Willa Cather Wrote What She Lived Essays - Willa Cather, My Ntonia

Willa Cather Wrote What She Lived WILLA CATHER WROTE WHAT SHE LIVED Sara Orne Jewett, a local colorist from Maine, once suggested that Willa Cather write from her own background. Cather followed that advice and became famous for her stories of the American frontier; especially those about heroic women who struggled to tame the prairies of Nebraska and the Southwest. Cather's first novel was published in 1912 and was called Alexander's Bridge. In 1913 came O Pioneers! which took its title from a poem by Walt Whitman. My Antonia, published in 1918, is probably her best known work, and features the hardy, sensitive women who led courageous, simple lives of endurance in the harshly beautiful wilderness. These immigrants would become the mothers of a new race of Americans, and the book spans the few generations that saw the prairie transformed into modern farmland and cities. In 1927, Willa Cather wrote what is considered her best work, Death Comes for the Archbishop, about missionary priests in New Mexico. In 1923, she won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, the story of an American farmer who dies in battle in World War I. Like the narrator in My Antonia, Willa Cather was born in Virginia, the oldest child in an Irish family, and moved to Nebraska with her family when she was eleven. It was 1883. In the book, the boy, Jim Burden, compares the gentler land of Virginia to the wild beauty of the prairies. Like him, Willa lived with her grandparents, and like Jim's grandparents, her family emphasized intellect, morality and ladylike behavior. Like her protagonist, Cather grew up among European immigrants and enjoyed the simple pleasures of a rural childhood, like giving plays. Willa Cather had an interest in medicine and a lifelong love of music and theater. One of her books, Song of the Lark, was about a frontier girl who becomes a great opera singer. Cather never married, and according to one source, she sometimes wore men's clothes and passed as a male doctor, in order to avoid the prejudice against women that was common in society in those days. Though she chose a man as her narrator, My Antonia is more concerned with the lives of the immigrant girls who grew up strong on prairie farms, worked in town to earn their way, and then made lives for themselves in their new country. The author seems especially sympathetic to the women when Lena faces a double standard, and is blamed for the attention her beauty arouses in a married admirer. Antonia also suffers rejection when her fianc? gets her pregnant before he abandons her. The author's preference for the openhearted farmers and sensitive women over the town snobs is similar to Sinclair Lewis's judgments in Main Street. Not only is farming the land hard on these women, but marriage and small town society are too. But in America, the hired girls can decide to leave or stay and build new lives. Like many artists, Willa Cather may not have felt fully accepted in small rural towns because the theme of the misunderstood artist recurs in her work. In My Antonia, the heroine's father is the transplanted artist, a musician who is unprepared for prairie life. He has been taken advantage of by the man who sells him the farm. He is not respected as he was in his homeland, and his skills do not help him in farming. He is obviously depressed by the changes in his life, and when his premature death is suspected of being a suicide, he is even punished in death. No local cemetery will bury him in their hallowed ground, so he is buried under a future crossroads according to a brutal custom. Again, like her narrator in My Antonia, Willa Cather graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1895 and went east. She taught English and Latin in high school in Pittsburg while writing poetry and short stories from 1901 to 1906. Later, in New York, she joined the staff of McClure's Magazine and became an editor. In 1912, she first visited the Southwest, where she discovered herself and was especially impressed with the Anasazi cliff dwellings. On later travels west, Willa Cather revisited Nebraska and became reacquainted with

