The story I would like to talk about is written by a well-known American science-fiction writer Isacc Asimov. Most of Asimov’s popular science books explain scientific concepts in a historical way. The Fun They Had first appeared in a children’s newspaper in 1951 and was Written by Asimov as a personal favour for a friend.
The story runs about future events. Two children, Margie and Tommy, who read a real paper book, that Tommy has found on the attic. Tommy tells Margie about schools of 90’s and Margie wants to learn more about it, as she has never seen such a school. Margie has a personal mechanical teacher and she hates it. The rest of the day Margie’s thought occupies the idea what the fun it would be to go to an ordinary school.
The text under analysis can be divided into 4 parts according to the number of participants. In the first part there are two participants: Tommy and Margie, who spend time together at the yard and read the book, also Tommy tells Margie about the old books. The second part is about Margie’s complains about her mechanical teacher. Here we find three participants: Margie, her mechanical teacher and The County Inspector. In the third part there are again two participants – Margie and Tommy. Tommy tells about the rules of old schools. And in the final part there are two participants: Margie and her teacher, that she hates.
The Essay on Teacher & school
The positive and negative behaviors exhibited by teachers determine, to a great extent, their effectiveness in the classroom and, ultimately, the impact they have on student achievement. Several specific characteristics of teacher responsibilities and behaviors that contribute directly to effective teaching are listed for each of the following categories: The teacher as a person Classroom ...
The general slant of the abstract can be characterized as humorous and a bit nostalgic. The atmosphere is created by the means of vivid dialogues in which colloquial words are used (“stupid”, “gee” etc.).
Besides the comparison is used to create a humorous effect (“She was eleven and hadn’t seen as many books as Tommy had. He was thirteen.”).
The climax of the story is reached in the third part when Margie knows about how the process of education has been arranged centuries ago. It is reached with the help of simili (“my farther knows as much as my teacher”, “A man can’t know as much as a teacher.”) Also for creation the atmosphere the author employs some words such as “hate”, “scornful”, “funny”, “sorrowfully”.
The text under analysis presents a piece of 3rd person narration intercepted with dialogues to make the story more vivid and true to life. The auther employs middle-from-the-beginning technique so the reader is plunged into the narration as if he were familiar with situation. It helps the author attract the reader’s attention. The author makes use of the flashback technique to show Margie’s attitude to her teacher.
The bulk of words consists of neutral words though we come across some colloquial words such as “gee”, “stupid”, “betcha” and others. Also contradiction forms are used (“what’s”, “it’s”, “can’t”).
They help to create vivid dialogues, informal atmosphere of children’s communication. As the writer is an American there are some Americanisms as “sure”, “I guess”. In the text there are words of some semantic fields. One of them is school which is represented by such words as “teacher”, “homework”, “school”, “test”, “mark” to create true-to-life atmosphere.
As the text is the story about the future with developed science and technology there are some technical terms as “slot”, “wires”, “screen”, “punch code”. Also there are some words from the semantic field of emotions such as “hate”, “fun”, “sorrowfully”, “scornful” which are used to create the slant. Besides some scientific terms are used (“telebook”, “mechanical teacher”, “geography sector”).
The Essay on Mensa Workout Creativity Word Test
Overall, I believe I scored a bit low on the MENSA "workout." My official score was 17 correct answers out of a possible 30. A bit disappointing indeed. I really did not know what to expect before conducting the test, but when I did it, I was a little disheartened. I do think it was somewhat difficult. However, I did expect to score at least 20 correctly. There are numerous reasons why I believe I ...
The author employs such phraseological units as “to be through with”, “to read smth over smb’s shoulder”, “take smth apart”, “put smth together” to make the narration more vivid. However phraseological units are used in the author’s speech as the children are not old and educated enough to use them.
