Ideas About Love Transcend Time

Every year at the end of the summer there was always a family member that would invite us to their block party. Generally they would would get permission from whoever and block off the street for a couple of hours. It was almost customary for everyone on the block to bring their grills in the middle of the street and everyone would have their doors open and blast their own music, and there was also that rare occasion where someone would pay for a dj. But every summer it was always the same thing.

I only enjoyed these sorts of events for two main reasons; it was the only time of the year where I could walk in the street, and you could literally go to anyone’s house on the block and eat their food without it being weird. I was either 4 about to turn 5 or 5 about to turn 6 and it was a big deal. Being as though I am my father’s only child, each new stage in my life is also new for him as a parent. After days of my mother trying to convince my dad that I was finally old to play with the other kids without so much supervision, my dad decided to give in and let and have very serious talk with me. He sat me down before the cookout and made me promise that I would a.) stay in front of the house b.) try not to talk to strangers and c.) stay out of trouble. At first this seemed like a very simple and very fair agreement. I figuratively signed my name in blood when I nodded my head yes in agreement with the terms and conditions that my father set forth.

Term number one: Tianna McNair is not allowed to move from in front of the house owned by Angela and Darrel Sykes. Any violation will result in extreme lecturing and confinement in Angela and Darrel Sykes home until further notice. Did Tianna live up to the terms of this agreement: Nope. As we were pulling up the my aunt’s house any normal person would be able to see a block party but all that I could see was my own new found freedom. I made my rounds of hellos and quick pecks on the cheek and I finally made it out the house with my sanity. I tried playing with my cousins but they were all boys and had no interest in babysitting a little girl. I then took it upon my own hands to find some people who I could relate to, people who were young and adventurous like me. So I walked up the street and found a group of kids playing tag. This back and forth and back and forth became way too repetitive in a short amount of time. Suddenly someone brought out their brand new razor scooter with the blue accent pieces. We all stood there in awe of this beautiful scooter as the shiny rails glisten in the sun. At the time having a razor scooter made you cool so this was a big deal. Everyone one was in a trance and our young instincts made us violent. Everyone began fighting over the scooter. After we came to the general consensus we all got in line and waited our turn to use it. It was finally my turn.  As I took my first couple of steps towards to  scooter I hadn’t realized that the fat kid behind me had his own agenda. He pushed me out of the way and as I tried to get up the scooter hit me in the head causing my head to crush into the ground. When I stood up everyone was staring at me weirdly then I looked down and saw blood on the ground that was coming from my busted lip.

Term number two: Tianna McNair is not permitted to talk strangers. Any violation will result in more extreme lecturing if she is not already in danger from the interaction with the stranger. I however forgot about this part of the agreement as people rushed over to help me. I don’t remember crying but I do remember being confused. One teenager boy came over to me and asked,”Do you live around here?” I was trying to process the question that was being presented to me. I mean technically no I did not live around there but my aunt lived on this block. Also I could even remember which house belonged to my family because they all looked the same and I didn’t know how far away I drifted. The boy tried again by asking,” Where is your house?” Again this wasn’t as simple as he thought I was just visiting so was interested in taking me to my actual house or is he wanted to bring me to my aunt’s house. All of my confusion stopped me from forming sentences and before I knew it my tiny finger pointed in the direction in which you had to take in order to get to my actual house which was in southwest Philly while we were all the way in north Philly. I guess the confusion got to him to so he just took me across the street, completely ignoring my directions. When we got there, all of the ladies that were sitting out ran over to me throwing a bunch of questions. I can’t even remember what I said or if I even said anything at all but all I knew was that what was about to happen was even worse than talking to strangers.

Term number three: Tianna McNair is supposed to stay out of trouble by any means necessary. Any violation will result in more trouble and harm. All I could do was think about all the trouble I was going to be in as the group of people from that one house attempted to help me find my family. We all marched around in a large group circling the entire neighborhood but little did they know they were doing more harm than good. We were actually getting farther and farther away from the house. But what I didn’t know was that in that moment my father's intuition kicked in and he organized his own search party to find me. As we were walking up the street my family was walking towards us. I was so happy I couldn't help but run to my mom. One of the ladies that I was with explained the situation to my father.

