The Metamorphosis The Potrait Of KafkaS Li Essay Example For Students

The Metamorphosis: The Potrait Of KafkaS Li Essay fe Vishal S Shah ENG 102-058 04-18-01 The Metamorphosis: The Potrait Of KafkaS Li Essayfe The Metamorphosis written by Franz Kafka is considered one of the few great, poetic works of the twentieth century. Addressing The Metamorphosis, Elias Canetti, a Nobel Prize-winning author, has commented, In The Metamorphosis Kafka has reached the height of his mastery: he has written something which he could never surpass, because there is nothing which The Metamorphosis could be surpassed by one of the few great, perfect poetic works of this century (Corngold ix). There are many symbolisms and parallelisms used in the story. Kafkas disturbing, symbolic fiction, especially The Metamorphosis, written in German, not only prefigures the oppression and despair of the late 20th century but also is an account of the dramatic transformations that had occurred during his own life (Kafka Franz, Funk, 2000). This beautifully written masterpiece of Kafkas is clearly symbolic of his own life and nightmare-like life experiences he had with his father. We will write a custom essay on The Metamorphosis: The Potrait Of KafkaS Li specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Suppose all that you have always valued in your life was shown to be an illusion. What if your precious beliefs, maxims, platitudes, and traditions were inverted and distorted beyond recognition? You suddenly realize that what is good is bad; what is beauty is foul; what is virtue, vice. What if all your points of reference were to shift: North becomes South; black becomes white; deviant becomes saint; saint becomes deviant. Suppose that this transformation a metamorphosis of perception were to come to you and you alone. Suddenly you awake, and in utter solitude you discover that SHAH 2 your values have reversed along with you: you are a roach! (http://www.vr. net/her). Your world is abruptly and totally changed! This is Gregor portrayed in Kafkas The Metamorphosis. With the opening of the story, Kafka right away jumps into the woken yet uneasy dreamy state of Gregor, a young commercial traveler. With the rise of Gregor, Kafka describes the dull, gloomy and humid environment that foreshadows the decay and deterioration of Gregors life. As soon as Gregor opens his eyes, he finds himself positioned in an uncomfortable manner and transformed into a monstrous vermin or a gigantic insect, a worthless creature, with his hard armor-plated back lying on the bed: He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like belly divided into stiff arched segments (Kafka 296). With this arresting opening, Kafka has set his mysterious psychological fantasy in motion. He plainly describes Gregors uneasiness of keeping himself balanced in his bed. His numerous pitifully thin legs waved helplessly in the air before his eyes (296). Just so the readers are not left in confusion, Gregor asserts that It was not a dream, and sees for himself, in disbelief, that he is still in his own regular human bedroom, with a collection of cloth samples widespread on the top of the table (296). Slowly and gradually, we notice Gregors difficulty in getting up from his bed and his effort to get up safely without hurting hims5elf. This is clearly seen when the narrator says, If he tried to bend a leg, it first straightened out; and if he finally succeeded in taking charge of it, the other legs meanwhile all kept carrying on, as if emancipated, in extreme and painful agitation SHAH 3 (297). Through this description of his difficulties one can clearly see his miserable suffering and his slowly deteriorating health. The use of lengthy descriptions of the difficulties that Gregor faces probably signifies Kafkas actual feelings and pains that he suffered within his life, mainly during his childhood. Gregors difficulties in getting up from his bed actually relate to the difficulties that Kafka faced the very morning of the initial composing of The Metamorphosis. In regard to this he wrote Felice Bauer, his German fiance: I was simply too miserable to get out of bed. It also seemed to me that last night my novel got much worse, and I lay in the lowest depths. Ill write you again today, even though I still have to run around a lot and shall write down a short story that occurred to me during my misery in bed .

