In the book Old School by Tobias Wolff, the unnamed narrator struggles through healthy imitation and plagiarism inside of the Hill school. While attending this school, the narrator enters a writing contest. The submission the narrator uses is of another person, but he claims the writing to be so related to him and how the writing is his life in a sense. The narrator ends up plagiarizing the piece and is expelled by the school. The school expelled him with thought of reputation and to set an example for the other students. Honor is what is said to drive the decision for expulsion, but was it just for the school. The school’s response to plagiarism wasn’t unfair, although it seemed harsh the school did it with thought of the narrator and the school in mind.
The line between healthy imitation and plagiarism can be drawn between someone claiming to be the story and someone
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The school said they expelled the narrator because it would hurt the honor of the school, but this might not the entire truth. If the school had let this event fly it would have damaged the reputation of the school, while also hurting the narrator too. The future of the narrator would have been damaged because he might not have become a writer. When the narrator left the school, the school’s reputation didn’t fall, and the narrator was in a better position than he would have been. This means that it’s a win-win scenario for the narrator and the school. After all this the narrator realized that when he submitted something it needed to be his own work. Susan, the character the had her poem plagiarized, ended up taking the event positively. “Plagiarism, not imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery” (157). After this event the narrator became an authentic writer. Without the school taking the narrator’s future into account, him becoming a writer could have never
During her visit to Whitman, Alexandra made comparisons between her high school years and the high school years of the upperclassmen observed. She noticed the variety of differences between them because during her years there was not much palpable competition but now there was between the students at Whitman. The competition of getting the best grades was a huge deal to the students because their grades were a factor to getting admitted to the college of their choice. Pete a junior student at Whitman, was one of the many overachievers who put in the effort to get the best grades he could even if it meant to risk his own health. Pete was a straight A student who one night took so much caffeine to complete a paper that was due the next day.
This theme is a mirror for the theme of duty and responsibility that each man is nothing but his actions and his courage to carry the responsibility of the consequences. Moving on to extract the theme of paradox and denial, such theme can be seen in each character. Owing to the anger of guilt Keller begins to falsely justify his actions living in a paradoxical state of mind leading him to live in denial for years. He lives unable to decide his reality whether guilty or “didn’t kill anybody” (II. 67), whether a killer or a respected successful man (Bloom, 36).
(Avi, 125) This evidence explains about how the situation gets twisted and turns into more about perspective than the actual reality of it all. The reporters, the school board, and even some faculty, all twist the story. For example, Phillip wasn’t expelled. He was suspended for breaking a rule, not so much as singing the national anthem.
Controversy over the choice of books used to teach within schools has many parents questioning whether a book is appropriate for a school setting. Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood, is a perfect example of a novel that tests the limits with the content placed in the book. Within Capote’s novel, he discusses many topics that parents find inappropriate for teachers to teach to their children. The Windsor Forest High School, in Savannah, Georgia, banned this book, “when a parent complained about sex, violence, and profanity …”
Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School conveys the ideas of honor, identity, voice and competition through the experiences of a boy who attends a preparatory school in the 1960s. The unnamed narrator’s actions are caused by the visiting writers, who definitely influence the narrator more negatively. Although the purpose of the famous writers visiting the school is to influence the narrator at the prep school more positively by helping him build character and allowing him to pursue perseverance, in reality the pressure the writers add discourages the narrator from finding his own voice and adds even more competition to an already extremely competitive school. This results in the narrator experiencing problems of plagiarizing, the search for his voice
For example, in "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury, Margot attended school on the planet Venus, where she was tormented by her classmates. Her peers lied to Margot,
An article from L.A. Times written by Megan O'Neil discusses the pros and cons of teaching the book in schools. The author interviewed a teacher who supported high schoolers reading the book and she had only positive things to say about the novel, "Capote’s work is a great fit for the class, because it introduces students to the American judicial system and the death penalty, among other contemporary topics. It is also superbly written and allows students to form their own opinions" (Ciotti). Ms. Ciotti believed the book would benefit her students greatly by introducing them to the controversial topics and letting them give their own opinions. A school board president agreed with Ms. Ciotti and had her own reasons for allowing the novel, “I whole-heartedly support the adoption of this book, not just because it is on the AP list, or because it represents a milestone in literature as the first nonfiction novel.
You Have Insulted Me essay by Evan Hang Kurt Vonnegut’s purpose for writing the letter, “You Have Insulted Me” is to convince the school board to change their decision through the use of rhetorical strategies, logos, pathos, and ethos. To begin, Vonnegut uses ethos to convince the school board. Vonnegut uses examples of ethos such as that he served in World War 2 and earned a purple heart to change the school board’s decision. “Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be the commencement speaker at colleges and high schools.” Vonnegut uses real-life, reliable information to show the school board that he is trusted by many people.
In Tobias Wolff’s short story “The Liar,” the protagonist, James, lies to help him construct a new identity outside of his family. James tells morbid lies about his mother in order to distance himself from her. Since, the loss of his father, James no longer associates with people who are like him. The lies started after his father’s death and his mother starts noticing how much differently he was acting. Since his mother is treating him like she is disappointed in him, James begins to devolve into a state of repressed bitterness.
Ben had trouble with writing when he was a kid and was made fun of a lot because of this. Ben says, “Not until college did the idea of actually being an author creep into my head. An English professor called me in after class to comment on an assignment I had written. He told me my grammar skills were those of a fifth grader. Fearfully, I asked if I should drop the class.
Despite depression beginning to take hold of her, there is one thing she’s still holding out hope for. She had applied to a summer course about writing, her one great passion, taught by a famous writer, she had yet to get a response, but she was quite sure of her acceptance. However, that is quickly taken away from her. As soon as she returns home, Esther’s mom explains the course didn’t accept her. “All throughout June the writing course had stretched before me like a bright, safe bridge over the dull gulf of the summer.
By definition plagiarism is “the act of taking someone else’s work and trying to pass it off as if it were your own.” There are many different types of plagiarism, such as having someone write a paper for you, copying somers paper or just copying something right from the internet. Plagiarism is wrong in many ways because if you are caught you are only hurting yourself. You hurt yourself by having teachers or professors question who you really are. Plagiarism is cheating.
“And that was how we took care of our own dirty laundry, Herr Kanzler,” Walther said to the Wise Man. As it turned out, they were still sitting in the same chairs, inside the same room at Schloß Schwarzenstein. “You really have nothing to worry about anymore: it is not as if anyone will truly be able to uncover our presence here. So long as they do not accept certain facts of life, we honestly could care less about what they want to believe.” “Why would you say that?”
When the civil war began in Great Britain, he is a student at Huntington Grammar School. It is here that he began his writing skills at an early age. At the age of seventeen, he transferred to St. Paul’s School (Barber, ix; Tomalin, 2002). Later in his infamous life, he is accepted to the Magdalene College under suspicion. He would go on to study here for the next four years and eventually graduate.
Riding the Whip The theme of the story was perspective. Riding the Whip touched on how some people see things versus others. The following quote is a great example, “She just sees things differently” (Hemley, Whipped 115).