...In Ernest Gaines’s book A Lesson Before Dying , Grant goes through a change which at the end renders him as a hero. Grant is a young teacher in a small town near Bayonne. When his student is convicted of murder, Grant doesn't want anything to do with him. But after being persuaded by two old women in the community named Tante Lou and Miss Emma, Grant has to go and visit the convicted student and teach him to be a man before he is unjustly killed. Grant has a long road ahead of him. Grant’s long road to becoming a hero starts when he begins to care about others such as Jefferson, and is able to carry out what others ask of him like what Miss Emma and Tante Lou ask him to do for Jefferson, and when this happens his journey has been a success. Out of all of the challenges that Grant faces along his journey, the toughest is teaching Jefferson how to be a man. At first he...
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...3/5/2015 Ernest J. Gaines's 'Lesson' prompts teens to grapple with stark realities Ernest J. Gaines's 'Lesson' prompts teens to grapple with stark realities By DeNeen Brown Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, May 11, 2010; C01 What lessons could a city learn from reading the same book at the same time? What lessons could be learned in a city trying to heal from senseless violence from a driveby shooting in Southeast Washington that killed three teenagers last month? Could a city heal from a book that tells a complicated story about injustice, racism and the need for second chances? What would happen if throughout the city, everyone were engaged in the same lesson? Like back in English class, when a professor asked you to think deeper, to look for symbolism in the story, for irony, character development, layers of complication? Officials at the D.C. Humanities Council and the D.C. Public Library system are participating in the "Big Read," a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts to "revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular culture," are hoping that everyone in the city can learn from reading the same book. This year, the Humanities Council selected "A Lesson Before Dying," by Ernest J. Gaines, a novel about a black teenager living in segregated Louisiana, who is sentenced to death in the 1940s for murders he did not commit. The council and the library system distributed more than 2,500 copies of the book to programs for the homeless...
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...Grant Wiggins and Jefferson externalize the major internal conflict in every person: having the strength to acknowledge one’s own personal dignity. Jefferson’s experiences from his alleged homicide to his execution made him the “strongest man in that crowded room” (Gaines, 253) during his death; however, until before the very end, this seemed implausible because of the lack of collaboration between Wiggins and Jefferson. Ernest Gaines’s transcription of this conflict in A Lesson Before Dying enlightens his audience on the prerequisite of interpersonal support to construct a resounding revolution. He uses the conflict between Wiggins and Jefferson to assert that personal and social change exists if, and only if, cooperation occurs; however, without cooperation, all attempts at reforming issues of importance fail....
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...or fat, and even black or white. In the novel A Lesson Before Dying, the hero of the story cannot fly, he does not have the most strength or courage and he hasn’t saved any lives, much less a whole city. The hero in this story is a black man - charged for murder. Throughout A Lesson Before Dying Jefferson, an uneducated black man, is found guilty of murder for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A white man died, so the logical reasoning during the 1940’s must be that a black man is guilty. From the moment Jefferson’s defense attorney stated, “‘Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this’,” Jefferson and the majority of all the white men living in the Bayonne, Louisiana believed Jefferson was a hog who was going to die in the chair (Gaines 8). While Jefferson is sitting on death row, Grant Wiggins is sent by Jefferson’s godmother, Miss Emma, to make Jefferson walk to “the chair” as a man - not a hog. During the first few visits by Grant to Jefferson, the responses and actions Jefferson says and does are not very hopeful. Although, in time Jefferson will undergo a transformation. A transformation that started with Jefferson on his knees with his head inside a bag of food eating and stating numerous comments such as, “Hogs don’t give nothing. Hogs don’t leave nothing” (Gaines 83, 139). Jefferson’s transformation to being a hero was shown at the visit when Grant explained what a hero is to him. Grant states,...
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...Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank to accompany A First Look at Communication Theory Sixth Edition Em Griffin Wheaton College prepared by Glen McClish San Diego State University and Emily J. Langan Wheaton College Published by McGrawHill, an imprint of The McGrawHill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright Ó 2006, 2003, 2000, 1997, 1994, 1991 by The McGrawHill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may be reproduced in print form solely for classroom use with A First Look At Communication Theory provided such reproductions bear copyright notice, but may not be reproduced in any other form or for any other purpose without the prior written consent of The McGrawHill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. PREFACE Rationale We agreed to produce the instructor’s manual for the sixth edition of A First Look at Communication Theory because it’s a first-rate book and because we enjoy talking and writing about pedagogy. Yet when we recall the discussions we’ve had with colleagues about instructor’s manuals over the years, two unnerving comments stick with us: “I don’t find them much help”; and (even worse) “I never look at them.” And, if the truth be told, we were often the people making such points! With these statements in mind, we have done some serious soul-searching about the texts that so many teachers—ourselves...
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