and non-belonging because of the migrant experience and even Romulus himself goes through states of madness during his life because of the migrant experience. Dell’oso uses the suitcase motif to represent her narrative story but, unlike Gaitia, she uses thisRead MoreEssay on Racial Hatred in Notes of a Native Son1630 Words   |  7 Pagessentences that state the events going on around him at the time of his father’s death. The atmosphere is tense and solemn as the funeral procession moves through a barren wasteland of destruction on the way to the cemetery. Only the bare facts are written and Baldwin deli berately avoids using any colorful descriptions or interesting phrases in order to recreate the mood at this particular moment in his life. With this stripped down narrative passage, Baldwin sets an overall tone of bleakness, harshness andRead MoreWhat We Are Who We Should Be: Literary Realism1132 Words   |  5 Pagesbut provide a practical solution. More often than not though, realists will leave it up to their reader to formulate a cure. In A Rose for Emily, Faulkner looks back on the relationships of an aging southern belle, using third and second person narrative to comment on the happenings of the story. The title character of the story, Miss Emily Grierson, has two main relationships in her lifetime. The first, the relationship she had with her father, is described as controlling: â€Å"†¦ that quality of her

Essay on Milkman’s Search for Identity in Song of Solomon

Milkman’s Search for Identity in Song of Solomon Song of Solomon tells the story of Deads unwitting search for identity. Milkman appears to be destined for a life of self-alienation and isolation because of his commitment to the materialism and the linear conception of time that are part of the legacy he receives from his father, Macon Dead. However, during a trip to his ancestral home, â€Å"Milkman comes to understand his place in a cultural and familial community and to appreciate the value of conceiving of time as a cyclical process†(Smith 58). The Deads exemplify the patriarchal, nuclear family that has traditionally been a stable and critical feature not only of American society but of Western civilization in†¦show more content†¦Pilate Dead, Macons younger sister, provides a marked contrast to her brother and his family. While Macons love of property and money determines the nature and quality of his relationships, Pilates sheer disregard for status, occupation, hygiene, and manners is accompanied by an ability to affirm spiritual values such as compassion, respect, loyalty, and generosity. Pilate introduces a quality of enchantment into the novel. The circumstances of her birth make her a character of supernatural proportions. She delivered herself at birth and was born without a navel. Her smooth stomach isolates her from society. Moreover, her physical condition symbolizes her lack of dependence on others. Her self-sufficiency and isolation prevent her from being trapped or destroyed by the extremely decaying values that threaten her brothers life. Before Milkman leaves his home in Michigan, he perceives the world in materialistic, unyielding terms that recall his fathers behavior. Indeed, the search for gold that sends him to Virginia reveals his perception that escaping from his past and his responsibilities and finding material treasure will guarantee him a sense of his own identity. Milkmans assumption that his trip south holds the key to his liberation is correct, although it is not gold that saves him. In his ancestors world, communal and mythical values prevail over individualism and materialism; when heShow MoreRelatedEssay on Song of Solomon: A Bildungsroman of Milkman 1092 Words   |  5 PagesIt can be said that Song of Solomon is bildungsroman which is defined by The Encyclopedia Britannica as â€Å"a class of novel that deals with the [coming-of-age or] formative years of an individual†. Furthermore, in a bildungsroman, a main protagonist usually undergoes some transformation after seeking truth or philosophical enlightenment. In Morrison’s novel, the plot follows the main protagonist Milkman as he matures within his community while developing relationships with others and discovering hisRead MoreReview Of Charlotte Bronte s Jane Eyre 10879 Words   |  44 Pagesmorning...I looked neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nat ure† (369). The calm and clear weather parallels Jane’s mind after she decides to do what is best for her. When Jane arrives at Moor House, the storm represents her desperate search to find food and shelter. Characters (adjectives, quotes) Bertha Mason Insane â€Å"The honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in a lunatic asylum† (352). Beautiful â€Å"My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss

Closed Head Injury free essay sample

Thailand studying electrical engineering at the university. He was ejected from a moving vehicle, which was traveling 70 mph. His injuries included a severe closed head injury with an occipital hematoma, bilateral wrist fractures, and a right pneumothorax. During his neurologic intensive care unit (NICU) stay, Y. W. was intubated and placed on mechanical ventilation, had a feeding tube inserted and was placed on tube feedings, had a Foley catheter to down drain (DD), and had multiple IVs inserted. He developed pneumonia 1 month after admission. Closed head injuries result from a blow to the head as occurs, for example, in a car accident when the head strikes the windshield or dashboard. These injuries cause two types of brain damage. 