John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Essay -- essays research papers fc

John Keats is a great British poet. He has written many popular poems. La Belle Dame sans Merci is a ballad that was written in 1819. In this ballad, the knight is deceived by the woman he meets. He falls in love with this woman instantly and is convinced that she too is in love with him. The woman makes the knight fall for her by making herself beautiful. The woman deceives the knight into trusting her and then when she takes him to her cave, she breaks his heart by leaving him after the knight wakes up from a nightmare. The first stanza of this ballad describes the knight as being lonely in the wilderness. A Alone and palely loitering. @ The knight is alone and wandering around on his horse. A And no birds sing. @ In this sentence he describes his sadness because the singing of birds is associated with happiness and the birds are not singing. So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel=s granary is full, And the harvest=s done. In this quote the knight is troubled because everything is going as it is supposed to, the granary is full and the harvest is done. This is why the knight is also sad and roaming around on his horse. In the next stanza, the knight is described as exhausted in appearance and afflicted. â€Å"And on thy cheeks a fading rose fast withereth too.† The colour of his skin is fading away, and he is dying. I met a lady in the meads Full beautiful - a faery=s child. Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. In this stanza, the knight meet...

A Barred Owl and the History Teacher Essay

  Ã¢â‚¬Å"A Barred Owl† vs. â€Å"The History Teacher† Essay and  analysis â€Å"A Barred Owl† by Richard Wilbur and â€Å"The History Teacher† by Billy Collins both have adults lying to children. A childish tone is given off in â€Å"A Barred Owl† that helps the reader relate to the child’s fear while an ironic and sarcastic tone is given off in â€Å"The History Teacher† to show how the teacher’s attempt to keep the kids innocent quickly turns the kids’ thoughts from innocent to ignorance. Literary devices used by the authors guide the reader into seeing the effects of the adults’ lies, despite their good intentions.The childish tone of â€Å"A Barred Owl† is kept through the constant rhyming in the poem like â€Å"boom†¦room† and â€Å"heard†¦bird†. The rhyming combined with the childish tone helps put the reader in the frame of mind of the child and how the child thinks. When the owl makes noise, the parents say it’s the owl asking â€Å"Who cooks for you? â⠂¬  The child will think of her parents each time the owl makes noise, hereby deterring the child’s immense fear of the owl outside her window. The lies given off accommodate with the childish tone and help the reader look at the fear from the child’s point of view. The History Teacher† has the ironic and sarcastic tone that shows the teacher’s lack of an actual lesson. Each lesson the teacher gives, he wants to â€Å"protect his students’ innocence†. The lessons, which are presented as metaphors, contribute to the ironic and sarcastic due to the fact that the serious lessons are compared to trivial things that in no way relate to the actual topic. Even the teacher is affected by the irony and sarcasm as he walks home and sees the â€Å"flower beds and white picket fences† as confirmation that everything is perfect in the world.Again, the teacher compares something small to something bigger that he assumes. Danger presents itself in à ¢â‚¬Å"A Barred Owl† and adds a darker/dangerous tone. The combination of the dangerous tone and the childish tone, which is continued through the rhyming, shows the child’s point of view of the outside night. Although the child was comforted by her parents, she is still frighten she is and shows that she needs to be protected. In â€Å"The History Teacher†, after the lessons taught by the teacher, the children â€Å"leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart†.This shows how the teacher isn’t teaching any real lessons for the children to learn from and use in life and shows the continuity of the ironic and sarcastic tone. The poems â€Å"A Barred Owl† by Richard Wilbur and â€Å"The History Teacher† by Billy Collins each show adults lying to children. Using different literary devices in each poem, both authors demonstrate the effects of the children being lied to. â€Å"A Barred Owl† relates the auth or to the child’s fear in the childish tone given off while â€Å"The History Teacher† gives an ironic and sarcastic tone to show the children’s innocence turn to ignorance.

Abstinence Only Education and Sex Education in the U.S.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in April 2012 that teen birth rates in the U.S. hit a new low in 2010 and revealed which states had the highest and lowest rates, it prompted a question: Were these outcomes affected by individual states requirements for sex education (sex ed) and/or abstinence-only education? That was soon answered by the Guttmacher Institutes State Policies in Brief paper on Sex and HIV Education in May 2012. The institute has kept the numbers constantly updated since as the trend of lowered teen birth rates has continued to drop nationwide. Required Sex and/or HIV Education Sex ed is mandated in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Of that total, the following 22 states and the District of Columbia mandate both sex ed and HIV education: CaliforniaDelawareGeorgiaHawaiiIowaKentuckyMaineMarylandMinnesotaMontanaNevadaNew JerseyNew MexicoNorth CarolinaOhioOregonRhode IslandSouth CarolinaTennesseeUtahVermontWest Virginia Two states mandate sex ed only: MississippiNorth Dakota HIV education is mandated in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Of that total, 12 mandate only HIV education: AlabamaConnecticutIllinoisIndianaMichiganMissouriNew HampshireNew YorkOklahomaPennsylvaniaWashingtonWisconsin Must Include Contraception When sex ed is taught, some states have specific content requirements. In addition to the District of Columbia, 18 states require that information on contraception be provided when sex education is taught: AlabamaCaliforniaColoradoDelawareHawaiiIllinoisMaineMarylandNew JerseyNew MexicoNorth CarolinaOregonRhode IslandSouth CarolinaVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest Virginia One state allows local schools to include contraception with the permission of the State Department of Education: Mississippi Must Include Abstinence When sex ed is taught, 37 states require that information on abstinence is provided. Of those, 26 states require that abstinence be stressed: AlabamaArizonaArkansasDelawareFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaKentuckyLouisianaMaineMichiganMississippiMissouriNew JerseyNorth CarolinaOhioOklahomaOregonRhode IslandSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasUtahWashingtonWisconsin These 11 states require only that abstinence is covered during sex education: CaliforniaColoradoHawaiiMarylandMinnesotaMontanaNew MexicoNorth DakotaVermontVirginiaWest Virginia No Mandate There are nine states with no sex education or HIV education mandate: ArizonaArkansasColoradoFloridaIdahoLouisianaMassachusettsTexasVirginia Five of the states listed above also rank among the top 12 states with the highest teenage birth rates, and four rank in the top 6 (ranking indicated in parentheses): Mississippi (1)Arkansas (3)Texas (4)Louisiana (6)Arizona (12) An earlier report issued by the Guttmacher Institute in September 2006 compiled teen pregnancy statistics state by state. Among the top 10 states with the highest rates of teen pregnancy among females age 15-19, five are states without mandated sex education or HIV education (ranking indicated in parentheses): Arizona (2)Mississippi (3)Texas (5)Florida (6)Arkansas (10) That same report ranked the top 10 states with the highest rates of live births among teenage girls age 15-19. Again, five are states that do not require sex ed to be taught in schools. If and when it is taught, these states do not require information on contraception be provided, but they do require that abstinence be stressed (ranking indicated in parentheses): Mississippi (1)Texas (2)Arizona (3)Arkansas (4)Louisiana (7) Only one state that does not mandate sex education or HIV education appears in the listing of states with the lowest teenage birth rates: Massachusetts ranked at number 2. Sources Guttmacher Institute, State Policies in Brief: Sex and HIV Education. Office of Adolescent Health, Trends in Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing