While reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, students came across a passage depicting a war scene, but described in reverse, as if the scene was being watched in rewind mode.  Students tried to replicate this style in their own reverse writings.  Here is one such writing:

The Backwards Symphony

            Applause sounded through the concert hall as the conductor walked backwards from the stage.  The sound vibrations peaked as airflow and bows stimulated these sounds. An abrupt stop to the clapping spurred the orchestra to release its last sound waves.  As bows prepared for the first note, a harsh wave hit the audience as these bow hairs, mallets, and fingers touched the resonators of their instruments.   Harmonic structure was thrown out the window in this interesting adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.  Harsh bangs resounded from the low brass to contrast the melodic tones of the upper strings.  The baton, moving in a backwards triangle, beat in time with the conductor’s rocking.  Wide arm gestures were seen pulling the sound back into the conductor’s control and creating a relaxing effect. Droplets of sweat soared through the air and were absorbed into the forehead of the moist musicians’ heads.  Sweat was wiped away as each passing note absorbed adrenaline from the blood stream of these zealous musicians.

Each chord, defying the laws of music theory, progressed and diminished the instrumentation of the remainder of the piece.  Preparing their chops, the brass section was soon silenced as the tone of the piece morphed into a classical orchestra.  Drum sticks bounced off snares, bows released in arched motions, and still the baton glided through the air with the grace and irregularity of a falling feather.  A decrease in volume was accompanied by a mellow, lush sound that filled each passing note with expression and tonality.  As the sound waves diminished, the last horsehair left the string of the cellos and gracefully pulled off, leaving a peaceful silence.

Amy C. — Grade 12

Here is another essay written after students read One Hundred Years of Solitude:

When José Arcadio Buendia founded Macondo, he emphasized equality and tried to create a utopia. He left his hometown to escape from his past flaw, caused by his pride (killing Predencio in the cockfight when he insulted José Arcadio Buendia’s manhood), and sought a new life: “‘It’s all right, Prudencio,’ he told him. ‘We’re going to leave this town, just as far as we can go, and we’ll never come back. Go in peace now’” (23). Once Macondo is established, José Arcadio Buendia was the most enterprising man in the village, and he designed Macondo consistently for the welfare of the entire community: “He had set up the placement of the houses in such a way that from all of them one could reach the river and draw water with the same effort, and he had lined up the streets with such good sense that no house got more sun than another during the hot time of day” (9). It is clear that José Arcadio Buendia initially not only considered his own benefits, but also upheld the equality among all people in Macondo: “In a short time he filled not only his own house but all of those in the village with troupials, canaries, bee eaters, and redbreasts” (9). As a result, a simple society begins its equality under José Arcadio Buendia’s social initiative.

However, as Macondo becomes more and more developed, José Arcadio Buendia’s first attempt to maintain its simplicity and equality eventually fades with the growing corruption and his own selfishness. No longer thinking about how to benefit Macondo as a whole, he immerses himself into the desire for knowledge, trying to fulfill his personal ideal by gaining power from new technologies: “That spirit of social initiative disappeared in a short time, pulled away by the fever of the magnets, the astronomical calculations, the dreams of transmutation, and the urge to discover the wonders of the world” (9). The huge attraction of those new inventions fills his mind and he even stops to care about himself: “ From a clean and active man, José Arcadio Buendia changed into a man lazy in appearance, careless in his dress, with a wild beard that Úrsula managed to trim with great effort and a kitchen knife” (10). Later, Macondo changes into an active town when Úrsula comes back from her journey with many new arrivals. While Macondo is making its unprecedented progress, José Arcadio Buendia’s pride inflates and causes him to lose his first intention to promote equality. He keeps his authority and never wants to lose his dominance: “He acquired such authority among the new arrivals that foundations were not laid or walls built without his being consulted, and it was decided that he should be one in charge of the distribution of the land” (37). As a result of his growing selfishness, the simplicity of Macondo doesn’t last long and equality disappears gradually. Failing to escape from his past, José Arcadio Buendia’s increasing pride reproduces his flaws, which also foreshadows the future corruption of Macondo.

Adah C. — Grade 12

Here are four more poems inspired by a reading of Things Fall Apart:

It’s not like it used to be

This isn’t how I remember it

Everything has changed

I don’t understand

It has only been seven years

Nobody is as strong

Nobody follows the traditions any more

Everybody wants to convert

Everybody has converted already

I liked the old Umuofia

When everyone was fearless and strong

Why has this happened to the Ibo

I don’t understand why

things fall apart

Kelly F.

