Big Yellow Taxi and Field Below

For the past few weeks, we have been analyzing famous poetry in Language Arts class. We have looked at poets like Langston Hughes and Regina Spektor. Some of the most important poems we have reviewed  are "Field Below" and "Big Yellow Taxi". All authors have special purposes for writing their poems and they always have different tones when writing.

In Big Yellow Taxi, the author was talking about how she moved to a big city and she did not realize how little nature there was. She talks about how she misses the trees and the birds and how the farmer paved right over 'paradise'. When she moved to the city, she was so used to the wildlife and plants, that she didn't really think about them much, but when she left them, she wished they were there again.

Moving on to the second poem, "Field Below", it is a lot similar to the first poem. It still contains the point of a person leaving or losing something that they wish they still had. It is from the point of view of a person looking out their window in a big city apartment or hotel wishing that they still had nature as they know it. She wants to hear a rooster in the morning, see a field below her on the ground, see the sunrise and sunset. In a few ways, these two poems have many of the same points but they are just worded differently.

Parody Poem

Polly, let me tell you a story

About my field day

When I was in grade school

The excitement

has overcome me

BAM the pistol is fired

And off we go

The breeze

Slapping me in the face

Deafening me

Sprinting to the finish

I'm falling behind
But I try to keep up

and yet,

I have gone nowhere.

And the race is done

This parody is from the point of view of Donald Zinkoff during the Field Day races. This is what he is thinking during the final event of the running relay. He is trying to end with a bang and win for his team, but that doesn't happen I think the tone of this story is  self-reflective and the mood is anxious. It is a parody of Mother to Son.

Character Development; Loser

Author's Note: The purpose of this piece is to improve my Character Development score. It is written to describe what Donald Zinkoff from Loser by Jerry Spinelli evolves as a person in this story.

Donald Zinkoff starts out as a little energetic first grader that wants nothing but to make others happy. He wants to grow up fast to be a mailman like his dad and learn as much information as his brain can store. Others try to put him down, but they always end up losing themselves. Undoubtedly, this different boy is the 'Loser' of the book not only because of his ego, but also his actions.

In the start of the book, when Donald is about to go to his first day of first grade, he is running down the street to school all by himself without his mother to stop him. What this tells us, is the fact that he is independent from his first day of grade school and before. For the rest of that school year, his teacher, Miss Meeks doesn't really like him. Zinkoff doesn't care. In fact, he is prepared to spend a week in the Amazon if that is what Miss Meeks asked him to do. One more exotic essence of this boy is the fact that he has an upside-down valve in his stomach that makes him throw up at least twice a week. The farther he gets in school, the more others start to notice about him.

As he moves into the second and third grade, more and more bad things happen to him. First of all, his 'friend' Andrew moves away to a better house because he hated the old one and his father got a raise. I put quotes around friend because Donald thought of Andrew as an awesome friend, while Andrew barely noticed he was there. That didn't harm him too much because he knew Andrew would be happy where he is now. After Andrew moves, Zinkoff goes through one of the most challenging times in his life. He goes through surgery to get the valve in his stomach turned right-side-up. This means no school for him and a very important thing happens to him. He gets braver. He decides to challenge himself to go down into the cellar with no lights on. It may not seem too big a deal, but it also taught him to not be afraid and overcome his fears. An upside to moving up grades in school, is getting to know people better because you are spending more time in class and recess with them.

Finally as he moves into third grade and higher, he meets an outstanding teacher named Mr. Yalowitz. This teacher knows what it is like to be last in line, back of the classroom, and last picked in alphabetical order because he is a Y. He decides to have Donald sit in front and see what it is like to be first in the alphabet for once for a change. This gave him lots of confidence and propelled him to do better in school. Fourth and fifth grade were a lot like second grade where he did not have the greatest teachers like Miss Meeks and Mr. Yalowitz. Not only did he gain a better social life, but more knowledge and confidence.

In the end, Donald grows out of the Loser title. Andrew changed his name to Drew, and everyone is in the sixth grade and are lining up to be picked for a tackle football game on the playground. Everyone gets picked except for Zinkoff who stared down Drew until he was picked. Donald Zinkoff is definitely a dynamic character in this novel because of his actions changing and the way he changes as a person.

Afrcan Americans and Slavery

            The first African Americans arrived to Jamestown from 1619 to 1651 during the end of the Civil War. At first they were treated terribly and forced to do the white’s dirty work as slaves. Even though they lived in the same house as the whites, they weren’t even able to eat at the same table as their owner. Once the Abolition Act of Slavery came, that changed a lot of things in the lives of African Americans.