A grade is not objective -- it’s up to the  teacher’s standard of what is considered just okay versus what is considered excellent. By that logic, a student can do the same work but be deemed intelligent by one teacher and average to another. This will leave a student confused and take away their ability to accurately gauge their own intelligence. Grades are not a good incentive for doing good work in school because it is less about learning, but more so based upon a person's opinion.  

BBC, published  an article addressing a study done by Stanford University. The study was trying to figure out the effects of praising a child’s abilities or versus telling them that they worked really hard. According to the article, “Praising a child’s intelligence can teach them that this is a fixed trait that they can’t control. It can make them wary of trying anything new in case they don’t maintain their high standards.” If a students gets an A, it means that the student is “advanced”. All the work that a student does is going to maintain their advanced status. If for whatever reason a student was struggling with a certain subject and a received a C or B, they would just push it off because they think that they just aren’t good at the subject. They will not work as hard to get to the A they want because they have a fixed mindset.

Huffingtonpost.com posted an article about a high school student who decided to worry about learning instead of her grades. ” I would focus on actually learning about the topic rather than just doing what was required for the project. My grades on assignments actually improved from this decision and I did make straight A's in all my classes.” The author of the article was trying illustrate that learning is more than trying to pass. When students focus on trying to pass they absorb all the material in class and once the assignment is done they will no longer retain that information. Therefore, striving to get A’s and B’s hinders a person’s ability to gain new, long term knowledge. A person can cheat and find slick ways to get an A or a B and a person could hard really hard and that is not fair nor is it encouraging learning.

On edutopia.org, a website for teachers, posted an article about the effects of a bad teachers on good students. ”A painful few educators regularly appear bored with their subject material, lecture constantly instead of engaging students in intellectual conversation, or even seem to specialize in classroom put-downs.[...], since even hardworking students who face ineffective instruction can end up unhappy in school and incapable of getting much out of their relatively short time in the classroom.” A teacher’s ability to teach is another key factor in the whether or not a student, who wants to learn, will be able to grasp the content. A teacher can be unfit for teaching and the students will suffer, so giving the bad teacher the power to judge whether or not a student deserves a good grade is unfair to the kid. It is unfair to the students because they have to do a lot of work to gain some sort of content from a lesson that wasn’t the best to begin with. In the end, the grade will not reflect the student’s actual intelligence, instead it will only reflect how hard they worked.

When asked, teachers might say that grades are a good incentive for doing good work. But on close inspection, grades do more harm than good. In the end, going to school to get an education is about learning and what a student takes away from it in the long run. However, traditional grades do not support that. Grades do not reflect a person’s knowledge but their work ethic instead, and they tend to do more damage in the long run because they cause less motivated students to fall behind even though they may still be very smart. Over time a student will not

Bibliography

“Is Praising a Child Good or Bad for Them?” BBC. Web. 8 Oct. 2015. <http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140204-is-it-right-to-praise-a-child>

“Punished By Rewards?: A Conversation with Alfie Kohn - Alfie Kohn.” Alfie Kohn. N.p., Feb. 1995. Web. 8 Oct. 2015. <http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/punished-rewards-article/>

Rubino, Jen. “Grades Vs. Learning.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jen-rubino/grades-vs-learning_b_2525903.html>

“The Secret To Raising Smart Kids.” Scientific American Global RSS. Web. 8 Oct. 2015. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids1>

When people think of a good story they usually think of interesting characters, a unique plot, and a great setting. But what people fail to realize is that in order to have all of those things you need to be a great writer with a lot of different techniques to enhance the passage. In “The Coldest Winter Ever” the author Sister Souljah used her artistic abilities to give vivid details and descriptions to allow her readers to experience the book with the characters. A author’s skillful use of similes and metaphors helps paint a vivid picture of whatever scene she is writing about and helps the reader picture and connect to whatever she is writing about. It also makes the story more enjoyable. The author’s writing style strongly affects and influences the finished work.

In the book “The Coldest Winter Ever” Winter Santiaga, the main character, is describing Midnight, her crush, while he is playing basketball. Winter say’s ”But what really got me was that black skin. It was smooth and perfect. It laid on top of his bone structure like tight Saran Wrap.” This works because we all know what Saran Wrap looks like when it’s over top of something. It is generally smooth and shiny. This helps us to picture how nice Midnight’s skin and how his bone structure is really defined. Also the use of words like “perfect” and “smooth”  help the reader to feel the same attraction Winter feels as she tell us about her crush. Had she just said she has really nice skin and she likes it the story wouldn’t be the same. But because she put the emphasis on this particular aspect it helps the readers to share the same emotions as her.

