the assignment of my life summary quizlet

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'The most important assignment of my life' -- an interview with Ruth Gruber

Ruth Gruber died last week at 105. She was an accomplished journalist and humanitarian. But in Oswego she is remembered and celebrated for the role she played when the United States offered safe harbor to 986 European refugees during World War II.

Gruber worked for the department of the interior when she was chosen to escort the mostly Jewish refugees on their voyage to America. They were housed at Fort Ontario in Oswego for the remainder of the war. Eventually, Gruber championed the refugees' fight to gain American citizenship.

WRVO was able to capture her story in an interview in 1984.

Audio from Gruber's interview with WRVO, which was collected with assistance from professor Lawrence Baron, is archived online . "Oral Histories: Emergency Refugee Shelter at Fort Ontario (Safe Haven)"/Tape 271, Special Collections, Penfield Library, SUNY Oswego, Oswego, NY.

The Story of My Life

By helen keller.

• The Story of My Life Summary

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in the small town of Tuscumbia, Alabama. When she was a year old, she was stricken with an illness that left her without sight or hearing. In the early years after her illness, it was difficult for her to communicate, even with her family; she lived her life entirely in the dark, often angry and frustrated with the fact that no one could understand her. Everything changed in March of 1887, when Helen's teacher, Anne Sullivan , came to live with the family in Alabama and turned Helen's world around.

Miss Sullivan taught Helen the names of objects by giving them to her and then spelling out the letters of their name in her hand. Helen learned to spell these words through imitation, without understanding what she was doing, but eventually had a breakthrough and realized that everything had a name, and that Miss Sullivan was teaching them to her. From this point on, Helen acquired language rapidly; she particularly enjoyed learning out in nature, where she and her teacher would take walks and she would ask questions about her surroundings. Soon after this, Helen learned how to read; Miss Sullivan taught her this by giving her strips of cardboard with raised letters on them, and then having her act out the sentence with objects. Soon, Helen could read entire books.

In May 1888, Helen went north to visit Boston with her mother and teacher. She spent some time studying at the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and quickly befriended the other blind girls who were her age. They spent a vacation at Brewster in Cape Cod, where Helen experienced the ocean for the first time. Following this, they spent nearly every winter up north.

Once she had learned to read, Helen was determined next to learn how to speak. Her teacher and many others believed it would be impossible for her to ever speak normally, but she resolved to reach that point. Miss Sullivan took her to the Horace Mann School in 1890 to begin learning with Miss Sarah Fuller , and Helen learned by feeling the position of Miss Fuller's lips and tongue when she spoke. The moment she spoke her first words, "It is warm," was a powerful memory for her: she was thrilled that she might be able to speak to her family and friends at last.

The winter of 1892 was a troubling time for Helen. Seemingly inspired by the beautiful fall foliage around her, she wrote a story called "The Frost King," and sent it up to her teacher at the Perkins Institute as a gift. It soon came out that Helen's story was quite like another in a published book, called "The Frost Fairies." Helen had been read the original story as a child, and the words had remained so ingrained in her mind that she'd unwittingly plagiarized them when she wrote her own story. This tainted Helen's relationship with her Perkins Institute teacher, Mr. Anagnos , and made her distrust her own mind and the originality of her thoughts for a long time.

In 1894 Helen attended the Wright-Humanson School for the Deaf in New York City, and began studying formal subjects like history, Latin, French, German, and arithmetic. In 1896, she began her studies at the Cambridge School for Young Ladies in Massachusetts, which would prepare her to eventually attend Radcliffe College, the women's college affiliated with Harvard University. This was her first time attending school with girls who could see or hear, rather than other students who were also deaf or blind. Though it was a challenge, she persevered; however, her mother eventually withdrew her from the Cambridge School to finish her Radcliffe preparation with a private tutor, because they did not agree with the Cambridge School principal's wish to lighten Helen's course load. She successfully qualified for Radcliffe in 1899, and entered college in the fall of 1900. Though college presented unique obstacles for Helen to overcome, she deeply appreciated her opportunity to attend.

