Short Paper #3. My life with race Essays - Nelle A. Coley, Pedagogy

Short Paper #3. My life with race Essays - Nelle A. Coley, Pedagogy Short Paper #3. My life with race In Mondays class you asked us to write down what we think our race and ethnicity were. On my paper I wrote down my race being (Black) American and ethnicity as African/ Native American descent. The reason I say my race is Black is because thats the class of race they give us in America. 50 years ago the black race was called the colored people, and 50 years before that we were the Negroes. Therefore since the people that came before me who also had the same physical variations as me fought this title in American society, I will gladly and proudly represent it. Now when I was younger race never came to my mind. I always saw people for who they were. And to me they were just well, people. People of different variations to say the least but in the end just people. It wasnt till I reached middle school were the concept of race was really, in a sense, forced upon me. Going to an L.A.U.S.D. public school I was exposed to a lot of things at an early age. I remember girls getting pregnant when I didnt even know what the concept of sex was, but Im getting of topic here. In middle school the hardest class for me to attend was history and the lesson on slavery. Being one of the only two black kids in the class surrounded by white and brown kids made it more horrible. In my younger years my mom already took me to plenty of African American study class growing up so I knew most of my black history. But this never changed my mind on the concept of people. However, it just made me twitch inside and think twice about others when people would laugh when ou r teacher would say the word Negro or nigger in a text. Then after they would laugh, theyd look at me for like a confirmation that it was okay or something (this got me in a couple of fights). It took me a while to understand that this is just the way most people are and how they viewed others in society. To this day I can honestly say, in my 21 years of living in this beautiful and corrupt world, that I have been through a lot. However I am glad that all of these thing have happened to me because they made the person that I am today. But I do have on phrase that gets me kind of frustrated on the inside. It goes like this. A couple of weeks ago I was heading to class. Before I went to class I stopped at the cafeteria where I saw my friend Natalie. She and I left the cafeteria at the same time however, for some odd reason she chose to go the long way instead of cutting across the quad. Therefore when she got to the class I was already in my seat because the rout she chose took almost twice the time it would have took me. So when she sees me in my seat she says, Wow Andrew you got here so fast, its because youre black Just let that sink in What does that even mean?!? Because you chose the longer rout and I chose the shorter rout, then me arriving in class before you did is a racial diff erence This phrase, Its because youre black Is the reason why I know there is slight racism on this campus. When I stop hearing people say this stupid ignorant phrase around school and just in general, then Ill know that society is changing for the better.

Understanding the Roles Characters Play in Literature

Understanding the Roles Characters Play in Literature Every great story has great characters. But what makes a great character? The main character is central to a story and needs to be â€Å"round† or complex, with depth and distinctive qualities. A cast of supporting characters can be of various types- even â€Å"flat† or uncomplicated ones, who nonetheless help move the story along. Definition A character is an individual (usually a person) in a narrative  in a work of fiction or creative nonfiction.  The act or method of creating a character in writing is known as characterization. In British author E.M. Forsters 1927 â€Å"Aspects of the Novel,† Forster made a broad yet worthwhile distinction between flat and round characters. A flat (or two-dimensional) character embodies â€Å"a single idea or quality.† This character type, Forster wrote, â€Å"can be expressed in one sentence.† In contrast, a round character responds to change: he or she â€Å"is capable of surprising [readers] in a convincing way,† Forster wrote. In certain forms of nonfiction, particularly biographies and autobiographies, a single character may serve as the primary focus of the text. Etymology The word character comes from the Latin word meaning mark, distinctive quality† and ultimately from the Greek word that means scratch, engrave. Observations on Character In â€Å"Essentials of the Theory of Fiction,† Michael J. Hoffman and Patrick D. Murphy wrote: â€Å"If, in a sense, the  flat character  embodies an idea or quality, then the round character encompasses many ideas and qualities, undergoing change and development, as well as entertaining different ideas and characteristics.†(Michael J. Hoffman and Patrick D. Murphy, Essentials of the Theory of Fiction, 2nd ed. Duke University Press, 1999) Mr. Spock as a Round Character â€Å"Mr. Spock, my favorite character in ‘Star Trek,’ was James T. Kirk’s best friend and one of the most interesting characters ever written for television. Spock was a Vulcan-human hybrid who struggled for many years with his dual heritage before he finally found peace through acceptance of both parts of his heritage.†(Mary P.  Taylor, Star Trek: Adventures in Time and Space, Pocket Books, 1999) Thackeray’s Description of Lord Steyne â€Å"The candles lighted up Lord Steyne’s shining bald head, which was fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw was underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin. He had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon. A short man was his lordship, broad-chested, and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee.†(William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1847–48) Narrator as a Character in the Personal Essay â€Å"[In a personal essay], the writer needs to build herself into a character. And I use the word character much the same way the fiction writer does. E.M. Forster, in ‘Aspects of a Novel,’ drew a famous distinction between ‘flat’ and ‘round’  characters- between those fictional personages seen from the outside who acted with the predictable consistency of caricatures, and those whose complexities or teeming inner lives we come to know. ... The art of characterization comes down to establishing a pattern of habits and actions for the person you are writing about and introducing variations into the system. ...The point is to begin to take inventory of yourself so that you can present that self to the reader as a specific, legible character. ...The  need thus exists to make oneself into a character, whether the essay uses a first- or third-person narrative voice. I would further maintain that this process of turning oneself into a character is not self-absorbed navel-gazing. But rather a potential release from narcissism. It means you have achieved sufficient distance to begin to see yourself in the round: a necessary precondition to transcending the ego- or at least writing personal essays that can touch other people.†(Phillip Lopate, â€Å"Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a Character.† Writing Creative Nonfiction, edited by Carolyn Forchà © and Philip Gerard, Story Press, 2001) Details of Character â€Å"To achieve a fully dimensional character, fictional or real, a writer must watch people closely, much more closely than the average person would. He or she looks especially for anything unusual or distinct about the person or persons involved but does not ignore what is ordinary and typical. The writer then reports, in as interesting a way as possible, these poses, posturings, habitual gestures, mannerisms, appearances, glances. Not that the writer limits observations to these, but these frequently appear in creative nonfiction writing.†(Theodore A. Rees Cheney, Writing Creative Nonfiction: Fiction Techniques for Crafting Great Nonfiction, Ten Speed Press, 2001) Composite Characters in Nonfiction ï » ¿Ã¢â‚¬Å"The use of a composite character is a dubious device for the writer of nonfiction because it hovers in a gray region between reality and invention, but if it is employed the reader should be made aware of the fact early.†(William Ruehlmann, Stalking the Feature Story, Vintage Books, 1978)