1. Define the term primary head injury. A primary head injury (or primary impact) is also known as a â€Å"coup injury. † The injury occurs under the site of impact with an object such as a hammer or a rock. We will write a custom essay sample on Closed Head Injury or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The brain strikes the skull after the head strikes the object of impact (Lewis, et al, Fig 57-14). This is the site of the direct impact of the brain on the skull. Often there is edema around the site of impact. 2. Define the term secondary head injury. The secondary head injury is also known as contrecoup injury occurs on the side opposite the area that was impacted. These injuries tend to be more severe and overall patient prognosis depends on the amount of bleeding around the contusion site (Lewis, et al, 1425). Often it is the secondary brain injuries that show few initial symptoms and then have serious side effects days to weeks later. 3. What is normal intracranial pressure (ICP), and why is increased ICP so clinically important? Normal intracranial pressure ranges from 5 to 15 mm Hg. A sustained pressure above the upper limit is considered abnormal. Pressure changes in the brain effect the brain’s compliance. Compliance is the â€Å"expandability of the brain† With low compliance, small changes in volume occur and result in greater increases in pressure. Elevated intracranial pressure is clinically significant because â€Å"it diminishes CPP, increases risks of brain ischemia and infarction, and is associated with a poor prognosis†.

Japanese American Learning Styles free essay sample

As educators began to realize that the growing diversity of the country would eventually mean that the dominant white culture would itself become a minority, perhaps by as soon as the generation after the next, the conclusions of studies comparing the academic performance of various ethnic groups with one another would create all manner of controversy and conflict, as various interests competed to define the strategies and course of action to be undertaken to improve the American educational system. In determining some of these strategies, certain ethnic groups were assigned the label â€Å"at risk,† as the evidence used to measure their educational success showed that they lagged behind other ethnic groups in terms of measurements of their cognitive and intellectual abilities, with the various explanations as to why these deficits existed generating the most intense conflict and disagreement. The most insidious explanations came from social scientists who proposed that the condition of these at-risk groups was actually hereditary, and that their lower intelligence was â€Å"no fault of their own,† being â€Å"due to inherent shortcomings about which little can be done. We will write a custom essay sample on Japanese American Learning Styles or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page † Interestingly enough, when certain ethnic groups scored higher on IQ testing than the dominant Euro-American class, these same sociologists did not credit hereditary advantage for their success, but rather chalked these results up to differences in cultural backgrounds and child-rearing practices. From this school of thought emerged the term â€Å"model minority,† used to describe Asian-American students who outperformed white students in measures of educational achievement. The term â€Å"model minority† was first deployed in an article that appeared in The New York Times Magazine in 1966, entitled â€Å"A Success Story, Japanese-American Style. The article begins by praising the subject family for having risen above â€Å"color prejudice,† and in so doing avoiding the characteristics of those groups that the article refers to as â€Å"problem minorit(ies)†, a label used to categorize the experience of other ethnic groups at this point in history, notable primarily for the emergence of the Civil Rights movement. The political implications of such a label are described by writer Malcolm Yeung, â€Å"Asians were being used as a tool to quiet the cries of the enraged minorities (specifically African-Americans) and, on a much more subtle level, used to assuage the guilt of a white America whose system was†¦clearly not working for non-whites†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Nonetheless, the term â€Å"model minority† would grab hold of the country’s collective consciousness, and as any ethnic stereotype is bound to do, inflict damage on both its subjects (Asian-Americans, among them Japanese-Americans) and those who would view them through this narrow prism. Growing out of and emerging alongside the theories of multicultural education changing the American academic system in the second half of the twentieth century, educators would also focus their efforts to improve student performance on research which would yield more promising inventories of ways to understand and educate the growing diversity of ethnic groups comprising American classrooms, the development of learning style theories, or what educator Rita Dunn calls â€Å"instructional delivery systems responsive to how diverse students learn. In the case of â€Å"at-risk† populations, a certain urgency helped guide the development of such strategies to improve their academic performance, as the successful and effective application of an approach predicated on tailoring learning styles to address the needs of various ethnic groups could help put to rest the notion that their deficits were hereditary. In the case of Asian-Americans, who outperformed even the dominant white cu lture in America’s schools, however, there was little if any urgency involved in efforts to uncover the reasons behind these statistical outcomes. What interest and attention that was devoted to the phenomenon of Asian-American success in the American educational system at this time only served to reinforce the myth of the model minority, now a prevalent stereotype, and a deeper exploration of