So That Nobody has to go to School if They don’t want to

Example Summary: The essay by Roger Sipher talks about the abolition of the compulsory attendance laws in primary and secondary schools. Roger Sipher believes that the decline in standardized test scores is because there are students who do not wish to go to school but are forced into it. He makes his argument by stating that those who do not want to learn pollute the class environment and don’t allow the school to enable any disciplinary policies. Public schools are also required to pass these student and their grades would not reflect their aptitude. Public schools could concentrate on educating the students who really want to learn and would save a lot of money if the compulsory attendance laws were removed.

 Example Paraphrase:Roger Sipher says that these laws have allowed recalcitrant students to graduate high school without doing any work or learning anything of value.

Example Quotation: Roger Sipher’s believes that “Schools should be for education . At present they are only tangentially so”(Page 3)

Streetwise

There is a lot of different ways in which a photo essay and a movie are portrayed. I personal felt that I can truly understand the author when I see the photo essay. When I read the essay Postcards from the edge, I did get a feel of what the author was trying to portray but the statistics makes it difficult for you to really picture yourself in the authors place. In a narration you can put yourself in the authors shoe although the photo essay capture the real essence because of the background settings and the protagonist.

The photo essay I feel is a very important aspect when talking about a subject like street children. Unlike the movie which actually portrays their real life, the photographs are modified to be in black and white which is precisely what their world seems like. Their life isn’t actually about flowers, rainbows and ponies, the photograph has some of the characters smiling while some of the characters are just doing their own thing.

The movie Streetwise is very different from the essay Postcards from the Edge, the children in the movie, Tiny and Rat, seemed like they had a choice when it came to choosing the streets or the comfort of a home. They had parents who cared for them and they had a home to live in but they seemed to like their profession of being a hooker and a drug dealer. In the movie Tiny talks about how she has had many sexually transmitted diseases and how a lot of her customers treat her badly but at the same time when she meets another girl who is also a hooker she defends her profession and tells her how great it was being on the streets.

There has always been a constant debate between movies and the books they have been made from, I feel that even though the books allow you to put yourself in the authors place, the movie allows you to view the story the way the author wants it. In the case of Streetwise, the movie makes you feel bad for the characters since they are ill-treated and not educated. Even though the children seemed to overact knowing fully well that they were being filmed, the movie still gave us an in-depth analysis into the lives of the street children.