School Struggles
Key:
Pink: African American child
Orange: Inter-city child
Red: Both perspectives
Another Day in school.
The one room school house with a broken chalkboard
Is full of chocolate colored students,
All of whom should be learning in the "Whites only school five blocks down
The teachers begin in hushed tones, the students trying to understand
Another day in school.
Students sitting on the desks talking
While the teacher is writing on the chalkboard
Me, sitting, trying to learn but just not understanding
The teacher has no respect
Not enough teachers for all seventy five kids
Old, dusty, written-on textbooks
Handed down from the white schools
Students on the floor, for there aren't enough desks
Our soccer and football field is all torn up; no one has any respect for us blacks
The dusty, dense, dark hallways are what I dread the most
Kids' getting beaten up in school is nothing new
I just walk by with my head down, trying not to disturb the bullies
A strong musty smell of smoke fills my nose as I pass by the bathrooms,
No surprise, students are smoking again
These schools are supposed to be "Seprate bu Equal",
But that is not true
The town gives our school no money to buy anything
We stay after school and wash our own desks, those of us who have desks
The gloomy, grim days we have here are a reflection of our lives
In the corners of these atrocious hallways I see students dealing drugs
The teachers just stay hidden in their classrooms
For even if they did come out, there would be nothing they could do
The skyscraping students would beat them down like a hammer the a nail
All I long to have is a decent school where teachers have some control
No one in our town cares if we balcks are educated or not
They hope that someday we will leave this country forever
The only people who have faith in us are our teachers and our families
Our parents do not wish for us to live like this forever
And I believe that one day we will be able to live just like every other child
I hope these bullies gain some sense when their older
Maybe in we will live in a real nice world,
where there is absolutely no violence
In reality I know this will never happen, but I like to think about it still
At least maybe we will have better schools, if we get lucky
You get used to living with drugs and alcohol around you all the time
You get used to your community not caring if you move up in school the next year
You get used to the only one who believes in you happens to be yourself
You get used to the true you and what you hope for yourself in the future
You get used to thinking that maybe one day school will be a safe place to learn
The one room school house with a broken chalkboard
Is full of chocolate colored students,
All of whom should be learning in the "Whites only school five blocks down
The teachers begin in hushed tones, the students trying to understand
Another day in school.
Students sitting on the desks talking
While the teacher is writing on the chalkboard
Me, sitting, trying to learn but just not understanding
The teacher has no respect
Not enough teachers for all seventy five kids
Old, dusty, written-on textbooks
Handed down from the white schools
Students on the floor, for there aren't enough desks
Our soccer and football field is all torn up; no one has any respect for us blacks
The dusty, dense, dark hallways are what I dread the most
Kids' getting beaten up in school is nothing new
I just walk by with my head down, trying not to disturb the bullies
A strong musty smell of smoke fills my nose as I pass by the bathrooms,
No surprise, students are smoking again
These schools are supposed to be "Seprate bu Equal",
But that is not true
The town gives our school no money to buy anything
We stay after school and wash our own desks, those of us who have desks
The gloomy, grim days we have here are a reflection of our lives
In the corners of these atrocious hallways I see students dealing drugs
The teachers just stay hidden in their classrooms
For even if they did come out, there would be nothing they could do
The skyscraping students would beat them down like a hammer the a nail
All I long to have is a decent school where teachers have some control
No one in our town cares if we balcks are educated or not
They hope that someday we will leave this country forever
The only people who have faith in us are our teachers and our families
Our parents do not wish for us to live like this forever
And I believe that one day we will be able to live just like every other child
I hope these bullies gain some sense when their older
Maybe in we will live in a real nice world,
where there is absolutely no violence
In reality I know this will never happen, but I like to think about it still
At least maybe we will have better schools, if we get lucky
You get used to living with drugs and alcohol around you all the time
You get used to your community not caring if you move up in school the next year
You get used to the only one who believes in you happens to be yourself
You get used to the true you and what you hope for yourself in the future
You get used to thinking that maybe one day school will be a safe place to learn
Explanation:
When our class was first given the list of topics to choose from for present day and past concerns, I had no idea what I was going to do. I wanted to pick something not too closely related, but something that wasn't a huge strech in relation to each other. I then the idea came to me, I thought maybe I could do something that has to do with the Brown v. Board of Topeka Supreme Court case. Then I discovered that on our brainstorming list for present day topics there was poor education in public city schools. I figured these related in the sense of theat they are both about schools. From the Brown v. Board of Ed. case I decided to do the black schools, and show the struggles that the children were facing in them. I wrote from a point of view of a African American student in a black school. From the poor education in public city schools concern, I chose to write from the prospective of a little girl talking about how bad her school is. For this poem I used the call and response method. I hope that you see how my to social concerns relate and how my explaination goes along with my poem.
