Dracula Book Club Essay

My book club read Dracula by Bram Stoker. In this book, Jonathan Harker goes to visit a mysterious count named Dracula. When Jonathan manages to escape, Dracula wrecks havoc on his life and all his friends lives. In this story, Dracula almost always has power. He does this simply by being stronger and faster than the humans and also by outsmarting them. Or he can do this by outsmarting other people. This is how Dracula always has power.

When Jonathan visits Dracula’s castle, he is at first unable to see than Dracula is keeping him hostage. He later figures this out when Dracula does not let him leave by threatening him with death by wolves. Dracula has all the power because he is keeping him hostage in his castle. He is doing this physically. He can keep Jonathan inside the house by pure force. This is how he controls people using force.

Dracula can also mentally outsmart them. In one scene he sets up a trap for them where they are attacked by rats. He controls them by setting traps and forcing them to look other places. He can control them by turning their friends into vampires for example they turned lucy into a vampire. Then she became under his control. She becomes mentally control by Dracula and they have to kill her.

These are the two ways that Dracula controls his victims. He uses strength and power to defeat them. Or he uses tactics and thinking to steer them in the direction he wants them to go. This is how he has control.

Martin Espada Essay

Martin Espada Essay

Xavier Markowitz

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There are many ways to be racist towards hispanic people. In the poems, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877,” by Martin Espada, there are people who are racist to the hispanic people. I think these poems are connected because they have to do with racism.

In the poem “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” the principal overhears students speaking spanish in the bathroom. He doesn’t understand them and the only thing he hears is his own name. He then gets upset and bans spanish from the bathroom. This shows how he is being racist by not letting the students speak their language. I feel that this is unfair because the principal is limiting their culture. This is how Martin Espada showed racism in this poem.

In the second poem, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” Martin Espada also talks about racism. He becomes upset when people mispronounce his name so he goes on a long fantasy about how he will hold Americans hostage and how he will become the stereotypical hispanic revolutionary. He describes himself to look like Che Guevara. I think this is showing how angry he is and how he feels people who mispronounce his name view him. This poem shows his anger very well. This poem also shows racism through the speaker’s anger.

The poem, “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877,” talks about racism. In the poem, Espada, talks about two mexicanos that were lynched. They were not given a fair trial because they were hispanic. Then after the hanging, the people who hanged them took a picture with them. This is very racist. They did not see them as human beings. First of all, they did not get a fair trial. Second, they took a picture to remember the moment. They did not think of them as people who died. They do not care about the Mexicano’s lives. This shows the racism at the time.

These three poems are connected in a certain way. They all show racism towards hispanic people. These poems are trying to show us how being racist effects other people. Sometimes it takes away part of their culture, or sometimes it makes them angry. In extreme cases it can lead to death. This is what I think Espada was trying to teach us.

Chinese Test Essay

Chinese Test Essay

Xavier Markowitz

In China there is a test called the gaokao. This one test can determine your entire future. It tells you where you go the college. There are special schools that are based solely around prepping for this test. I feel that this test is unfair. I think this because the test is very stressful and it is discriminatory to poor people.

This test stresses all students out. "It's critics say it stifles creativity and puts excessive pressure on students." The critics are right. This system puts a lot of pressure on the students and taking test is not as creative as doing other school activities such as projects. Also, “Teenage suicide rates tend to rise near the gaokao.” This shows how the test is extremely stressful towards the students. It is very upsetting that the test makes them do this. The school itself makes it a more stressful experience. “Maotanchang’s teachers dole out lessons, and frequently punishments, with military rigor.” This stresses the students out even more. These three things combined create a very stressful environment for the students.

Another problem that makes the test so unfair is that it is discriminatory to poor people. “Many wealthy families are simply opting out of the system, placing their children in private international schools in China or sending them abroad for an education.” This shows how being rich can simply take you out of the test. That is very unfair. “Rural villages like Yuejin, have poor schools and few well trained teachers. Wealthy urban families can hire private tutors and pay for test prep courses, or bribe their way into the best city school.” These are some ways that wealthy people have a very big advantage in this system. “Rural students are allowed far fewer college-admissions spots than students from cities.” This is showing how statistically richer people from cities get into colleges for often than poorer people for rural areas. These are ways that money can be an unfair part of the testing experience.

These are two reasons why this is test is unfair. Firstly, it is extremely stressful for the students. They spend years studying. Secondly, it is discriminatory to poor people. If you are poor it is harder to pass the test. This is why the gaokao is unfair.

Dear Ms. Berner,

"We don't have to agree with what we read, but we should learn from it" That is from banned book essay contest winner, Brandon Redlinger. Shielding children from the world does not change it. I do not think adults should get to decide what is appropriate for children and what is not appropriate. I do not think we should ban books at MS51. I think the student should get to decide what is right for him or her.

Parents and school executives act as if reading the books will hurt you but sometimes they help you. In the article “Banned Books Week 2010: An Anti-Censorship Manifesto,” author Ellen Hopkins tells a story about how she was giving a talk about her book, Crank, which is about a meth addiction, and how afterward, she was approached by a young women who told her a story of how the book pulled her out of addiction. This is an example of a banned book helping people become better. In the article, The Fault in Our Stars Has Been Banned in Schools, parent Karen Krueger said that “The thing that kept hitting me like a tidal wave was these kids dealing with their own mortality, and how difficult that might be for an 11-year-old or 12-year-old reading this book.” But when John Green responded to this,  “I am happy because apparently young people at Riverside High, California will never witness or experience mortality since they won’t be reading my book, which is great for them. But I am also sad because I was really hoping I would be able to introduce the idea that human beings die to the children at Riverside High, California and thereby crush their dreams of immortality.”He brilliantly showed how banning the book would hurt the children more than just keeping it on the shelves.

Parents and school executives should be able to decide what is right for everyone. They do not know what everyone wants. Ellen Hopkins says, “Censorship cannot be allowed to flourish in America. If you don't like content in a book, don't read it. If you don't want your child to read a book, take it away. But you do not have the right to decide "appropriateness" for everyone. What's perhaps not right for one child is necessary to another. Ignorance is no armor.” I agree with all of this. It is not right for adults to judge what is right for an entire school district without even reading the book they are banning. You can’t make children ignorant to bad things in the world. Dave Pilkey made a great drawing that is talking about banning books. He talks about it in the article, “Too Graphic? 2014 Banned Books Week Celebrates Challenged Comics. I had a drawing of a very angry grownup saying 'I don't think children should read this book,'" he says. "And then the simple change was ... I added the word 'my.' So instead of saying 'I don't think children should read this book,' it becomes 'I don't think my children should read this book.' " This is showing how a simple change could solve the whole banned books problem. A parents control should not reach beyond their child and into another parent’s child.

On the hand, people like Meghan Cox Gurdon in her article Darkness to Visible. She says “books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people who might otherwise never have imagined such extreme measures.” She is saying that by reading about them someone might want to do them. I do not agree with this statement. I think that when you give someone another person, fictional are real, to empathize with, it helps them. Ellen Hopkins talks about this when she is responding to being banned. This is taking place after a book signing, “as the room emptied one lovely young woman remained. She came forward and when I asked her name, she crumbled into tears.” Hopkins then talks about how the girl had been a meth addict but when she found that book she saw she didn’t want to be that person. The changed her lifestyle because of that book.

The banning of books should not happen. How will you ever know what is right for you if other people just decide. The book could help you become a better person. It is unfair that adults get to decide what other people can read. I find that it unfair to make it harder for other people to have the experience of reading that book because of their opinions. I think that books should never be banned.

From,

Xavier Markowitz