After reading through the short story “The Lesson”, the title would be “Through the Lense of Childhood Challenges”. Bambara made a very good point about the fact childhood life exists with challenges as well as challenges that come with it. Stories can tell us something about what had happened at the time of setting within the writing, and something big for it to represent the situation. I think for this short story, her childhood represented a big impact. That big impact I learned from the short story is through the struggle of education. We see this girl in a coming of age story viewing her background with much anticipation of the world. We don’t even know how Sylvia is educated. But we understood by Sylvia’s personality that she might have been well observative and analytical to her surroundings. But regardless if Sylvia is well educated, there can be other potential problems she has experienced through the story like her neighborhood and society. I imagine Ms. Moore would be the testimony behind Bambara’s past life if she were to be a real life person.
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4 thoughts on “Isaiah White’s Week 3 Discussion”
Hi Isaiah, great well writtened discussion. I also believed that in this story, it had a huge impact on the lives of the children since they learned something very important. Even if Sylvia did go to school and knew about how different and unfair they had it compared to others in their society, it’s still very overwhelming to see it in person. I understand her perspective when she got angry just by seeing the price of the toy.
I love the way you analyzed this story, I completely agree that it definitely touched on the impact these experiences had on children. Although the author was able to experience a life a little different from others by getting an education it can have an impact on her as well just from seeing the struggle of others. Were you surprised that this was a fictional story? The author wrote this so well I do agree that Ms. Moore would be Bambara’s testimony as well, her education speaks volumes.
Kelis, I’m confused by your response. What do we know about the author Toni Cade Bambara from this story? I’m not sure what you are agreeing with Isaiah about.
Isaiah, I’m not completely clear on your focus here. At first, I thought you were suggesting an essay about the physical setting in which Sylvia finds herself. Then you seemed to be discussing Sylvia’s personality and her educational status and her capacity for learning. I think this idea is an interesting one—that Sylvia has potential the others do not seem to have, which Miss Moore seems to recognize. I think you might just need to tweak the phrasing a bit, I think. Please do not check anything under “Category Sticky” when posting. Leave that to read “Select a Category.” Thank you!