Why do We Make Stereotypes

In this unit of my ninth grade English class, we are studying The Auto Biography of Miss Jane Pittman.  This is a novel written by Ernest Gaines in the early 1900's.  It is a bout a struggling African American slave who has been freed but encounters some man vs. man, man vs. himself, and man vs. nature issues.  She grew up as a slave and only knows farm working as a skill.  Our blog post is supposed to contain stereo types as seen in the novel.  A stereo is a generalized assumption of a group of people or objects.  An example of a stereotype I will use is how Southerners hate black people.  Even in the story Jane and others find themselves benefiting from southern white people as they try to make their way to the north.  That just shows that some stereo types may be true for some people, but you never need to judge somebody just because of what you have heard or thought you saw.  All people are different and you can never understand them if you don't try and interact with them.

The Best Detective Story I Have Ever Read

For my English class, the unit we are in right now is all about detective stories and different forms of irony.  We have read 3 different detective based selections.  My favorite out of the 3 was "Wasps Nest".  It has the famous French detective, Hercule Poirot.  In this story Poirot is trying to stop a murder before it happens.  It actually turns out to be a suicide that will try to be framed as a murder.  John Harrison is the man who has found out he only has 2 months to live, so he invites a "friend" over to destroy a wasps nest with poison but instead he will try to drink it and them frame the "friend".  But, Poirot stops all of this before it happens and they all forget about it.  We were told to pick which out of the 3 was our favorite and i chose this one.  It has great built up suspense into what you think might happen next.  You never really know what is going on until the final sentences of the story.  This story's author really added in foreshadowing into this story.  She also added some irony as in how the story ends.  I enjoyed reading it because it is very exciting and just a great detective story.