Review Of Thomas Jefferson's Essay 'In Praise Of The F Word'
SOAPS 5: “In praise of the F word” by Mary Sherry In the passage “In praise of the F word” by Mary Sherry she talks about how she teaches high school graduates that have been “cheated” by the education system. Students were just passed along to the next grade whether they understood the material or not. I know many people who have graduated from high school and still have trouble spelling some words and simpler grammar. Mrs. Stifter made a big change in some students lives, instead of just passing along students that didn’t cause much trouble and didn’t pay attention, she flunked them. This made students pay attention and made English their man subject. The students in her class more than likely did not have to attend Mary’s classes for high school graduates. Stifter wanted students to know exactly what they were doing and not just pass our classes were small and the teachers were able to help whenever needed. They also wanted the best for their students.
SOAPS 1: “Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson …show more content…
Thomas Jefferson not only wrote the Declaration but he made speech that lead to the making of the Declaration.
Within his speech he is not only sharing with the people the things that are leading them to war with England but he is also trying to inspire the people why they should fight back and what they would be fighting for. He gave this speech July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia. The people he is speaking to are the men and the women and the children of the thirteen colonies. The men that are joining the army that will help to defend and fight for the freedom of these colonies. The purpose of this speech is to inspire to encourage the people to stand strong and fight for what is right, for their rights. For everything that they now stand for. This was a pathway to
independence.
SOAPS 2: “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. made the speech “I have a dream” during the March on Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, on August 28, 1963. The speech was to create change without the use of violence. This speech was delivered after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He was speaking not only to his black community but to the white communities in America everywhere because they were more literate and had the ability to stop this oppressive behavior. The speech was a message of hope. He hoped that blacks and whites could live amongst each other in peace. This was to promote peace between the two races and to stop the violence that was coming from the differences and all the hated that was between the two races.
SOAPS 3: “Diversity is essential” by Lee C. Bollinger Lee C. Bollinger the author of “Diversity is essential” is telling the reader what was going on within the Universities around 1997. The author was at the University of Michigan when other schools were starting to bring law into the school systems about diversity and such. He is speaking to the American public and to future students and College Board members. Bollinger states that the universities are looking for diversity in their schools. They are trying to create mixtures within their school, making it very competitive. The general topic of this is to explain the many things that had to happen for diversity to happen with the school system.
SOAPS 4: “…But not at this coast” by Armstrong Williams Armstrong Williams the speaker in “…But not at this coast” is trying to show that hard work and personal achievements are the only way to get far in live. Those things like scholarships are just an easy way for people that have a good background and have good support and money, get through college without working their way through it they have it handed to them pretty much. He’s trying to say that they should really give those kinds of options to the people that really need it, to the people that cannot afford to go to a good school. This was around the time of 1997, he was speaking to the college students and upcoming college students and to the people that really should be aware of these things so that they can have a good future. The text is about how not just about things like scholarships going to rich students but also discriminates on the basis of skin color. How some universities rank applicants. How there are things that had to happen for more diversity, and for more people to be able to succeed in school and in their life. And the main thing is that people need to expect to rise and fall on our own merits, they can’t just base things on race while the needs of the poor fall by the wayside. Personal responsibility is what people need to take on.
SOAPS 6: “The right to fail” by William Zinsser Watching the television news of Bill Gates’ recent announcement about phasing out of his day-to-day role at Microsoft in two years in order to focus on giving his vast riches away through the $29 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and his talking to highly motivated and talented students who want to be the next Bill Gates, I was pleased and thought he deserves the cheers for his hard work, simplicity, compassion and philanthropy. Saying, “With great wealth comes great responsibility,” he is ready to distribute his money to improve global health and education.
Columnist Sam Lister writes, “Gates … remains fearsomely proud of his achievements and has no time for inefficiency. Spend a week with the Gateses and you see a man who won’t stand for incompetence or error, day or night.”
That sounds appropriate for the richest man in the world – even though he is a college dropout. Gates entered Harvard University in 1973 as a freshman. Soon he developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair.
In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he began in 1975 with his childhood friend, Paul Allen.
Guided by the belief the computer would be a valuable tool in every office and home, they began developing software for personal computers. The company’s success story is the stuff of legend.
I wonder what his parents thought when he became a college dropout. Did they think of him as a failure, as most parents would?
Considering his present status, it’s only appropriate that we say Gates may turn out to be Harvard’s most famous dropout.
The word “dropout” reminds me of the essay “The Right to Fail” from The Lunacy Bloom (1970) by William K. Zinsser, educated at Princeton, longtime faculty member at Yale, American critic and writer. In this piece, the writer opposes the common view of the college dropout. He points out dropping out may be the prelude to more purposeful ambition.
The writer would like “dropout” added to the English language because “it’s brief.” Professor Zinsser expresses his dislike for the way “dropout” is used as a dirty word. He applies “dropout” only to those who are under 21. For the young, dropping out is often a way of dropping in.
Yet our advertisements and TV commercials, our magazine articles are toasts to people who made it to the top. Drive the right car – so the ads imply – and the girls will be swooning into your deodorized arms or caressing your expensive lapels. Happiness goes to the man who has the sweet smell of achievement. He is our national idol and everybody else is our national “fink.”
Zinsser opines that if someone releases this fink from the pressure of attaining certain goals by a certain age, he or she has a good chance of becoming our national idol. He exemplifies with a few names, such as Jefferson, Thoreau and so on; it would be quite appropriate if today we add to his list the name of Bill Gates.
According to Zinsser, when the dreaded words “But what if we fail?” are whispered across the generation gap to parents, they should reply, “Don’t be afraid to fail,” instead of just whispering back, “Don’t.”ˇ Failure isn’t fatal. Countless people have had a bout with it and come out stronger as a result.