We’ve come across

This foreign land

Where everyone is darker

We study them

We observe them

And they’re different

From us

They have more than

One wife

More than

One God

They can’t live this way

Live in ignorance

Live in impossibilities

Live in sin

So we must reshape

Them

Renew

Them

It’s for their

Well-being

We have their best

Interests at heart

They are uncivilized

They are wrong

We must show them

The way

This is

The

White’s Man’s

Burden

Jahir H. – Grade 8

Everyone falls at one point

But Okonkwo was different

He fell for his people

And they fell on him.

He lost everything because of a misinterpretation

And then he lost himself and his family

Abomination and beliefs caused them to fall

Everything is opinion and not truth or fact

Nwoye changed because of opinion

He was being forced to do what he didn’t like

And that was opinion

And Okonkwo tried to stay strong

But the Christians were getting converters

Overpowered him, his family and his tribe

But, thinking that he lost, he lost himself

Amit L. – Grade 8

White man’s Burden

The question of faith

Spread by the Europeans

Justified the Crusades

Should it have been spread

Could it help

Or does it bring to others dread

Destroys knowledge about the past

But could enlighten us on our end

Could it just help conquer

It makes me feel indignant

It is not fair to the recipient

The White man’s burden

Is wrong

James S. – Grade 8

In Mary Shelley’s classic horror story, Frankenstein, the creature partly learns about the human race from his reading of classics such as Milton’s Paradise Lost and Plutarch’s Lives.  Students were asked to consider how the creature would have responded to other novels that they have read.  Here is one student’s response:

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is one of my favorite books to read. Telling the story of the hidden truths within ourselves, our desires, and our world, the novel illuminates fascinating knowledge one might gain in a lifetime. The monster, created by Frankenstein, would ultimately enjoy the novel and the way it bridges a life of physical isolation with an overwhelming mental awareness of the presence of our wants. I can imagine the thrill the monster senses as he reads about Santiago’s journey from Andulasia to Egypt. Santiago, the protagonist, is much like the monster at core; both are two intricate beings with a deep understanding of finding a “personal legend.” In Santiago’s case, his personal legend is to travel the world and obtain the wonders of life. For the monster, it is to feel a sense of significance, love, and value in the life of another. The monster would look at the story of The Alchemist as the embodiment of an emotional understanding that we need to find more than the “treasure” of our personal legend —  we need to seek the personal legend itself. In this case, the monster would understand that he cannot find companionship, love, and acceptance; he will need to venture out to discover these and learn that beauty is not in the attainment of happiness, but in the teachings of the personal legend. This novel would also make the monster more cognizant of the struggles and ostracism others undergo and more aware that “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

Serra A. — Grade 12

Here is a sample essay from one of our Grade 10 students:

In Chapters 21 and 22 of his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain depicts the people of Arkansas as idle and simpleminded.  Namely, the townspeople are lazy because they are unwilling to make the effort in pursuing a higher standard of living. In addition, the townspeople are foolish because they have so much free time and no idea what to do with it. They unwisely get involved in other people’s problems for entertainment, causing personal disagreements to morph into huge problems within the entire community.

The Arkansas townspeople that appear in Mark Twain’s novel are slothful because they have given up on improving the quality of their lives. Indifferent to their own living conditions, the townspeople do not attempt to repair their decrepit stores and houses: “The stores and houses was most all old, shackly, dried up frame concerns that hadn’t ever been painted” (138 Twain). Furthermore, Huck observes that even the little gardens seemed incapable of growing anything but “jimpson weeds and sunflowers” and collecting “ash piles, and old curled up boots and shoes, pieces of bottles, and rags, and played out tinware” (138).  This gives the impression that the townspeople refuse to put in the effort of picking up their garbage or carefully cultivating gardens.  Through the use of a subtle metaphor in reference to  the river that is “always gnawing at [the town]” and forcing the people “to be always moving back and back and back” (140), Mark Twain suggests that the community’s laziness can be attributed to a sense of defeat they feel towards circumstances outside of their control. Metaphorically, the river floods that overwhelm the town parallel the poverty that overwhelms the people within the town. Beleaguered by poverty, the townspeople feel too defeated to take charge of their lives. In conclusion, the townspeople of Arkansas feel no need to fix up their streets and homes because they are simultaneously apathetic to their lives and too idle to improve their living conditions.