the â€Å"mechanisms† behind their superior performance collided with the notion that, as Grace Kao put it, â€Å"the success of Asian(-Americans) was not a problem in need of a solution. This does not and should not mean that exploring ways to improve the American educational experience for students of Japanese-American descent should be given less priority or consideration than studying, applying, and improving learning styles for students of any other ethnicity or cultural background. Indeed, given their success in the current form of that educational system, investigating and understanding more fully the role that their ethnicity plays in determining the learning style most conducive to their own academic success may be of ben efit to other students. Studying the learning styles of Japanese-Americans will not only help us to understand their unique ethnic identities as students in our own American educational system, but could help to answer the many questions that arise when studying any of the diverse ethnic populations that make up our classrooms. One such question was posed in a study done by researcher Heather Tehani Fuchigami, who asked, â€Å"Do Japanese immigrants and the learning styles representative of their cultural attributes assimilate to the prevalent ‘American’ cultural learning style by continuation in the country through second, third, and subsequent generations? Many of the assumptions and beliefs that inform American educators’ understanding of Japanese-American learning styles have most likely been designed for first-generation American immigrants or their children and may not be applicable to the generations after them, whose lives have undergone various degrees of transformation and may bear little if any resemblance to the immigrant experiences that informed their acclimation to a new country. Her study of multigenerational Japanese-Americans is of particular interest, for it is one of the very few to have examined the evolution of learning styles over many generations. Indeed, as Nellie Tran and Dina Birman tell us, â€Å"Because so many of the studies reviewed†¦have compared predominantly immigrant Asian-American subsamples to predominantly third-generation or beyond subsamples of Whites, they have confounded immigrant status with ethnicity and perhaps even overemphasized Asian immigrant experiences. † Tran and Birman warn that, â€Å"This large body of work may have created an undifferentiated and often erroneous impression that Asian Americans outperform Whites. In addition to generational status, it is important to distinguish studies of specifically Japanese-American learning styles and educational outcomes from studies of â€Å"Asian-Americans,† a category which Tran and Birman note â€Å"consist(s) of at least 30 different ethnic groups. † They warn that, â€Å"not examining the specific ethnicity of those in the Asian-American group can mask important heterogeneity among them. In particular, the lower performance of some groups (e. g. , Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders) may be concealed when they are grouped with higher-performing groups (e. . , South Asians, Japanese, Chinese). † There is some consensus in the studies about the traits which characterize the learning styles of first-generation Japanese immigrants in America, and the available literature describes it as a methodical way of learning that includes a precision-oriented preference for repetition, sequential learning, routines, and accuracy. In Heather Fuchigami’s study, she compares the cultural characteristics of Japanese immigrants to America to the traditional traits that are used to describe the American cultural learning style in the following table: JapaneseAmerican InterdependentIndependent ReservedOutspoken CautiousImpulsive ReflectiveActive HolisticSegmented ConcreteAbstract CircuitousDirect SensitiveIndifferent PreciseInterpretive This table provides some insight into the assumptions and even stereotypes by which educators often categorize Japanese-Americans, and Fuchigami notes that school systems made brochures and literature available to teachers that described their Japanese-American students in these terms. When using assessment tools specifically designed to elicit and measure learning styles in their native countries, further distinctions were found between American students and Japanese students in their native countries. In the area of decision-making, American students were found to display impersonal, individualistic, and rational tendencies, while the Japanese place value on interpersonal traits and prefer group harmony. Americans place greater value on being time-efficient and getting right to the point when sorting out differences of opinion, with the focus rarely straying from the argument t issue, while the Japanese would take time to build relationships and seek a consensus before making changes, noting that trust between parties is as important to them as the specific terms of any contract. An experiment involving American and Japanese kindergartners shows these distinctions put into practice: The children were asked to draw a picture of their family. American students imme diately set to work on the assignment, while the Japanese children waited until everyone had been given a sheet of paper and checked in with their neighbor before beginning to draw. When they finished, the Japanese students would wait until everyone else finished before turning the papers in. From this picture, we see how Japanese students are more reflective, introverted, and cooperative, and Americans are more impulsive, individualistic, and competitive. Perhaps most interesting about examples like this is that even though the Japanese students take the longest amount of time to finish assigned