Luckily, such rebels still turn up often enough to prove that individualism, though badly threatened, is not extinct. We are glad to notice one such rebel. Just look at Bill Gates, director of Microsoft. He is one of those rare creations; though he was a dropout, he dropped in again at the top of his profession.
SOAPS 1: “Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson …show more content…
Thomas Jefferson not only wrote the Declaration but he made speech that lead to the making of the Declaration.
Within his speech he is not only sharing with the people the things that are leading them to war with England but he is also trying to inspire the people why they should fight back and what they would be fighting for. He gave this speech July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia. The people he is speaking to are the men and the women and the children of the thirteen colonies. The men that are joining the army that will help to defend and fight for the freedom of these colonies. The purpose of this speech is to inspire to encourage the people to stand strong and fight for what is right, for their rights. For everything that they now stand for. This was a pathway to
independence.
SOAPS 2: “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. made the speech “I have a dream” during the March on Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, on August 28, 1963. The speech was to create change without the use of violence. This speech was delivered after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He was speaking not only to his black community but to the white communities in America everywhere because they were more literate and had the ability to stop this oppressive behavior. The speech was a message of hope. He hoped that blacks and whites could live amongst each other in peace. This was to promote peace between the two races and to stop the violence that was coming from the differences and all the hated that was between the two races.
SOAPS 3: “Diversity is essential” by Lee C. Bollinger Lee C. Bollinger the author of “Diversity is essential” is telling the reader what was going on within the Universities around 1997. The author was at the University of Michigan when other schools were starting to bring law into the school systems about diversity and such. He is speaking to the American public and to future students and College Board members. Bollinger states that the universities are looking for diversity in their schools. They are trying to create mixtures within their school, making it very competitive. The general topic of this is to explain the many things that had to happen for diversity to happen with the school system.
SOAPS 4: “…But not at this coast” by Armstrong Williams Armstrong Williams the speaker in “…But not at this coast” is trying to show that hard work and personal achievements are the only way to get far in live. Those things like scholarships are just an easy way for people that have a good background and have good support and money, get through college without working their way through it they have it handed to them pretty much. He’s trying to say that they should really give those kinds of options to the people that really need it, to the people that cannot afford to go to a good school. This was around the time of 1997, he was speaking to the college students and upcoming college students and to the people that really should be aware of these things so that they can have a good future. The text is about how not just about things like scholarships going to rich students but also discriminates on the basis of skin color. How some universities rank applicants. How there are things that had to happen for more diversity, and for more people to be able to succeed in school and in their life. And the main thing is that people need to expect to rise and fall on our own merits, they can’t just base things on race while the needs of the poor fall by the wayside. Personal responsibility is what people need to take on.
SOAPS 6: “The right to fail” by William Zinsser Watching the television news of Bill Gates’ recent announcement about phasing out of his day-to-day role at Microsoft in two years in order to focus on giving his vast riches away through the $29 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and his talking to highly motivated and talented students who want to be the next Bill Gates, I was pleased and thought he deserves the cheers for his hard work, simplicity, compassion and philanthropy. Saying, “With great wealth comes great responsibility,” he is ready to distribute his money to improve global health and education.
Columnist Sam Lister writes, “Gates … remains fearsomely proud of his achievements and has no time for inefficiency. Spend a week with the Gateses and you see a man who won’t stand for incompetence or error, day or night.”
That sounds appropriate for the richest man in the world – even though he is a college dropout. Gates entered Harvard University in 1973 as a freshman. Soon he developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair.
In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he began in 1975 with his childhood friend, Paul Allen.
Guided by the belief the computer would be a valuable tool in every office and home, they began developing software for personal computers. The company’s success story is the stuff of legend.
I wonder what his parents thought when he became a college dropout. Did they think of him as a failure, as most parents would?
Considering his present status, it’s only appropriate that we say Gates may turn out to be Harvard’s most famous dropout.
The word “dropout” reminds me of the essay “The Right to Fail” from The Lunacy Bloom (1970) by William K. Zinsser, educated at Princeton, longtime faculty member at Yale, American critic and writer. In this piece, the writer opposes the common view of the college dropout. He points out dropping out may be the prelude to more purposeful ambition.
The writer would like “dropout” added to the English language because “it’s brief.” Professor Zinsser expresses his dislike for the way “dropout” is used as a dirty word. He applies “dropout” only to those who are under 21. For the young, dropping out is often a way of dropping in.
Yet our advertisements and TV commercials, our magazine articles are toasts to people who made it to the top. Drive the right car – so the ads imply – and the girls will be swooning into your deodorized arms or caressing your expensive lapels. Happiness goes to the man who has the sweet smell of achievement. He is our national idol and everybody else is our national “fink.”
Zinsser opines that if someone releases this fink from the pressure of attaining certain goals by a certain age, he or she has a good chance of becoming our national idol. He exemplifies with a few names, such as Jefferson, Thoreau and so on; it would be quite appropriate if today we add to his list the name of Bill Gates.
According to Zinsser, when the dreaded words “But what if we fail?” are whispered across the generation gap to parents, they should reply, “Don’t be afraid to fail,” instead of just whispering back, “Don’t.”ˇ Failure isn’t fatal. Countless people have had a bout with it and come out stronger as a result.
Luckily, such rebels still turn up often enough to prove that individualism, though badly threatened, is not extinct. We are glad to notice one such rebel. Just look at Bill Gates, director of Microsoft. He is one of those rare creations; though he was a dropout, he dropped in again at the top of his profession.