Feminist Perspective of John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums Essay

A Feminist Perspective of John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums   John Steinbeck, in his short story "The Chrysanthemums" depicts the trials of a woman attempting to gain power in a man's world. Elisa Allen tries to define the boundaries of her role as a woman in such a closed society. While her environment is portrayed as a tool for social repression, it is through nature in her garden where Elisa gains and shows off her power. As the story progresses, Elisa has trouble extending this power outside of the fence that surrounds her garden. In the end, Elisa learns but does not readily accept, that she possesses a feminine power weak for the time, not the masculine one she had tried so hard to achieve through its imitation. The work begins with a look at the story's setting. "The Chrysanthemums" was written in 1938, and the story takes place roughly around the same time. It is winter in Salinas Valley, California. The most prominent feature is the "gray-flannel fog" which hid the valley "from the rest of the world" (396). The mountains and valleys and sky and fog encapsulate everything inside as a "closed pot" (396). Inside this shut-off habitat the environment is trying to change. Just as the farmers are waiting for an unlikely rain, Elisa and all women   are hopeful for a change in their enclosed lives. Steinbeck’s   foreshadows, "It was a time of quiet and waiting" (396). The action of the story opens with Elisa Allen working in her garden. She is surrounded by a wire fence, which physically is there to protect her flowers from the farm animals. This barrier symbolizes her life; she is fenced in from the real world, from a man's world. It is a smaller, on-earth version of the environment in which they live. This man's... ...mean she couldn't still be strong. The peddler's business of selling his service of fixing pots closes women out of his world just as natural fog closes of the valley. Although we hope her tears can be compared to the pruning she does to her precious chrysanthemums, clipping them backed for future and stronger growth, Steinbeck leaves the reader questioning the future for women. Elisa's tears will not rid the valley of the fog, for as Steinbeck tells us in the beginning, "fog and rain do not go together" (396). While Elisa will continue to dominate her immediate surrounding inside the fence using her power from nature, but she will not gain power outside of it, in a man's world. Work Cited Steinbeck, John. "The Chrysanthemums." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1995.

