Miss Mays
English 112-130
September 19 2012
Essay #2 Brainstorming Questions
The major conflict in the story of The Lesson is that Miss Moore is trying to show the children lessons about life. She takes them to an expensive toy store so they can look at how some people live and what they spend their money on. Miss Moore Is trying to teach the children to appreciate what they have and not to take what money they have for granted. She try’s to teach them how to spend their money and how far their money will last them.
The main Character in this story Sylvia and Miss Moore. Sylvia is the narrator and she is a little black girl that comes from a very poor family. Miss Moore is an educated woman that shows Sylvia and her friends how other people live and how unreasonable it.
In this story the girls decide it is not worth all that money for simple toys that will break and have no meaning. They decide in the end to go use what little money they have on entertainment and food.
The resolution of this story tells us how the world is not divided up evenly among classes. They money that the rich people spend on the expensive toys could be used to feed a family for a whole year. This is just an example of how the different classes of people and how some people live beyond their means while others are struggling to live at all.
Part II
One lesson that Miss Moore tries to teach the children is the importance of responsibility. She talks to them about how much money their parents make and how much it cost to live and all the expenses their parents have. She hands Sylvia money to pay the taxi driver with and tells her the give him a 10 percent tip. Sylvia has to use her math skill to figure this out. She would much rather take the money and spend it on something else like food. Sylvia is too busy thinking about food and what she could buy with this 5-dollar bill. This shows a level of poverty and how they are of a lower class level.
Miss Moore is trying to teach the girls arithmetic and they don’t have any interest in learning. Miss Moore who is an educated woman is trying to teach the girls the importance of education and how if you learn it can help you out. The girls in this story probably did not have much school or good schooling.
The girls talk about their lives and how they don’t have basic things. They state that they don’t have a desk to do their homework on. Then one of the girl’s states she never has homework witch shows the lack of schooling and education. Another person says they don’t even have a home. These statements show that they are raised in a poor lifestyle and there are major differences of the life styles around them that they don’t get to live.
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