Poetic Elements:
For the first poectic element in my social concern poem I used mood. The mood for this poem is depressing and dreadful. I added mood to this poem so the readers would know how sad and serious these conditions were. Also the readers could feel more how the children in my poem felt and have sympathy for these minorities.
The second poetic element that I chose to use was repetition. I used this in the last stanza where I said "You get used to" in the first part of each line. I used this because I thought it showed more emotion and it was something new that you didn't find in any other of my poems. I also used repitition it the beginnig of this poem when I said "Another day at school" in the firt two lines of the first two stanzas.
For the third literary element in my social concern poem I used theme. The theme in this poem is not everyone has a great life to live and also sometimes things can be done to create a better environment for poorer people, but no one always takes the initiative to create a better environment for them. I thought this was a very important poetic element to have in my poem. This is because to have a scoial concern poem you have to have a concern and then show how bad that topic is. This can be portrayed by theme.
The last poetic element I had in this poem was alliteration. I used this many times throughout my poem. I used it when I said, " Grim, gloomy days", "Dusty, dense, dark hallways", and " Chocolate colored complexioned students." I feel that using alliteration draws the reader in and makes the poem more exciting to read.
When our class was first given the list of topics to choose from for present day and past concerns, I had no idea what I was going to do. I wanted to pick something not too closely related, but something that wasn't a huge strech in relation to each other. I then the idea came to me, I thought maybe I could do something that has to do with the Brown v. Board of Topeka Supreme Court case. Then I discovered that on our brainstorming list for present day topics there was poor education in public city schools. I figured these related in the sense of theat they are both about schools. From the Brown v. Board of Ed. case I decided to do the black schools, and show the struggles that the children were facing in them. I wrote from a point of view of a African American student in a black school. From the poor education in public city schools concern, I chose to write from the prospective of a little girl talking about how bad her school is. For this poem I used the call and response method. I hope that you see how my to social concerns relate and how my explaination goes along with my poem.
Poetic Elements:
For the first poectic element in my social concern poem I used mood. The mood for this poem is depressing and dreadful. I added mood to this poem so the readers would know how sad and serious these conditions were. Also the readers could feel more how the children in my poem felt and have sympathy for these minorities.
The second poetic element that I chose to use was repetition. I used this in the last stanza where I said "You get used to" in the first part of each line. I used this because I thought it showed more emotion and it was something new that you didn't find in any other of my poems. I also used repitition it the beginnig of this poem when I said "Another day at school" in the firt two lines of the first two stanzas.
For the third literary element in my social concern poem I used theme. The theme in this poem is not everyone has a great life to live and also sometimes things can be done to create a better environment for poorer people, but no one always takes the initiative to create a better environment for them. I thought this was a very important poetic element to have in my poem. This is because to have a scoial concern poem you have to have a concern and then show how bad that topic is. This can be portrayed by theme.
The last poetic element I had in this poem was alliteration. I used this many times throughout my poem. I used it when I said, " Grim, gloomy days", "Dusty, dense, dark hallways", and " Chocolate colored complexioned students." I feel that using alliteration draws the reader in and makes the poem more exciting to read.