In this part of “The Coldest Winter Ever”, Winter is helping the reader get familiar with the setting and introducing the readers to the characters. She begins by telling the readers about growing up in Brooklyn with her family in the projects. Winter then continues on to say,“Chemical warfare is the only way to describe what happens when cheap perfume, body splash, body spray, underarm deodorant, curl activator, hair spray, and pissy Pampers collide.” Sense of smell and memories are closely linked together. One scent can trigger a memory or emotion. Because of this I feel as though it was very smart for sister souljah, or any writer for that matter, to mention all of these different scents. The pampers remind me of annoying crying babies. The curl activator and hair spray and perfume remind the reader of black hair salons. With all of these scents with my own personal memory attached to them I can easily picture what it’s like standing in the hallway that was mentioned.

In this part of the book Winter had assumed that Sister Souljah and Midnight were dating  and Winter grew jealous because she wanted him. Winter finds the letter’s that Sister Souljah and Midnight have been sending to one another and finds out that they were not dating. Midnight only went to her to get his life together. In the letter Sister Souljah is describing why he should change his ways and give up selling drugs. Sister souljah says, “Drugs rob every person, man, woman, and child of their beauty. Drugs turn people into animals who can only respond to instincts. Drugs are so powerful they eradicate the God in both the taker and the giver.”Sister Souljah could have easily just said drugs are bad for everyone. Had she said that it would have erased all of the emotion that is linked to what she originally said. By her using words like rob shows how unexpectedly, forceful, and harmful drugs are to users and their families. By her using such harsh words it helps the reader to feel the same disgust and sadness she was trying to portray.

Goodreads.com is a website where people can read and write book reviews and create reading list. On the website a user by the name of Kay Prime left a review on the website expressing how much she enjoyed the book and how great of a writer the author is. Kay prime said,“ The voice that Souljah gave Winter is still there. She is well- written, raw and real.” This shows how the character is relatable. The only reason that she feels this way is because when you can picture everything that is going on. When the author uses very brilliant descriptive details it helps the reader to connect to what’s going on. This is especially true when the author makes references to things that you can understand which adds to the “raw” and “real” feelings you get while reading.

Writing is so much more than putting words on a page. Writing is about using your skill set to get creative and write stories with different techniques like similes metaphors, symbolism, and different story structures. A book without descriptive details would be very dull. The writing wouldn’t be as impactful. This also adds emotions and helps guide the tone and the mood of the story.

Works Cited

Souljah. The Coldest Winter Ever: A Novel. New York: Pocket, 1999. Print.

It was the night of my SLA interview. My mom dropped me off in the morning, around 9 am and we all traveled up to the fifth floor and settled in the 10th and 11th grade english classroom.  The huge windows showcased the picturesque Philadelphia skyline. The suns rays reflected off of the buildings and made room warm and cozy.  It was beautiful.  As the hours passed, the kids left one by one, until, I was the only person in the medium sized classroom. It was pitch black outside and the room was dead silent.

“It’s your turn.”

I slowly stood up, made my way to the door, and we walked around the corner in the vacant hallways. My hands were clammy and shaking from my uncontrollable nerves. We approached the classroom door and the girl turned over slightly to look at me. ”It’s ok to be nervous. Just be yourself and you’ll do great.”

“Thanks.” I tried my hardest to create a smile that didn’t look overly forced. I failed. I pushed open the door. The man and the student next to him both smiled and welcomed me in. I kept making mental notes to remind myself to enunciate my words and pronounce all of my vowels. The last thing I needed was for them to think I was unprofessional. The man and the student began to ask me questions about my project. The whole time I was zoned out trying to suck back all of um’s, like’s, and so’s that were forcefully trying to creep their way back into my sentences.

“What do you think you can bring to the SLA community?”

“I ...ah ...wahhh...I...umm… could you repeat the question please?”My face was bright red and my hands were soaking wet. But most importantly I knew exactly what the man had just asked me, i was trying to think of something that sounded interesting. I was also trying to redeem myself for saying umm so many times I just needed to breathe and put on a different persona.