            In 1960, there was a 6 year old girl named Ruby Bridges. She was the first African American to ever attend an all-white school. I think if people could have tried harder right after slavery was completely abolished after the Civil War, African Americans could have been part of public schools earlier. Not too many people were well educated back then especially women and African Americans in general.

            First of all, many blacks experienced discrimination at one time or another even though they were free. One of the worst places it occurred in was Philadelphia. They were not allowed into many places such as schools, churches, or even public transportation systems. In Ohio, blacks weren’t allowed to do almost anything that had to do with office. They were not even allowed to testify whites in court. African Americans couldn’t even live in Ohio without proof of their freedom. As with many states, these people were restricted from many daily things for white-only use.

            Moving on, enslaved African Americans actually were allowed to physically live in the same house as their owners. Some owners liked their slaves and treated them with the respect they deserve. On the other hand, some owners just bought these people not thinking of them as humans, but as tools. They punished the slaves for many things such as trying to escape, slacking off work, and smuggling food they harvested themselves. Surprisingly, blacks could have gotten in trouble for sharing a meal at the same table with their owner even if they were invited. There were all kinds of owners and slaves, but altogether, slavery never should have happened.

            In conclusion, African Americans are still humans that feel pain and betrayal just like white people, but slave owners didn’t realize this. They thought of them as un-teachable tools that do anything for you. Even free blacks were treated like slaves only because of their color.

"Mother to Son" Response

Author's note: This is a short response for Language Arts class written about the poem Mother to Son by Langston Hughes. Also it is to improve my score in text analysis.

The poem Mother to Son by Langston Hughes is undoubtedly written from the point of a motivational mother talking he son out of giving up. Hughes is a poet, so he used some figurative language such as allusions, personification, tone, and mood.

The first kind of figurative language that this man used, is called allusion. Allusion is comparing one object to another of greater value. His example of the was when he said "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" because he is comparing his not-so-perfect-life to an, expensive, high quality, crystal staircase. Now the next part of speech is personification. Personification is when you say something like it actually happened. Langston said that his life was a bare, non carpeted floor with tacks, splinters and torn up boards. Next, there is tone. Tone is how the author views the text or what feelings or emotions he/she is trying to express. I think that he used tone by stating the same quote as before about the crystal stair.

Langston Hughes is a historical poet and what poet hasn't used figurative language at one time or another in their career? I think he did a great job using this kind of writing and he used it in all thee right places in the text. Figurative language can be used to define things better, describe things better, and insert tone/mood into stories or poems.

Retelling: Loser

Author's note: This is a writing piece retelling the events that occurred in the novel Loser, by Jerry Spinelli. The purpose of this piece is to improve my score in retelling.

The kid that always stood out, and that no one liked ,doesn't care one bit about what other's thought of him. In fact, he was the boy who would do almost anything to make another person feel better. Meet Donald Zinkoff; an exotic first grader in Satterfield Elementary School just trying to learn as much as he can and grow up faster.

Donald is as excited as if he was about to meet the president of the United States for his first day of school. He just wants to know everything about everything and become a mailman just like his Father someday. He thinks he is a completely normal person but others think the opposite especially as he grows into the fourth grade and older. When he gets to the fourth grade field day, he loses big time for his team trying to impress everyone. After that, nobody from his team likes him the least bit. Donald doesn't care, but for the other's, school just kept on coming and that mean that they were forced to see him every day. Then one day, he meet a little girl named Claudia. Her mother keeps her wearing a backpack with a leash attached to it to keep her from wandering off.

Later on, there comes a big snowstorm in which Claudia wanders into the neighbors garage when her leash wasn't on and climbs into their car pretending to drive. All Donald saw though was police cars on the street and he heard little bits from distance that he interpreted as Claudia missing out in the snow. Really, the police found her several minutes ago but Zinkoff did not know that. He thought she was still running about outside trying to play hide and seek so he went after her. Six hours passed since he started looking and then he got too cold and tired and collapsed on the ground. Later he was gladly found by the snow plow man. When he woke up, he was at home safe and sound.

In the end, he is standing in line to be picked for a playground game of tackle football. All kids are chosen except for him in the line, but he doesn't care; he stares down a team captain, Drew (his old friend and neighbor), until Drew finally feels bad and picks him. As you can see, Donald doesn't end up too bad in the end, but his life growing up would definitely be a struggle without that fearless and caring personality.