Additionally, the dull-witted Arkansas townspeople have uneventful lives and relish in the drama of an occasional fight for lack of having anything better or more important to do. Loafers are rampant in the town and are frequently found “roosting on [drygoods boxes] all day long (…) and chawing tobacco, and gaping, and yawning, and stretching” (139). For entertainment, the loafers torture the pigs and dogs that roam the street, stupidly “laugh[ing] at the fun and look[ing] grateful for the noise” (140) because nothing brings them more delight than a “dog fight—unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death” (140). It soon becomes evident that the neighborhood loafers aren’t the only people in town who enjoy mindless noise and chaos.  Huck observes that, after sheriff Sherburn killed a man, “by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and snatching down every clothes-line they come to do the hanging with” (144). In this little town in Arkansas, Mark Twain portrays a society where people don’t think about their actions. They just follow the crowds and the noise, hoping for some fun: “Children was heeling it ahead of the mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way’ and every window along the road was full of women’s heads and there was nigger boys in every tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence” (145). It seems that everyone in town has to get involved in everyone else’s problems, or else there is really nothing to do or talk about. The people within the Arkansas community are foolish because they cannot find a productive way to spend their time, preferring to create trouble and drama for entertainment.

Portrayed as giving into idleness and defeat, the Arkansas townspeople do not put in the effort to take care of their community, letting their streets and homes fall into decrepitude. Also, the townspeople are unable to think for themselves or empathize with other beings; whether it is attacking animals or their fellow neighbors, this mob mentality is a trait which exemplifies their foolishness. In his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain mocks detrimental behavior of the lazy and silly townspeople.

Julia X. – Grade 10

Enjoy the following poems by students in Grade 6.  There are a total of 5 in this post.

I Am From

I am from my bouncy bunny

 I am from the beautiful music of the violin

I am from my disorganized locker

I am from the sweet sounds of the orchestra

I am from the loud club

I am from the crowd roaring at City Field

I am from the spells cast by Harry Potter

I am from the loud barking of dogs

I am from the dark blues and greens in the rainbow

I am from my crazy friends

I am from my wacky worlds on Minecraft

I am from the intense battling of my Pokémon

I am from the chilly weather that winter brings to us

I am from the amazing technologies of Apple

I am from the fox (Long, thin pony.) at my upstate house.

I am from Yoshi, the strange green dinosaur

by Angelina M.

                                                               I am From

I am from a tender, caring ,and loving mother

I am from the chilling screams on All Hallows Eve

I am from jousting knights and the smell of delicious, slow-roasting mutton

I am from a zombie-killing grandmother and her two silly brothers

I am from loving and fighting

I am from the NY Rangers

I am from Voltaire and Marilyn Manson

I am from zombies and werewolves

I am from the sweet sound of music

I am from planet earth

I am from the amazing world of art

I am from assassinating guards and shooting the covenant in video games

I am from all things creepy

I am from the smells of heaping wads of chocolaty goodness

I am from the sounds of loud laughs and arguments

I am from me

By Gabe P.

I am From

I am from the noisy streets of Manhattan

I am from my love for electronics

I am from Sunday Crepes

I am from foam bullets flying near my head

I am from a blocky world in Minecraft

I am from the loud ferry near my house

I am from every arm movement in swimming

I am from the Bulgarian meatball

I am from the hilarious comedies of Seth Macfarlane

I am from the meaty goodness of a Greek gyro

I am from a very long 14 hour road trip

I am from the fresh and fizzy taste of Coca Cola

I am from loud yelling at the dinner table

I am from the laughter and jokes of my friends

By Ivan B.

 I am from the Warriors battling and hunting for survival

I am from Maximum Ride taking me sky high

I am from the gooey stickiness of creamy peanut butter

I am from the enjoyment of battling Pokémon for fun

I am from the excitement of making a basket, SWISH!

I am from the furriness of my black and white cat, Midnight

 I am from the fun of running after a soccer ball

I am from the feeling of nature and my favorite color, Green

I am from the loud fans of the New York Red Bulls

I am from the sound of students from my school, Staten Island Academy

I am from the wetness of swimming in cool pool water

I am from the gods, goddesses, mortals, and mountains of Ancient Greece

I am from the freedom of having lockers

I am from the cheers of the Mets fans

I am from Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks play

I am from the stomping of the Jets supporters

I am from the goodness of chocolate cake

 I am from the beautiful flag of this amazing country United States of America!

By Raeceen D.

I am From

I am from the loud sounds of my cries after my brother gets  done with me.

I am from the sounds of the basketball swooshing, the fans cheering, and the coaches yelling.

I am from Yankee Stadium.

I am from the Iraqi generations and Muslim cultures.

I am from the fictional worlds of Pokemon.

I am from Battlefield 3.