How To Say Let in Spanish

How To Say Let in Spanish Let is one of those English words that can be translated numerous ways in Spanish, because let itself has numerous meanings. Take the example of translating Let me write that down to Spanish. One possibility say, Quiero apuntar eso, which has a literal meaning of I want to write that down. If you wish a more precise translation and indeed are seeking permission to take notes, use Dà ©jame apuntar eso or Dà ©jeme apuntar eso, depending on whether you are speaking in the familiar or formal second person, respectively. Dejar is the most common verb meaning to allow, so what youre saying is allow me to write that down. What is important when translating from one language to another is to look for the meaning of what you want to say and translate that rather than attempting to translate words. You simply cannot translate let the same way all the time. And if what you mean by let is I want to, then just say the equivalent of that - its much simpler! Choices for Translating ‘Let’ A few of the verbs you can use to translate let or phrases that use let include liberar (to let go), alquilar (to rent out), avisar (to let someone know), soltar (to let go), fallar (to let down or disappoint), perdonar (to let somebody off, to excuse) and cesar (to let up). It all depends on the meaning of what youre trying to say. And, of course, in English we use let to form first-person plural commands, as in lets leave or lets sing. In Spanish, that meaning is expressed in a special verb form (the same as the first-person plural subjunctive), as in salgamos and cantemos, respectively. Finally, Spanish sometimes uses que followed by a verb in the subjunctive to form an indirect command that can be translated using let, depending on the context. Example: Que vaya à ©l a la oficina. (Have him go to the office, or let him go to the office.) Sample Sentences Here are sentences illustrating possible translations for let: El gobierno cubano liberà ³ al empresario. (The Cuban government let the entrepreneur go.)Dà ©jele hablar sin interrupcià ³n. (Let him speak without interruption.)Te comunicaremos si algo ha cambiado. (Well let you know if anything has changed.)Los captores soltaron a los rehenes a las cuatro de la madrugada. (The captors let the hostages free at 4 a.m.)Me fallaba muchà ­simo. (He let me down a lot.)Vive y dejar vive. (Live and let live.)A mi no me decepciona nadie porque no espero nada de nadie. Nobody lets me down because I dont expect anything from anybody.Mis padres alquilaron un piso en 2013 por 400 euros por semana. (My parents let out a floor in 2013 for 400 euros weekly.) ¡Me deja en paz! (Let me be alone!)Avà ­same si no puedes hacerlo. (Let me know if you cant do it.)Por fin aflojà ³ la ira de la tormenta. (The fury of the storm finally let up.)Hay ciertos amigos a los que no quiero dejar entrar en mi casa. (There are some friends I dont want to let into my house.)D esde entonces, se desmejorà ³ y crecià ³ su abatimiento fà ­sico y moral. (Since then, he let himself go and sank deeper physically and morally.)

