Presentation for "The Twelve"

           

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Patons Theme

       In, Cry, the Beloved Country, Paton discusses many themes over the course of Book I. Paton's theme can be interpreted as many different topics. Although secondary themes occur throughout the course of Book I, I believe the main theme is corruption and injustice. I believe this is the main theme of the book because in almost every scene of the book someone has either committed a crime or is facing injustice.
     
       Corruption is one of the main themes in Cry, the Beloved Country. There are many instances in Book I where once good people are committing crimes and indecencies. I believe that the only reason these people are committing such negative actions is because they have been corrupted. These formerly good hearted Natives are being corrupted and are having their Native heritage sucked out of them. These people are being changed by the city known as Johannesburg. As the book states, "All roads lead to Johannesburg," and ,"..once you go to Johannesburg, you do not come back." These are prime examples of how Natives are being corrupted of their Native ways by bad influences, the main one being the big city of Johannesburg.  Corruption is one of Alan Patons theme in Book I of his Cry , the Beloved Country.

      Injustice is another main theme in Book I of Cry, the Beloved Country. In Book I, injustice is just as common as corruption. In Johannesburg, Natives are always facing injustice from the Whites. Whites have been discriminating and oppressing the Natives for many years. At the start of the book an injustice is committed when Kumalo has just arrives in Johannesburg and a man steals his money. Johannesburg is well known for people to commit crimes and injustices all the time. Another example of an injustice in Book I is when Kumalos son, Absalom, murders Arthur Jarvis. Injustice is another main theme of Book I of Cry , the Beloved Country.
     
    The theme in Cry, the Beloved Country can be interpreted as many different things, but I believe that corruption and injustice are the main themes of Book I. Book I is full of instances were the preceding themes are apparent. I believe corruption and injustice are the main themes of Cry, the Beloved Country.

Passing the Torch

Kyle Vandergriff

19 November 2012

Ms. Harmon

Pre AP English 10

Passing the Torch   

As the checkered flag is thrown on the racetrack, success fills my veins. I had done it. I had won my first race. I see the smiles of my family and friends as I whiz by in the car. I look at my dad especially, a big smile of happiness on his face.The joy of my dad being proud of me drowns out the joy of winning. I feel like I accomplished my father’s goal for me. For me to win my first race. As I ride by them to , I drive onto the scales to see if my car is legal weight. The operator gives me a thumbs up. I drive off the scales then back to my trailer. As I get out of my car, I am flooded with congratulations. I had won my first race! I think about all of the times I had watched my dad win. Now it was my time. I had won.  

            I’m five years old, sitting with my mom, watching my dad race. I watch his brightly car go around and around. As I watch, I wish I could be like him someday. The roaring of the cars fill my ears. I watch as my father passes more and more cars. I look at the bright lights of the scoreboard to see who is winning. My dad is in third. A few laps later he passes the two cars fighting for the lead. The checker flag is waved and my dad wins the race. My mom erupted in shouts and hoorahs. We all went down to to the track to get the winning picture taken. Everyone was as happy as could be on the ride back home.

Butterflies flutter in my stomach as I strap into my racecar.

“Are you ready,” asks one of my pit crew members. I shake my head yes and he walks away. I put on each piece of my safety belts on very carefully. I was about to be in my first race. Im only fourteen and would be racing against people who have been racing for fourteen years. I put on my helmet and fasten the straps on it. I think about all of the work we did in the summer to get to this moment. All the sweat and hard work put into the car, everything lead up to this exact moment. I didn’t know if I was ready for it to happen or not, but it was going to happen either way. A voice came over my radio.

“Late models start getting ready to go out on the track.” It was the race official. It was almost time for me to start my first race. I put on the steering wheel and make sure it is locked in place. I close my eyes and think of all the times I had sit in the stands and watched my dad raced. Now he was sitting in the stands watching me.