I am from every bullet the Nerf guns throw at me.

I am from generations and generations of doctors.

I am from yelling at the tv about the Mets.

I am from the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

I am from the delicious sights and smells of pizza.

I am from the clear, deep water of the pool.

I am from the soft sound of the grand piano.

I am from a giant beige Mercedes.

I am from sitting in front of the X-Box 360.

I am from the Tigers on the field, jumping and dancing.

I am from the tradition of playing baseball all day long in the summer.

I am from the celebration of getting money on Eid.

I am from playing hide and seek all day long during the summer.

I am from the turbulent adventures of Middle School.

By Yaseen K.

The following is a piece from a student in the Advanced Placement Language and Composition course.

In his famous quote about adversity, the Roman poet Horace asserts that adversity has the effect of eliciting an individual’s talents that otherwise would have lain dormant. The effect of adversity depends on the individual; oftentimes difficult situations prove beneficial and challenges arise in order to test an individual’s boundaries and bring out one’s potential. For instance, the unfathomable odyssey of Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrates how in the face of adversity one man can create everlasting social change. In addition, the story of my father demonstrates that despite a poor upbringing, it is possible to be successful. However, not all individuals can thrive in the face of adversity, for some adversity is the very reason they falter. For example, William Julius Wilson’s book More Than Just Race demonstrates how an entire sector of society fails to thrive under adverse conditions.

One of the most prominent figures in American history, Martin Luther King is known for his enormous contributions to ending segregation, but it was his adverse upbringing which allowed him to become the great Civil Rights leader he is considered today. Growing up in a time of great racial segregation, King faced adversity everywhere he went; he had to deal with malicious words and actions from his white counterparts, as well as a government which provided whites with significantly better opportunities. King did not let the trials that he faced bring him down, but rather he used them as motivation to create change in society. As an activist, King ran many risks, including arrest. But King turned his adversity into a positive and used his position as a prominent figure to make one of the most important speeches in American history- his “I Have a Dream Speech.” In “I Have a Dream,” King talks about the adversity he faced and speaks of a better future for the next generation. What Martin Luther King did was not easy; he was the main reason for the eradication of segregation in the United States, a nation in which racism was widespread. Though Martin Luther King faced enormous adversity, he turned it into a positive, and for that he is looked upon as a beacon of change in American society.

In addition, my father’s life story helps illustrate Horace’s philosophy: that adversity can in fact be beneficial. Growing up in an extremely impoverished section of Brooklyn, NY, my father faced many obstacles in becoming the successful man he is today. Growing up in such meager conditions motivated my father to excel in school to better his way of life for himself and his future family. He turned the very thing that was challenging him into a positive. Similarly, many teachers during his upbringing told him his goals were too lofty and that he would fail to reach them. This sparked a fire in him, and in an effort to prove those teachers wrong, he put in countless hours of studying to receive an academic scholarship to a four year university. Had the teachers never said such disturbing things to my father, he would have never had the drive to achieve his full academic potential. His story helps prove Horace’s point that adversity can bring out the hidden talent in people.

In contrast, in More Than Just Race, William Julius Wilson discusses how there are structural and cultural forces which cause the vast majority of poor, inner city, African Americans to falter in the face of adversity. Wilson postulates that social acts such as stereotyping, stigmatization, admission to educational institutions, and discrimination in job hiring are all forms of adversity that poor African Americans must face. These social acts are far from beneficial and only hurt African Americans trying to climb the social ladder. Wilson also states that there are cultural forces which contribute or reinforce racial inequality. He states that in the United States today, racism is not transparent, but rather it is embedded in institutional norms and practices. For instance, school tracking, the practice of sorting students of similar academic ability for instruction, tends to segregate African American students, as well as place them in lower-level classes, despite the fact that they have the cultural capital- the requisite skills for learning- to compete with the students placed in higher-level classes. This is what Wilson refers to as “laissez faire racism,” a perception that blacks are responsible for their own economic predicaments and therefore undeserving of government aid. These cultural forces serve as major adversity for African Americans; their adverse situation does not elicit talent, but rather it is the reason for their shortcomings.

Horace’s assertion about adversity eliciting talent that would otherwise be dormant is correct for the most part, but what Horace leaves out of his argument is that often times when dealing with adversity,  resulting success or failure depends heavily upon the individual. In the case of Martin Luther King, he overcame racial discrimination to become one of the most prominent figures of his time. Similarly, my father overcame extreme poverty to become a successful man. However, in the case of poor, inner city African Americans, their adversity is the reason for their lack of success.

Justin R.

Grade 12