AP LA Final: Readings
The Coddling of the American Mind is by Lukianoff and Haidt...
Americans college students are being infantilized by over precautions and "trigger warnings". They are becoming more and more sensitive to words and ideas they dislike. "The ultimate aim, it seems, is to turn campuses into "safe spaces" where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make some uncomfortable. And more than the last, this movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with that aim, even accidentally. You might call this impulse vindictive protectiveness. It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse."
I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read is by Francine Prose and it says....
And how puzzling that I should so often find myself teaching bright, eager college undergraduate and graduate students, would-be writers handicapped not merely by how little literature they have read but by their utter inability to read it; many are nearly incapable of doing the close line-by-line reading necessary to disclose the most basic information in a story by Henry James or a seemingly more straightforward one by Katherine Mansfield or Paul Bowles. ⭐️Argues that school fails to instill passion about books into students
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell inspired him to write the rest of his novels and was a true story about...
George Orwell works as the sub-divisional police officer of a town in the British colony of Burma. Because he is a military occupier, he is hated by much of the village. Though the Burmese never stage a full revolt, they express their disgust by taunting Orwell at every opportunity. This situation provokes two conflicting responses in Orwell: on the one hand, his role makes him despise the British Empire's systematic mistreatment of its subjects. On the other hand, however, he resents the locals because of how they torment him. Orwell is caught between considering the British Raj an "unbreakable tyranny" and believing that killing a troublesome villager would be "the greatest joy in the world." One day, an incident takes place that shows Orwell "the real nature of imperialism." Seeing the peaceful creature makes Orwell realize that he should not shoot it—besides, shooting a full-grown elephant is like destroying expensive infrastructure. After coming to this conclusion, Orwell looks at the assembled crowd—now numbering in the thousands—and realizes that they expect him to shoot the elephant, as if part of a theatrical performance. The true cost of white westerners' conquest of the orient, Orwell realizes, is the white men's freedom. The colonizers are "puppets," bound to fulfill their subjects' expectations. Orwell has to shoot the elephant, or else he will be laughed at by the villagers—an outcome he finds intolerable. The best course of action, Orwell decides, would be to approach the elephant and see how it responds, but to do this would be dangerous and might set Orwell up to be humiliated in front of the villagers. In order to avoid this unacceptable embarrassment, Orwell must kill the beast. He aims the gun where he thinks the elephant's brain is. Orwell fires, and the crowd erupts in excitement. The elephant sinks to its knees and begins to drool. Orwell fires again, and the elephant's appearance worsens, but it does not collapse. After a third shot, the elephant trumpets and falls, rattling the ground where it lands. The downed elephant continues to breathe. Orwell fires more, but the bullets have no effect. The elephant is obviously in agony. Orwell is distraught to see the elephant "powerless to move and yet powerless to die," and he uses a smaller rifle to fire more bullets into its throat. When this does nothing, Orwell leaves the scene, unable to watch the beast suffer
On Seeing England for the First Time by Jamaica Kincaid is about...
Her life experience in British and how she felt brainwashed by their ways. Oppressed by the British opinion of her- someone from one of their colonies- caused her to hate everything they stood for. Kincaid is cleverly laying out the central problem of the piece, where this very hatred comes as a result of her not having a clear identity, and puts the blame on British colonization. here is a surge of people like Kincaid who are worried that British colonization negatively impacted their lives, that had they been independent of the British, they would have learned to love their country.
The Cheating Culture by David Callahan is about...
The cheating in everyday life, whether it be by students or teachers or adults. The "everybody does it" pressure. Examples: doctors that push for unapproved medication for money, students that get disability advantages for tests so they have more time, cheating on tests, the stock market exploitation and how people took advantage of the unmonitored ATM machines, the lawyers who log extra billing hours so they'll be paid more, even if they hadn't done them, the auto mechanics who do repairs that aren't necessary so they can charge more, the drug use in athletes so they can excel and beat their peers etc. (look at notes for more info.)
Guernica by Picasso portrays...
The painting depicts the horrors of war and as a result, has come to be an anti-war symbol and a reminder of the tragedies of war. With symbols of light and dark and all the people affected by war. Possible reference with bull to Spanish culture. A figure sprawled supine in the foreground of the painting appears to be a corpse and is framed on both sides by living victims with their heads thrown back, wailing in agony. The figure to the left is a mother clutching a baby who appears to have died during the bombing. The chaos caused by Europe's political instability is evident in Guernica's composition, with humans and animals jumbled together into a background of broken hard-edged geometric shapes, reminiscent of Cubism. Humans and animals are on an equal footing in Picasso's Guernica, with the artist perhaps illustrating not only the simultaneous brutalization and dehumanization of humanity during wartime, but also the base, animalistic response that all living things, animals and humans, share in the face of fear and death
Education is by Ralph Waldo Emerson and talks about...
True education is only achieved through human curiosity, and that the kind of education we teach in schools is drill learning. Drill learning does not replicate Natures teaching, since it educates students to be the same, when they should really be similar. Emerson states, Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions, he means that the natural method of learning that we should achieve produces like-minded students, but students that think of their own accord unnatural learning that we utilize today produces exact minded individuals. Emerson says Here are two capital facts, genius and drill. (Emerson 189). Emerson goes on to define that drill is learning by repetition, the type of learning that nature does not favor. Emersons main solution to this issue of unnatural learning is to allow the student to learn of their own devices, since He cannot indulge his genius...when his eye is always on the clock. (Emerson 192). The Emerson classroom would be strict in rules, but free in structure, allowing a receiving mind a fury to impart it. (Emerson 191). The Emerson classroom would produce men and women that would have a fire for learning that which is imparted in their mind, that which Emerson believes is truly important. To go back to the prompt, Emerson is saying that schools are teaching universal ideas, and not like minded ones.