7th Grade ACT Prep How to Ace the Exam

7th Grade ACT Prep How to Ace the Exam SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Even though there are plenty of other standardized tests for younger students like ACT Aspire or the PSAT, there are still many middle schoolers every year who take the ACT. 7th grade is definitely a bit earlier than most people take a college entrance exam, but it's possible you might have to take it as part of an academic talent search or want to take it to see what it's like. Just as good 7th grade ACT scores are different from what good scores would be for juniors or seniors, though, 7th grade ACT prep is very different from high school ACT prep. Find out the best way to A-C-E the ACT in 7th grade in this article. Why Take the 7th Grade ACT? There are two main reasons why you'd want to take the ACT as a middle schooler. The biggest reason is that 7th grade ACT scores are an integral part of several talent search programs, like Duke TIP and Johns Hopkins' CTY. These programs provide academic enrichment and summer programs for advanced students, which can be a great way to discover a subject you're passionate about that you can then pursue in more depth in high school or college. The only other real reason to take the ACT so early is if you want to start laying the groundwork for when you take the ACT in high school to apply to colleges. Because you won't have learned a significant chunk of the content on the test yet in school (particularly on the math section), you're probably not going to want to use your 7th grade ACT score to apply to colleges. But if you live in an ACT-mandatory state and will end up taking the ACT before you graduate from high school for free anyway, it's not the worst idea in the world to get an early preview of what the test is like. 7th Grade ACT Prep for Summer Programs If you’re taking the ACT to take part in a talent search or summer program of some sort, you have a relatively tight timeline to work with. Enrollment begins August of each year for Duke TIP and other similar programs, and to do the 7th grade talent search for most programs, you must take the ACT during your 7th grade year. This means that the latest you can take the ACT and still qualify for a talent search is by June of the end of your 7th grade school year. Plus, to get a spot in the highly competitive summer programs for the summer after 7th grade, it’s usually recommended you take the ACT by Feb 1st during 7th grade at the latest (so you don’t get waitlisted for the programs). With a short amount of time to study for the ACT, you'll need to use strategies similar to those used by juniors and seniors prepping for the test. This means studying for the test with official ACT practice tests and questions to get the most accurate picture of what will be covered on the real test. While you by no means need a perfect or even close to perfect score on the ACT in order to qualify for summer programs, you also don't want to stroll into the room on test day and be completely surprised by the format and question style of the test. Jon Bunting/Flickr There are non-multiple choice Math questions You're also going to want to take at least a couple of realistic timed practice tests (rather than just answering questions or doing the test a section at a time). This exercise is particularly valuable for 7th graders because as a younger student, you'll likely have less test-taking stamina, simply because you won't have had as many years of lengthy test-taking in school yet as a high school student. The ACT is a little over three hours long with breaks (or almost four hours if you take ACT with Writing), so you'll need to work up to being able to sit down and concentrate on the test for that long a period of time without losing focus. Other ACT prep strategies used by high school students can be modified and used by younger students as well. Before you start studying for the test, you should figure out what specific score you need to aim for in order to meet your goals. Rather than averaging the average scores of the colleges you want to get into, you should set your target ACT score based on the average scores of the summer programs you want to apply to. You can then adjust your test-taking strategy accordingly. The most important adjustment to make to your test-taking strategy as a 7th grader is to not be afraid to skip questions. If you only need to aim for a 25 on each section, you can afford to skip the harder questions or topics you haven't learned about yet and maximize the time you spend on questions you actually can answer. For more strategies like these, including precisely how many questions you can skip to get to your target score, read our articles on how to improve low ACT English, Math, Reading, and Science scores, which focus on getting students up to a 26 score (rather than a perfect ACT score). Early Training for College Applications Starting to prepare for college applications early is a much weaker reason to study for and take the ACT in 7th grade. Prepping so early for the ACT means you don't have the content knowledge you need to do your best on the test. While it is possible to teach yourself some of the content, you may find that there's ultimately a limit to what you can achieve on your own without first learning the subject (like trig) in school first. It's also unlikely that casual 7th grade ACT prep will have any benefit for you when you get to the middle of high school and take it again for colleges. Sure, you might be slightly more familiar with the format of the test, but that's something you could achieve much more easily and effectively by starting to prep for the ACT in a focused way in 9th grade. And as a sidenote, although colleges probably won't care about your 7th grade ACT score, any time you take the ACT it does technically remain on your permanent ACT record. The good news is that if you want to take the ACT early as part of preparing to apply to college or pass the ACT later on in high school, you have a much looser timeframe to work with than if you needed to take it for a talent search. Since you don't have program deadlines, you can take the ACT at any point during middle school, whether during the 7th grade school year or not. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to take the test again before college applications, so it's not like your score now is final. Your 7th grade ACT score is about as final as this rabbit drawn in the sand. Unlike the juniors taking the test, you won't have learned all of the content yet in school, and as I said above, some of it you might not be able to teach yourself. Instead of banging your head against the wall of radians and matrices, you should focus your studying on areas like Reading and English, which don't necessarily require the same kind of knowledge base that ACT Math does, particularly if you're a native English speaker. For ACT Reading, you can practice reading at a higher level by reading short stories and nonfiction writing. Our article on the best way to practice ACT Reading has some great tips for free online sources you can use for both of these types of literature. You can also use vocabulary lists to bolster your knowledge of more advanced vocab and how to use them in context. By reading more advanced writing, you'll internalize some stylistic and grammatical rules that are important for both ACT English and ACT Writing, but if you want an explicit list of what you need to know for ACT English, we have a complete guide to all the grammar rules covered on that portion of the test. We also have some great articles ACT Writing, including how to write the essay, step by step, what the format of the essay is, and how the ACT essay is scored. The ACT Science test doesn't require a lot of specific science knowledge. Instead, you'll need to be skilled at reading charts, graphs, and tables and being able to combine information from them and the text to answer questions. For this reason, even students who aren't "science" people can do perfectly well on ACT Science. And when it comes to ACT Math, you can at least start to get familiar with the math you haven't covered yet in school with our great guides to subjects like algebra and trigonometry. For the most part, though, while you can start to prep for the ACT in 7th grade, if the only reason you're studying for it is as prep for college applications, we don't recommend taking it that early. Richard-G/Flickr The ACT for 7th Graders: The Bottom Line Depending on why you’re studying for or taking the ACT in 7th grade, you’ll need to adjust how you study. If you're taking it in order to qualify for summer programs, you’ll have less time to study before taking the test, so you should focus on practicing with real ACTs and studying strategies like skipping questions you can't answer. On the other hand, if your 7th grade ACT prep isearly training for college or high school, you’ll have more time to study before taking the test, so you should focus more on learning content you don’t know and getting familiar with the test structure before moving on to testing strategies and full-length practice tests. For more on the content-to-strategy ratio in studying, read about how to start early on preparing for the SAT- many of the tips in it are applicable to students taking the ACT as well. Above all, don’t be discouraged by a low 7th grade ACT score. Remember, you’re competing against high school juniors and seniors who are taking this test to get into college or graduate high school. These students might approach the ACT more seriously because it’s more important to their future college prospects, spend more time prepping or have prepped in school, and generally know more of the content because of having covered it in school repeatedly. A Silly Person/Flickr What’s Next? Now you know how to get a great 7th grade ACT score, but is it really worth taking the test so early? Learn more about the pros and cons of taking the ACT in 7th grade here. How are you doing on practice tests compared to other middle-school ACT test-takers? Find out with our articles about the average ACT score for 7th graders and good ACT scores for 8th graders. Want to learn more about summer programs for academically gifted middle schoolers? Read our articles on the Duke TIP 7th grade Talent Search, CTY at Johns Hopkins, NUMATS, Stanford EPGY, and Summer Institute for the Gifted. Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points? Download our free guide to the top 5 strategies you need in your prep to improve your ACT score dramatically.