Some lexical stylistic devices can be found in the text, though not many. Among them there are metaphor (“a real book”, “round little man”, “regular teacher”), epithets (“crinkly pages”, “funny school”, “ugly thing”), metonymy (“superior eyes”), oxymoron (“awfully funny”), hyperbole (“our television screen must have millions of books on and it’s good for plenty more”, “she hated it more than ever”, “centuries ago” said he pronouncing words carefully”, “the mechanical teacher calculated the mark in no time”), comparison (“She was eleven and hadn’t seen as many books as Tommy had. He was thirteen.”), gradation (“test after test, worse and worse”, “hundreds and hundreds years ago. Centuries ago.”), zeugma (“he was a man with a red face and a whole box of tools”), similie (“my farther knows as much as my teacher”, “A man can’t know as much as a teacher.”), personification (“mechanical teacher was waiting for her”, “mechanical teacher was giving a test after test”, “the screen said”, “words stood still instead of moving”).
These devices are used to create ironical atmosphere. Such amount of lexical stylistic devices can be explained by the fact that the main part of the text represents in the form of the dialogue among the children and they don’t used to use some special stylistic devices.
As for syntactical stylistic devices, there are antithesis (“the words that stood still instead of moving”), rhetorical question (“What’s there to write about school?”), parallel constructions (“my father know as much as a teacher. A man can’t know as much as a teacher.”, “it was giving a test after test and she had been doing worse and worse”), synonymic repetition (“hundreds and hundreds years ago”).
Student Council Day School Election
Election Day 1999 was a day larger than me and larger than my school. For me, however, all that mattered that day was the student council election in which I was a candidate for vice president. Earlier that year, I had been encouraged by my friends to run for the position of class representative. I was initially apprehensive about taking on the responsibilities of my schoolwork, as well as the ...
Also there is one case of aposiopesis (“And the teachers were people…”) and one case of suspense (“Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper.”).
They are used to create humorous effect.
The author brings in the text both types of sentences simple and composite ones. Simple sentences can be found mostly in dialogues. Composite sentences are the feature of the author’s speech. The author employs parenthesis (I guess, I betcha, gee) and direct address (“Because it’s not our kind of school, stupid”, “Not yet, Mamma”).
There are a lot of elliptical sentences (“in my house. In the attic. A man? Not yet, Mamma”) as the main part of the text represents in the form of the dialogue and they are characterized by elliptical sentences. As for communicative types of sentences there are exclamatory sentences (“Margie! School!”) which are used as commands and interrogative sentences which are pronounced mainly by Margie. As the author employs the question-answer narrative technique, interrogative sentences perform text-building function.
The author describes the characters mostly indirectly through their actions. The only character is described directly is The County Inspector. All characters can be divided on main and secondary. The main characters are Margie and Tommy, the secondary is the County Inspector. Margie is a typical girl of 11 years, she hates school and doesn’t like lessons. Margie is emotional and curios as she is vividly and emotionally react to a new information Tommy tells her and asks a lot of questions. According to the County Inspector words, her progress in studying is quite satisfactory, so she is neither silly nor ingenious. Tommy is elder then Margie?, he is well-read for his age as he can answer all the questions Margie puts in front of him. She is a bit lonely and dream of friends with whom she could discuss her schooling. Tommy takes proud in his knowledge (He looked at her with superior eyes).
The secondary character – the County Inspector is present in the story to give more information about Margie’s attitude to school. The author describes the typical situation with the characters who are the typical people in order to show that human nature remains the same despite of all technical inventions.
The Homework on Home Schooling Margie School Tommy
Surely nobody knows what significant changes will there be centuries later, will our grand grandsons or grand granddaughters be those like Margie and Tommy who were schooled at home by those mechanical! yen teachers! | catering for those children! |s abilities on studying? No one knows. Talking about these two kids, I was impressed by the way of their home schooling at home as their so-called! yen ...
In my opinion it is thought-provoking abstract. It makes me think that in our future the things that are usual for us now can be very rare ones. Also the story gives another view on school then that I have, so it is interesting to know that for some people such things seem funny.
