The Life and Writing Style of Mark Twain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Life and Writing Style of Mark Twain - Essay Example By employing humor in his works, Twain was able to expose the bitter, realistic attributes of of society, religion and humanity. In fact, Twain’s two masterpieces â€Å"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County† and â€Å"Letters from the Earth† demonstrate Twain’s two kinds of humor. Mark Twain was born in 1835 as Samuel Langhorn Clemens, a man who had had numerous careers before he even turned 30 from being a journeyman printer to being a riverboat pilot. When he found a job at a newspaper company, he immediately adopted a pen name – Mark Twain. It was in 1865 when he gained overnight fame from his first masterpiece – a short story entitled â€Å"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,† and also a piece of work that practically displays Mark Twain’s typical writing style (Schultz). Most of Twain’s writings had in them local color realism and mainstream realism. For â€Å"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,† Twain employed local color realism and mainstream realism, while for â€Å"Letters from the Earth,† the author used sharp sarcasm and wit. In â€Å"The Celebrated Jumping Frog,† local color realism can be proven by Twain’s use of the dialect of the deep south. The vocabulary used by the character Simon Wheeler in short story is typical of local color realism. In the story, Wheeler uses â€Å"feller† instead of fellow, and contractions like â€Å"reg’lar† and â€Å"solit’ry† (Twain, â€Å"The Celebrated†).... ost curious,† â€Å"she don’t,† which is supposed to be â€Å"she doesn’t,† and â€Å"ketched† which stands for â€Å"catched† but which is supposed to be â€Å"caught.† (Twain, â€Å"The Celebrated†). Moreover, mainstream realism is also used in â€Å"The Celebrated Jumping Frog† as Twain mentions real life events like gambling and cheating. Both local color realism and mainstream realism attribute the realistic aspect of any literary work during the era of realism in literature. On the other hand, Twain employs sarcastic humor in â€Å"Letters from the Earth.† In fact, the whole story is heavily peppered with sarcasm. One of these instances is in saying that â€Å"[man] believes the Creator is proud of him; he even believes the Creator loves him† when in fact He does not (Twain, â€Å"Letters,† I). In fact, the picture of man as otherwise arrogant and proud is what he means by the aforemention ed example. Twain was therefore trying to awaken people through his sense of humor coupled with realistic elements. Satan also mentions in his letters that although human beings place sexual intercourse â€Å"far and away above all other joys,† they have somehow forgotten to include it in their idea of heaven (Twain, â€Å"Letters,† II). This now addresses a confusing issue about sex. If human beings consider the act as sexually and physically pleasurable as it is stated in the Bible, then why would the idea of sex be excluded from one’s perception of heaven? Twain addresses this issue in â€Å"Letters from the Earth† (Twain). As an addition to sarcasm, Twain used religious references in â€Å"Letters from the Earth† but references to the government in â€Å"The Celebrated Jumping Frog.† The purpose is to instill humor. Through the characters of the archangels Michael and Gabriel and

Vocabulary game Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Vocabulary game - Essay Example The document is arranged in order of the different exercises that should be followed in sequence to prepare the students for the lesson and then to take them through the lesson and finally revise the lesson. It should be kept in mind that this vocabulary game has been designed assuming that the level of English knowledge acquired by the students in question is minimal and have never heard a single term that is used in the lesson. Therefore the teacher will have to use his or her discretion when deciding which exercises are not required as the students above the assumed level. Before beginning the lesson and introducing the terms that will be learnt in unicellular and multicellular it is best to introduce the concept of what is going to be learnt using life experience and day to day concepts. This can be done by talking to students about the single purpose and multipurpose objects such as a water kettle vs. microwave oven and a television or DVD player vs. a home entertainment system. This will enable the students to get an idea of what they are going to learn in the next chapter in science. Once the students have understood the concept that they are going to learn - use the human body to introduce the concept further. This will have more scientific basis and at the same time be something that all students understand irrespective of culture and background (Settlage, J. & Southerland, S. A., 2007). Now that the students understand the concept that they will be learning in the next chapter in their science lesson it is time to introduce some of the basic and common terms that they will be learning. These terms should be introduced with pictures or diagrams. While students may never have heard the terms before it is quite possible that they have seen the different organisms that are being introduced and this will help them to make a connection between the terms and what they already know - this will help retention and better understanding. Now that the students have made a basic connection between the common terms and diagrams it is time to let them work on their own to build and increase their understanding. Now they should be encouraged to use different resources that are available to them to learn the definitions of each of the terms that have been introduced to them. This will help give them a deeper understanding of the terms and will help them make a deeper connection with what they already know and what they are about to learn in the future. Next once the students have adequate knowledge of the terms and definitions some games can be brought in to enhance the knowledge, stimulate more interest and also to make the lesson interesting. Students can be given opportunities to become competitive by dividing them into groups and asking them to match terms with diagrams, match terms with definitions and fill in the blanks in closed sentences that would enable further understanding o