Multiple Learning Styles Essay

More than one student in Kindergarten through College has complained of boring courses and tedious homework that had no discernible connection to their immediate environment. Many students describe their courses as lectures that force them to sit and listen to a professor for one to three hours, sometimes without a break in between. It is rare, or even unheard of, for a student to participate in a class-related activity that involved groups, going outside, discussions, or movement. The physical, social, emotional, and cognitive aspects of the classroom are not often addressed, leaving school a less safe and less stimulating environment (Sprenger, 2008). Not surprisingly, school is labeled as a stagnant place lacking in the stimulation of our senses. Students would rather be with friends, play a sport, master a hobby or skill, or even immerse themselves into fantastic games than go to school. Yet these same students appreciate learning new ideas, growing stronger, and having fun in a wide array of visual, audial, and kinesthetic activities. Shouldn’t public and private education use the best methods to impart history, math, science, language, and philosophy to younger generations? While there is no â€Å"best† method to accomplish this, I believe that using multiple learning styles to approach teaching and learning is more effective than using one style to accommodate multiple unique individuals. In its entirety, a learning style is â€Å"the complex manner in which, and conditions under which, learners most efï ¬ ciently and most effectively perceive, process, store, and recall what they are attempting to learn† (Lujan and DiCarlo, 2012). Most professionals and students have used three major learning styles to categorize themselves: Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic. These perspectives can be defined in simpler terms to be â€Å"hearing†, â€Å"seeing†, and â€Å"moving/doing†. In the 1980’s, a fourth category was added to differentiate â€Å"visual† and â€Å"read/write† learners, since people like Neil Fleming noticed that â€Å"some students had a distinct preference for the written word whilst others preferred symbolic information as in maps, diagrams, and charts (Fleming, 2006). As a result, the VARK questionnaire was created to identify an individual’s â€Å"preferences for particular modes of presentationâ₠¬  (Lujan and DiCarlo, 2012). Learning style dimensions are connected and related to one another, not â€Å"either/or† categories (Felder and Spurlin, 2005). Some people excel at interpreting locations on maps, while others would rather hear a location described; some would rather draw the map itself. Thus, if a teacher is monotonously lecturing a topic to sophomore students in college, some students will interpret and make connections with the information presented more easily than others. Those students that â€Å"learned less† or â€Å"slower† than other students in that example would have benefitted from other styles of teaching, such as a visual diagram of the information, a mind map, written bullet points, or physical interaction with the subject matter. Without this insight, flexibility, or desire, most teachers would remain unaware that the students who performed worse in their courses might have scored higher on tests or assignments if they had understood the class material from anot her perspective related to learning styles. The use of multiple learning styles outside of the classroom has even more important and practical implications that could lead to more effective problem solving, safety prevention, and innovations that would stimulate more than one sense. Signs on streets could be renovated to accommodate audibly-inclined (or deaf) people while driving their car: their eyes can focus on the road, while their ears would be notified (via radio-wave, for example) of changes in speed limits, lane rules, and traffic congestions. Medical students, who spend roughly two to six more years in school than other college graduates with a bachelor’s degree, would benefit from this in the classroom and during residencies. These future and current professionals are responsible for memorizing and utilizing a multitude of technologies, medications, and other holistic treatments that must be understood through scholarly research papers and on-site administration of those same procedures. How else would they do this without being taught and teaching this complex information via multiple learning styles? In an experiment done by Heidi Lujan and Stephen DiCarlo (2005), only 36.1% of their study’s sample preferred using a single learning style over multiple learning styles. Not only are models and demonstrations useful in imparting information, but peer-to-peer interactions and roleplaying can also foster a student’s ability to create connections between ideas. Some researchers categorize learning styles into eight components: Sensing or intuitive, visual or verbal, active or reflective, and sequential or global. This is also known as the Felder-Silverman Model (Felder & Spurlin, 2005). Each set of words are opposites to each other in terms of ways of interpreting information. According to the Index of Learning Styles (ILS), which adapts these eight ideas into a measureable tool, each of us is a mixture of each learning style, represented by a numerical gradient that connect each paired learning style to itself. When comparing the VARK questionnaire to the ILS, the latter seems to take the four modes in VARK and categorize them even further. However, the audial aspect of the VARK isn’t clearly synonymous to any set of categories in the ILS, but rather, it is a part of the ILS in its entirety. This might be due to the fact that each of us learns things using a unique combination of the VARK, so instead of separating major senses into a questionnaire, the ILS separates major preferences into an index. The accuracy of these tools is always questionable, even by Neil Fleming (2006), who says that the VARK should be used to create conversations that pertain to how each individual learns, and how those learning preferences connect to decisions made by those individuals. As our technological advances increase, teachers, students, and other people will find newer, cost-effective, and dynamic ways to impart and absorb new information (Solvie & Kloek, 2007). Positive uses of virtual reality and MRI’s can lead humans to understanding the way our brains send and receive information. Nano technology might eventually allow us to physically connect our brains to each other’s through the tiniest circuits. This eventual phenomenon will have the potential to collect our natur al resources, connect to each other, and commit to providing excellence in education, our professions, and our daily lives. References Solvie, P., & Kloek, M. (2007). Using technology tools to engage students with multiple learning styles in a constructivist learning environment. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 7(2), 7-27. Fleming, N., and Baume, D. (2006). Learning Styles Again: VARKing up the right tree! Educational Developments, 7.4, 4-7. Heidi E. Lujan and Stephen E. DiCarlo (2005). First-year medical students prefer multiple learning styles. Adv Physiol Educ, 30, 13-16. Marilee B. Sprenger (2008). Environments for Learning. Differentiation through Learning Styles and Memory, 2, 1-10. Richard M. Felder and Joni Spurlin (2005). Applications, Reliability and Validity of the Index of Learning Styles. Int. Engng Ed, 21, 103-112.

Financial Analysis Barclays Bank - 2411 Words

Introduction Banking success is all about sustained profitability through the application of robust scientific investments and gap management strategies. It is imperative for banks to keep a close watch on the interest rate cycle: if rates are rising they have to ensure that their lending rates rise alongside or before the borrowing rate and vice versa. The premier position that Barclays enjoyed in the financial industry for over 3 centuries is a validation of the fact that it was built on the strong principles of finance. However, the last couple of decades have seen erosion in its reputation due to the breaching of those very principles. Barclays Bank is one of the biggest British multi-national banks headquartered in London with a market capitalisation of over 35.6 billion pounds. Their total book values of assets are 1312 billion pounds. The net income and profits are under pressure and have been declining for the past few years. Investment Bank and Wealth and Investment management divisions of the bank have been the hardest hit. The Investment Bank’s profit before tax came to 2,523 million pounds, a decline of 37% over the last year. The reason attributed was a 17% decline in currency and commodities income (FICC). The Wealth and Investment Management’s performance was worse. Loss before tax stood at 19 million pound against profit before tax of 274 million pound in 2012. Barclays Bank thus is an interesting case study for evaluating principles of finance as appliedShow MoreRelatedQuantitative Analysis For The Financial Performance Of Barclays Bank2931 Words   |  12 Pagesthis report is comprehens ive quantitative analysis for the financial performance of Barclays Bank. Quantitative analysis is an important method of looking beyond the numbers and understanding the stories they tell. It is quantitative analysis that gives way to qualitative analysis and allows us to gauge the running of a business better. 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