Importance of Wait Time in Education

Importance of Wait Time in Education Wait time, in educational terms, is the time that a teacher  waits before calling on a student in class  or for an individual student to respond. For example,  teacher presenting a lesson on presidential terms of office, may ask the question, How many years can a president serve as president? The amount of time that a teacher gives students to think of the answer and raise their hands is called wait-time, and research published over forty years ago is still used to show that wait-time is a critical instructional tool. The term was first coined by Mary Budd Rowe in her research paper, Wait-time and Rewards as Instructional Variables, Their Influence in Language, Logic, and Fate Control (1972). She noted that on average, teachers paused only 1.5 seconds after asking a question; some wait only a tenth of a second. When that time was extended to three seconds, there were positive changes to students and teachers behaviors and attitudes. She explained that wait-time gave students a chance to take risks. Exploration and inquiry require students to put together ideas in new ways, to try out new thoughts, to take risks. For that they not only need time but they need a sense of being safe (4). Her report detailed several of the changes that came about when students were provided wait-time: The length and correctness of student responses increased.The number of no answers or I dont know responses by students decreased.The number  of students who volunteered answers increased greatly increased.Academic achievement test scores tended to increase. Wait Time is Think Time Rowes study had focused on elementary science teacher using data recorded over five years. She had noted a change in teacher characteristics, flexibility  in their own responses, when they purposefully allowed wait-time of three to five seconds, or even longer. In addition, the variety of questions asked in class became varied. Rowe concluded that wait-time influenced teacher expectations, and their rating of students they may have considered slow changed. She suggested that more work should be done concerning direct training of students to take time both to frame replies and to hear other students. In the 1990s, Robert Stahl from Arizona State University took up Rowes suggestion and followed up on her research. His study Using Think-time Behaviors to Promote Students Information Processing, Learning, and On-task Participation: An Instructional Model explained that wait-time was more than a simple pause in instruction. He determined that the three seconds of wait time of uninterrupted silence offered in questioning and answering was an opportunity for intellectual exercise. He found that during this uninterrupted silence, both the teacher and all students can both complete appropriate information processing tasks, feelings, oral responses, and actions. He explained that wait-time should be renamed as think-time because, Think-time names the primary academic purpose and activity of this period of silenceto allow students and the teacher to complete on-task thinking (8). Stahl also determined that there were eight categories of uninterrupted periods of silence that comprised wait-time. These categories described the wait-time immediately following a teachers question to a dramatic pause a teacher may use to emphasize an important idea or concept. Practicing Wait-time in the Classroom Despite the undisputed research, wait-time is a teaching tool that is often not practiced in the classroom. One reason may be that teachers are uncomfortable with silence after asking a question. This pause may not feel natural to wait to call on students. Taking three to five seconds, however, before calling on a student is not a lot of time. For teachers who may feel pressured to cover content or want to get through a unit, that uninterrupted silence can feel unnaturally long, especially if that pause is not a classroom norm. Another reason that teachers may feel uncomfortable with uninterrupted silence could be a lack of practice. More veteran teachers may already set their own pace for instruction which would need to be adjusted, while teachers entering the profession may not have had the opportunity to try wait-time in a classroom environment. Implementing an effective wait-time of three to five seconds is purposeful and takes practice. To better practice wait-time, some teachers implement a policy of only selecting students who raise a hand. This can be hard to enforce, especially if other teachers in the school are not requiring students to raise their hands. If a teacher is consistent and reinforces the importance of hand-raising in response to a question, students will eventually learn. Of course, teachers should realize that it is much harder to make students raise their hands if they have not required to do so from the first day of school. Other teachers may use a student lists or popsicle sticks or cards with student names to ensure that every student is called upon or that one student does not dominate the responses. Teachers also need to be aware of student expectations when implementing wait time. Students who are in competitive, upper-level courses and who may be used to quick-fire questions and answers might not initially find a benefit from wait time. In these cases, teachers would have to use their expertise and varying the amounts of time before calling on students to see if it does make a difference to either the number of students involved or the quality of the answers. Like any other instructional strategy, a teacher may need to play with wait-time to see what works best for students. While wait-time may be an uncomfortable strategy for teachers and students at first, it does get easier with practice. Teachers will notice a better quality and/or an increase in the length of responses as students to have the time to think of their answer before raising their hands. Finally, student-to-student interactions may increase as students become better able to formulate their answers. That pause of a few seconds called wait-time or think-time can make a dramatic improvement in learning.

Exercise Deprivation on Mood Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Exercise Deprivation on Mood - Essay Example The tend to exercise more due to the guilt of overeating and when it helps in maintaining the body and also improves the mood, the habit would become habitual, which could turn fatal to the health of the individual. This type of behavior is found commonly among college goers who heavily depend on exercises to keep themselves fit and healthy and achieve a greater level of mood satisfaction. Apart from normal individuals, exercise plays a vital role in case of athletes who need to maintain a certain level of fitness to overcome the pressures of the game. However, there has not been much research that has focused on what impact will exercise dependence have in case of athletes. Thus the article provides a comparative study on the impact of exercise dependence and withdrawal on the mood changes in both athletes and non-athletes. In this correlational study 46 athlete and 34 non-athletes female participants were included. The athlete participants were not in-season players and were not attending any training at the time of the study and the sports in which they were engaged included basketball, football, swimming and diving. The non-athletes on the other hand exercised for two hours per week. The age, height, weight, demography and exercise dependence status of the participants using a exercise dependence scale were obtained.