“Late models, you can go out on the track now.” It was time. There was no more delaying the inevitable. I was about to start my first race. I ease on the gas pedal and the car lurches forward. I pull out on the track. I look at the crowd of people in the stands. I look at my dad. I pull into my position. We start coasting around the track to get into formation. The green flag is waved and just like that I had started my first race.

Now I am back to my first win. I stand there with my family as we get the winning picture taken. It was all smiles from my family and friends. I felt like I made my dad proud. It was like a passing of the torch. My dad had won a lot of races now he was passing the torch to me. Hopefully I will be able to someday pass the torch to one of my children. The flash of the camera blinds us all while we get the picture taken. Now I was the one getting their picture taken, just like my dad did many years ago.

Bookmarks and Broken Hearts

                      As a child, I dont remember actually learning how to read. It was just one of those things that I knew how to do as I grew up. I know that there was a time were I learned how to put letters together and know what they made, I just do not remember that far back.  On the other hand, I do remember children books with my mom. She would read a sentence and then I would read the next. Soon after that, I was able to read all the books by myself without any help from my mother. That was the way I learned how to read.

                 As a small child, I always tried to read. I would read billboards on the way to kindergarten and then I would tell my mom what they said.  When my mom would read the newspaper, I would try and read it with her. My mother was the person that helped me read and I am very thankful for her. As I aged, my mom introduced me to the Junie B. Jones series. It was a book series about a girl in second grade who did wacky things. I was addicted to the book series and I thought it was very interesting. The only reason I thought it was good is because I was very young at the time. Now I see that the book series is so basic that I could have written them. My reading skills kept growing and growing as I began to age.
                  As I grew up, I still tried to increase my reading ability. In third grade, we were introduced to a reading program called Accelerated Reading. This program invovled reading books and then taking a quiz on them to earn points. This helped me read more types of books.  While in school, my reading level was always much higher than the other students in my class. I would read seventh grade level books while I was still in fifth grade. Although my vocabulary was not very big, I still tried to figure out what certain words meant. I thought of myself as a very good reader at my age and that made me feel proud.

               Now I as I approach the old age of 16, I read a lot these days.Although,  I usually dont get to read what I want, such as novels and short stories, I still get to read history books and math books for homework. I know it is not the most interesting thing to read about, but I am very thankful for knowing how to read and being able to read anything I want. Reading is a very important skill to being succesful, so I am beyond glad. I have read many books in my life and plan to read many more in my life. I hope I grow old reading. I am so glad I learned how to read and that I get to read everyday in my life. Reading is very important to my life.

I Am...

I am a normal high school student.
I wonder what I will do after highschool.
I heat the sounds of success.
I see my parents smiling at graduation.
I am a normal high school student.

I pretend that I dont care about my future.
I feel myself getting older and older.
I touch my backpack as I go to school.
I worry about my family.
I am a normal high school student.

I understand that hard works pays off.
I say Im ready for the future.
I dream about making a lot of money.
I hope I am successful.
I am a normal high school student.

The Legend of Esteban Julio Ricardo Rodriguez Montoya

       Is keeeping a dead body in your house weird? To many people , hacing a dead body in your house in insane. But to the people in the village in "The Story of the Most Handsomest Drowned Man" it was normal. In the story, the people in the village find a dead body and they take care of him like he is one of their own. The people started caring for the man so much that they stopped focusing on theirselves.  They cleaned cared for the body day and night, ignoring their own needs to help the man. They even thought of a name for the dead man. I think that the people in the village should have stopped worrying about someone else and their past and start focusing on their future.
        I did not see why the people in the village thought so highly of the dead man. I did not know if he was just a regular man or if he had supernatural qualities. I think the people in the village felt bad for the man because he was so big. They probably thought the man had a tough life so they thought that caring for him made him hapy in his afterlife, but that is my opinion. The man being brought to the village also inspired the people to do tasks that the man would do around the village. So they basically started doing things that they thought were impossinble. Even though the villagers were inspired by the man, I still think the villagers should have not spent so much time with the dead man, and they should have worried about their own lives.