To what extent the negative internet contents affect children Essay

To what extent the negative internet contents affect children - Essay Example In this paper, we will discuss the effects of negative internet contents on young children. We will also focus social construction of the childhood in order to get a better understanding of the issue. 2. Children and Negative Use of Internet â€Å"The combination of pornography and the pedophiles it produces is deadly for children† (Kastleman 2010). The sexual contents available on the internet in forms of pictures, stories, and movie clips produce a number of negative effects on the children. Some studies show that almost 4 to 5 out of every 10 children regularly switch on their personal computers just to watch the adult material. The number of children watching adult material varies from place to place and it depends on their social construction as well. In some societies, people try to keep their children away from any sort of adult activity. Some people even make their children stay away from the friendships with opposite gender. Such restrictions increase the frustration level of the children and the frustration leads their way towards illegal social and sexual activities. The growing age of children is very critical for their proper mental and social development. Children generally are very eager to know about sex, and for this reason, they use different ways to gain information about it. Internet is one of the easiest ways to get sex related information. Some children do not open adult websites intentionally. They just log on to the internet to search educational stuff or other things based on their personal interests. But when they start searching for their desired stuff on the internet, the links present on the websites sometimes lead their way towards adult material, which drive the attention of children away from actual purpose. Seventy percent of all children exposed to pornographic material are not actually looking for such contents (Dougherty 2010). The unintentionally opened websites attract the attention of the children and they start exp loring those websites in order to know more and more about sex. 3. Negative Internet Contents Livingstone and Hadden (2009) found that internet brings both opportunities and risks for the children. Risks are related to the presence of sexual contents on the internet. There are three major types of negative contents available on the internet, which include sex stories, sexual video clips, and webcams. Pictures and video clips arouse the sexual feelings of children and increase the level of sex frustration in them. We cannot say that every child who views pornographic material is affected by the negative contents. â€Å"Every child who is exposed to pornography does not automatically become a sexual deviant or sex addict† (Hughes 1998). The effects are harmful for those children who view the pictures and try to practice what they see in the pictures. We can take the example of alcoholic drinks. Not every person who takes such drinks becomes addicted to those drinks. Some people take those drinks very seldom just to relieve themselves from the tensions for some time whereas some people become addicted to alcohol and they cannot even live a single day without taking alcoholic drinks. Same case is with the children who want to view

Pop culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Pop culture - Essay Example Video games has opened a new culture in the world of entertainment leading to the emergence of a new form of popular culture. It is recorded that the initial games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. Some of the earliest examples of video games the Cathode ray tube Amusement Device that was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947 by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. The two designers were deeply inspired by radar display tech that was made up of an analog device that allowed a user to control a vector-drawn dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which were drawings fixed to the screen. While there has been a great element of changes leading to ink split on video game culture, the actual definition of the term is often treated as common sense to many people. The unraveling of the discourses surrounding video game culture offers room for people to envisioned in the power dynamics involved in attributing certain characteristics to it, as well as naming it. This approach has implications for how video games are studied as well as how they are interlinked with how culture is studied more broadly. By critically examining how video game culture has been defined in both press and academic articles, this paper seeks to elaborate how this cultural aspect has emerged to be considered on the most advanced forms of the popular culture. According to Tom Bissell in Extra Lives: Why video games matter, the rise of video in the current generation has resulted to the emergence of a new form of popular culture. He admits his great love and passion for the games. It is recorded that millions of adults all over the world, spend several hours every week playing video games leading to the growth of the industry. It is estimated that the industry is likely to outdo the film industry in Hollywood. However, the

