Your friend has been out of the country for five years, during which many changes have taken place in your home area. write a letter to your friend updating him or her on the developments. xx

Read the following excerpt from life on the mississippi by mark twain. no girl could withstand his charms. he "cut out" every boy in the village. when his boat blew up at last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not known for months. but when he came home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the partiality of providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open to criticism. how does twain's use of understatement serve his purpose? be sure to use specific details from the text to support your answer.

Demonstrating understanding of jem's development one way to demonstrate understanding of character and theme is by writing from the perspective of a character. for this assignment, compose a short poem from the perspective of jem. your poem should detail his feelings about either a. his father, atticus or b. mrs. dubose. the poem must accurately trace the progression of jem's attitudes and beliefs, highlighting the important events and shifts in his perspective detailed above. your writing should also sound like jem, using voice and word choice that reflects the voice and word choice found in the novel. the poem can be a free poem (meaning it does not need to rhyme or follow a particular format). it should be a minimum of twenty-lines in length, have a title, and follow conventional rules of spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Read the excerpt from frederick douglass’s speech “what to the slave is the fourth of july? ”go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through south america, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, america reigns without a rival.what is one way that douglass achieves his purpose of persuading the reader to see his point of view? by relating as many facts and statistics to the reader as possibleby using familiar and casual language to make the reader feel comfortableby using gentle language to evoke a sense of calm and tranquilityby repeating the word “you” to directly relate to the reader