tasks, they also produce the fewest mistakes. In Japan, the focus of the educational system is on effort, whereas Americans tend to believe more in the strength of natural ability. Japan has had one set of standards by which all students are measured, with no special education services. There are no report cards and no retention or promotion by grade level; students are simply expected to live up to the established standards of the Ministry of Education. Many credit their perseverance and dedication to effort (known as ganbaru) for the success of their country’s educational system, in which, â€Å"Illiteracy has been almost completely eliminated,† and in which, â€Å"The average score of the lowest-scoring native Japanese classroom [is] above that of the highest-scoring American classroom. Interestingly enough, this educational system is said to be patterned upon the systems used in America and Europe in the late-1800’s. Two non-Western strategies employed in Japan are their own unique form of repetitive learning, in which students continually rewrite or recite difficult Chinese characters or passages until mastered, and â€Å"sticky prob ing,† which employs a form of the Socratic method of discussing an issue or problem while a teacher looks on and judges the results of the discussion. In her study of the evolution of the learning styles of multiple generations of Japanese-American students, Heather Fuchigami posed the hypothesis that, â€Å"It is expected that while Japanese-American students will also have acclimated many of their learning traits to traditional Western practices, pieces of their cultural heritage will still be apparent†¦and will therefore continue to manifest in their learning style. She also posits that a propensity for intermarrying with non-Asians, as well as changing times and social pressures, will contribute to the evolution of the learning style over multiple generations. The study identified the native Japanese learning style by the term â€Å"Diverger,† and the traditional Caucasian American style as the â€Å"Converger,† and administered a series of learning style assessments to first, second, third, fourth, and fifth-generation Japanese-American students. The results of the study yielded some very interesting result s. As stated by Ms. Fuchigami, â€Å"It was surprising to see that at no time did a majority of students of Japanese descent ever pull towards [the Converger] learning style, particularly because the overlying school structure was assumed to be Anglo-American, and therefore a dominating factor in the acculturation of students into the prevalent European-American learning style. † She notes that the Diverger learning style did manage to prevail throughout all generations studied, remaining as the preferred learning style of a quarter of the fifth-generation participants in the study. A new predominant learning style, however, would emerge by this fifth generation, identified by over half of the study participants. As Ms. Fuchigami describes it, â€Å"Rather than acculturating to the American ways of teaching and learning†¦at least a fourth of the population do remain true to their native descriptors of reserved, reflective, and precise, while the majority of Japanese-American students have truly evolved into a new type of learner altogether. She identifies this learning style by the term â€Å"Accommodator,† and forecasts a future in which, â€Å"†¦educators will witness the evolution of a truly distinct Japanese-slash-American culture that falls somewhere between the two native factions. † She also makes recommendations for those educators regarding how to best address this emerging population of learners, â€Å"General assumptions made about the assimilation of native cultures to the prevalent Caucasian-American culture are not true, a nd therefore should not be used as standard up on which to base curriculum design. † Finally, it is important to clarify this new learning style, identified as the preferred learning style by over 55% of one sample of fifth-generation Japanese-American students. Concrete experience and active experimentation are the foundations of this learning style, with these students drawn to leadership roles in which they can use trial-and-error and hands-on methods to accomplish tasks. These learners enjoy problem-solving and are both flexible and adaptable in the face of challenges. Being goal-oriented, they prefer to work cooperatively on assigned tasks, and prefer that new information be presented in terms of its applications in real life. Given these basic preferences, it is best to create a purposeful and organized environment for these learners, in which the educator can utilize practice and drill and demonstration strategies. A product-based emphasis should be employed, as they work with their senses and prefer that this work incorporate tangible objects rather than ideas only. Again, real world application is important to them, for unless the practical application of the subject being taught is conveyed to them, they see little reason to learn new concepts. They rely on intuition and risk-taking to solve problems, preferring to demonstrate mastery of new skills in a competitive forum. They prefer an organized classroom in which the rules and procedures are made clear, so that they can keep busy and know what is expected of them. This new learning style is characterized by a preference for questions with a right or wrong answer, rather than subjective answers that are open to interpretation. They value accuracy over creativity, and they prefer feedback on their work in those terms as well. Traditional school methods, such as worksheets, repetition, memorization, fact recall, and other work that can be easily scored, were designed for these kinds of learners.