Upfront Essay

Zainah Gadoui   711   ELA                    

         Imagine having to spend all of your senior year in high school studying. No watching TV or video games, no dating, nothing to do but study. It would be terrible, and the only thing that would make it worse would be to have that test be the only thing that matters in your life after high school. Well, that’s what happens to the millions of high school students in China who have to take the gaokao. The gaokao is basically the Chinese version of the SAT’s or ACT’s but with much more riding on it. It’s absolutely not fair that so much is riding on a single test.

         If they don’t do well on the gaokao, that’s it. They wont get to go to college, and they’ll have to go into manual labor. You can see this with the quote “The boys knew that manual labor would be their fate too, if they failed to do well on the gaokao.” This shows that it’s normal to have everything be in the hands of a single test. They cant afford to do anything besides manual labor, and their fathers spent a year away working 12 hour days every day, and now that their fate.

         Spending your entire senior year of high school studying intensely is the norm for the millions of the Chinese high school students that take the gaokao test. Having your entire future lying on a test is utterly unfair to students and teachers.

poems essay

Zainah Gadoui 711        Essay

         Have you ever thought someone in your family doesn’t do much for you? Ever thought that they don’t love you like you love them? Turns out, they probably do, but have a different way of showing it. Or maybe you’re not looking close enough.  “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke convey different attitudes from the speakers to their fathers.

         “Those Winter Sundays” and “My Papa’s Waltz” both show the attitude of love towards theirs fathers at the end of the poem. This is shown in “Those Winter Sundays” with the quote, “What did I know, what did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?” This shows that not everyone can see love even though (in these cases) its there. The speaker feels regretful that they didn’t appreciate their father’s love when it was there. The second poem, “My Papa’s Waltz”, shows love with the lines “Then waltzed me off to bed/ still clinging to your shirt.” I think that “My Papa’s Waltz” was about child abuse. This shows that the speaker still loves their father even though he was hurting them.

         In “Those Winter Sundays”, the speaker was indifferent to their father up until the ending. This demonstrates that idea “Speaking indifferently to him/ who had driven out the cold/ and polished my good shoes as well.” This shows that the speaker didn’t realize how much their father did for them. He woke up early, warmed up the house, and polished their good shoes, and the speaker didn’t even realize. In “My Papa’s Waltz” the speaker expressed love to their father the entire time. This shows that idea “Could make a small boy dizzy/ But I hung on like death/ such waltzing was not easy.” This reveals that the speaker loved his father the entire time, even though it wasn’t easy to love him after what he did.

         Both poems express different things about the speakers’ fathers. One was indifferent to their father until the end, when they realized how much love he expressed. The other poem showed that the speaker loved their father even though it wasn’t easy because he was beating them. Overall, love is important, as is appreciation for what others do for you.

A Wrinkle in Time essay

Zainah Gadoui 711          

         Whose perspective is missing in the text? What would it be like if we put it back? This, I think, is an important question to ask when reading A Wrinkle in Time. Charles Wallace is an important character, and the readers would benefit from having his perspective.

         One of the things we would learn from having Charles Wallace’s perspective is how much more he knew than Meg. This quote shows this, “Not now Meg,’ Charles Wallace said. ‘Slowly. I’ll tell you about it later.’” This shows that even though he’s so young, he knows so much, much more than he’s letting people know. He understands everything on a deeper level than everyone else, even people who are 3 times his age.

         Another thing that readers would learn from having Charles Wallace’s perspective is while he knows a lot about what people are thinking, he doesn’t know everything about what’s happening. Charles Wallace is the dependent, loveable character that is supposed to know all. “Beside her, a tremor went through Charles Wallace, but he sat very still.” This makes me think that Charles Wallace wants to be the person that everyone turns to when they’re confused or afraid, but he cant be when he doesn’t understand something.

         Overall, Charles Wallace is an important character who would have made the story better with his perspective. Readers would have known how his brain worked, to when he was terrified. It would comfort us when he knew what was happening, and given us a chill when he didn’t. His perspective would have made A Wrinkle in Time better.