Learning about America in the Dominican Republic :: Personal Narrative Essays

Exactly one week after graduating from high school, with thirteen years of American education behind me, I boarded a plane and headed for a Caribbean island, I had fifteen days to spend on an island surrounded with crystal blue waters, white sandy shores and luxurious ocean resorts. With beaches to play on by day and casinos to play in during the night, I was told that this country was an exciting new tourist destination. My days in the Dominican Republic, however, were not filled with snorkeling lessons and my nights were not spent at the black jack table. Instead of visiting the ritzy East Coast, I traveled inland to a mountain community with no running water and no electricity. The bus ride to this town called Guayabal, was long, hot and uncomfortable. The mountain roads were not paved and the bus had no air conditioning. Surprisingly, the four-hour ride flew by. I had plenty to think about as my mind raced with thoughts of the next two weeks. I wondered if my host family would be welcoming, if the teenagers would be friendly, and if my work would be hard. I mentally prepared myself for life with out the everyday luxuries of a flushing toilet, a hot shower, and a comfortable bed. Because Guayabal was with out such basic commodities, I did not expect to see many reminders of home. I thought I was going to leave behind my American ways and immerse myself into another culture. These thoughts filled my head as the bus climbed the rocky hill towards Guayabal. When I finally got off the bus and stepped into the town-square, I realized that I had thought wrong: there was no escaping the influence of the American culture. In a way, Guayabal was an example of what author Mary Louise Pratt refers to as a contact zone. Pratt defines a contact zone as "a place where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power" (Pratt 76). In Guayabal, American culture and American consumerism were clashing with the Hispanic and Caribbean culture of the Dominican Republic. The clash came from the Dominicans' desire to be American in every sense, and especially to be consumers of American products. This is nearly impossible for Dominicans to achieve due to their extreme poverty. Their poverty provided the "asymmetrical relation of power" found in contact zones, because it impeded not only the Dominican's ability to be consumers, but also their ability to learn, to work, and to live healthily.

Nursing Leadership and management Essay

Continuous quality improvement (CQI) is the responsibility of all nurses and is vital when addressing the challenges of the health care industry. Provide an example of how you would apply CQI in your current or past position. The purpose of QI is to use a systematic, data-guided approach to improve processes or outcomes (Conner, 2014). Principles and strategies involved in QI have evolved from organizational philosophies of total quality management and continuous quality improvement. Connor (2014) emphasizes that while the concept of quality can be subjective, QI in healthcare typically focuses on improving patient outcomes. So the key is to clearly define the outcome that needs to be improved, identify how the outcome will be measured, and develop a plan for implementing an intervention and collecting data before and after the intervention. Connor (2014) points out QI methods as follows: Various QI methods are available. A common format uses the acronym FOCUS-PDSA: Find a process to improve. Organize an effort to work on improvement. Clarify current knowledge of the process. Understand process variation and performance capability. Select changes aimed at performance improvement. Plan the change; analyze current data and predict the results. Do it; execute the plan. Study (analyze) the new data and check the results. Act; take action to sustain the gains. Unlike research and EBP, QI typically doesn’t require extensive literature reviews and rigorous critical appraisal. Therefore, nurses may be much more involved in QI projects than EBP or research. Also, QI projects normally are site specific and results aren’t intended to provide generalizable knowledge or best evidence states Conner (2014). Examples of QI projects include implementing a process to remove urinary catheters within a certain time frame, developing a process to improve wound-care documentation, and improving the process for patient education for a specific chronic disease. The institution I have been at has been working on decreasing central line associated bloodstream infection and peripheral line blood stream infections. Numerous risk factors for CLABSI associated with needleless connectors have been proposed. Some are attributed to poor hand washing before manipulation, inability to properly disinfect the connection site due  to poor design, aseptic d evice management, and frequency of the connector exchange. In addition, several studies looking at intraluminal contamination from the needleless connector have demonstrated that high levels of contamination can be seen colonizing the connector and subsequently moving into the CVC (Ramirez, Lee, & Welch, 2014). Even with varying levels of disinfection, colonization can still occur. Studies of current I.V. practices demonstrated that 56% of Registered Nurses typically do not believe it is necessary to disinfect catheter hubs and >90% of nurses do not cover an intermittent infusion (Ramirez, Lee, & Welch, 2014). The 70% isopropyl alcohol cap known as â€Å"Curos† is used as an attempt to reduce intraluminal contamination. The cap requires ongoing training and encouragement to change practice. Studies indicate that consistent use of the caps does influence CLABSI rates substantially in terms of morbidity and the financial resources that are expended because of CLABSI’s. References Conner, B. T. (2014). Differentiating research, evidence-based practice, and quality improvement. American Nurse Today, 9(6), 26-31. Ramirez, C., Lee, A. M., & Welch, K. (2012). Central Venous Catheter Protective Connector Caps Reduce Intraluminal Catheter-Related Infection. Journal Of The Association For Vascular Access, 17(4), 210-213. doi:10.1016/j.java.2012.10.002