“Yes of course sweet heart. What do you think you can bring to the SLA community?”

“I believe that I can end cliques and also I could just be a person that anyone can talk to.”  

Nervous was an understatement. I felt as if I had to erase all of the “Tianna” out of my system and try to become someone else. In The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingstan, the protagonist’s mother cuts the tongue of her daughter to help her speak, and in his quote she is explaining why. ”I cut [your tongue] so that you would not be tongue-tied. Your tongue would be able to move in any language. You’ll be able to speak languages that are completely different from one another. You’ll be able to pronounce anything.”

The way you talk is sort of like a sponge. It is made up of your environment, your city, your age, in some cases your race or sex. Most of those things are things that people use to make assumptions about your character. It is easy for them to judge you based off of the way you speak because everything that makes up the way you speak can also be used to discriminate against you. So in order to avoid that, people feel the need to code switch so that people can not make false assumptions about who you are and where you come from.

When the author says “cut your tongue ... your tongue will be able to move in any language“, it reminds me of when you code switch. You cut all the ties that connect you to where you come and many more things that make you, you.

Code switching is when you switch the way you talk when you enter a different setting. There are many different reasons why people code switch. One example would be, when you switch from speaking slang with your friends to speaking standard english when you have a conference with a teacher. Another example would be when you speak spanish at home and you switch to speak english outside of the home.

In the passage “Hunger of Memory” by Richard Rodriguez , Richard describes growing up in Sacramento with his Mexican immigrant parents. In the quote on page 13, Richard explains how his parents have two different personas, one in the comfort of their home and one for when they have to speak to people in a more formal setting outside of the home.“In public, my father and mother spoke a hesitant, accented, not always grammatical English. And they would have to strain-their bodies tense-to catch the sense of what was rapidly said by los gringos. At home they spoke Spanish. The language of their Mexican past sounded in counterpoint to the English of public society. The words would come quickly, with ease. Conveyed through those sounds was the pleasing, soothing, consoling reminder of being at home.” Richard explains how his parents had to acquiesce in order to get what they need so that they could get ahead. Similar to Richards parents  I also had to acquiesce to a different vernacular that was deemed socially acceptable which was different to the way I’m used to speaking.

Mi cliente nombre es Holly Dancy y ella es 22 años. Quiere ser un professora. Ella colores favoritos es amarillo y verde. Holly le gusta jugar básquetbol, voleibol, fútbol, y nadar. En su tiempo libre le gusta cocinar, leer, ver la tele y películas, pintar, y hacer arte y poesía. En el futuro, quiere dos niños y un esposo. No quiere un mascota.

La casa esta en Rabat, Morocco. La casa está cerca de la ciudad, muchas tiendas y supermercados. La casa está lejos de Filadelfia. La casa es mediana con uno piso. La casa es conveniente porque hay muchos cosas ella le gusta dentro. La casa es espectacular con un montón de árboles. La cocina es elegante y moderna con mucho ventanas enorme con vistas de piscina. La puerta en la cocina conduce a piscina grande con sillas a relajarse y leer. La comedor es muy simple pero es surprisingly bonito. Hay ventanas y mucho luz del sol. Tu y su familia comen en la sol. La dormitorio #1 es muy magnífica porque hay un baño ir con lo. El baño #1 es todo blanco con luz del sol y una ducha de lujo fuera.  Hay una oficina personal. Usted lata escriben poesía, trabajan, surfear la red, estudian, o ver la tele solo. La casa tiene dos dormitorios extra para niños o invitado. La casa tiene un garaje para carros. Este casa grandísimo es la casa de sus sueños y lo es de venta.

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The one thing that I love more than food is traveling. So that being said I made my slide/billboard display this passion. My visual has hearts in each continent which symbolizes,to fully understand who you are you have to find yourself via traveling. I wanted it to be simple so I tried to use only a few words with a cute simple visual. I have some contrast(the white and red). I also tried to leave empty space, (upper far right and lower far left). I tried to the best of my ability to use rule of thirds by placing them as you can see.  And I made sure that I made my type big and easy to read, and my font design was consistent.  Also my slide has one point and one point only.