Helen uses the final chapters of her memoir to discuss certain things that are particularly important to her, like her love of books, her favorite pastimes, and the friends she made who shaped her life. Two additional sections of the autobiography include Helen's personal letters written throughout her youth, as well as supplementary commentary by her editor, with a first-hand account by Helen's teacher, Anne Sullivan.

The Story of My Life Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Story of My Life is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Describe the structure used to organize helen's story

The structure is in three parts . The first two, Miss Keller's story and the extracts from her letters, form a complete account of her life as far as she can give it. Her style is called Affectionate Recollection. Despite the hardships Keller...

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The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

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Study Guide for The Story of My Life

The Story of My Life study guide contains a biography of Helen Keller, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Ruth Gruber

A life dedicated to rescue.

By Michael Feldberg

READ: Ruth Gruber, Journalist Who Helped Holocaust Survivors, Dies at 105

Ruth Gruber led a remarkable life dedicated to rescuing her fellow Jews from oppression. After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degree by age 19, she accepted a fellowship in 1931 to study in Cologne, Germany. While completing her doctorate there (the New York Times described her then as the world’s youngest Ph.D. at age 20), Gruber attended Nazi rallies and listened to Adolf Hitler vituperate against Americans, and particularly Jews. She completed her studies and returned to America, attuned from then on to the threats that totalitarianism posed to the Jewish people.

READ: One Ruth Gruber Says Goodbye to Another

In 1932, Gruber started her career as a journalist. In 1935, the New York Herald Tribune asked her to write a feature series about women under communism and fascism. She traveled across Europe to the far reaches of Siberia to cover the story. Harold L. Ickes, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior, read Gruber’s writings about life in Siberia and asked her to study the prospects of Alaska for homesteading G.Is after World War II. After this assignment, Gruber’s life-defining moment came in 1944, when Ickes asked her to take on another special mission: secretly escorting a group of 1,000 Jewish refugees from Italy to the United States.

Despite the grim news coming out of Europe throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, the United States Congress steadfastly refused to lift the quota on Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to the United States. Finally acting by executive authority, President Roosevelt invited a group of 1,000 Jewish refugees living in limbo in Naples to “visit” the United States. The refugees were to be “guests” of the President and lodged at Fort Ontario, a decommissioned Army base near Oswego in northernmost New York. Ickes asked Gruber to travel to Italy secretly to meet and escort the refugees.

Ickes gave Gruber the rank of “simulated general.” He explained, “If you’re shot down and the Nazis capture you as a civilian, they can kill you as a spy. But as a general, according to the Geneva Convention, they have to give you food and shelter and keep you alive.” In Italy, Gruber boarded the Army troop transport Henry Gibbins along with 1,000 wounded American soldiers and the refugees. Throughout the voyage, Nazi seaplanes and U-boats hunted the Gibbins.

Aboard ship, Gruber recorded the refugees’ case histories. She told them, “You are the first witnesses coming to America. Through you, America will learn the truth of Hitler’s crimes.” She took notes as the refugees told their stories, but she often had to stop because her tears blurred the ink in her notebook. The grateful refugees began calling Gruber “Mother Ruth,” and looked to her for protection. As historian Barbara Seaman observed, “She knew from then on, her life would be inextricably bound up with rescuing Jews in danger.”

On arriving safely in New York, the refugees were immediately transferred to Fort Ontario. As guests of the President without any rights conferred by the possession of a travel visa, the refugees were locked behind a barbed wire-topped, chain link fence. U. S. government agencies argued about whether the refugees should be allowed to stay at the fort or, at some point, be deported back to Europe. Gruber lobbied Congress and FDR on behalf of keeping them at Ft. Ontario through the end of the war.

Gruber finally prevailed. In 1945, after Germany’s surrender, the refugees were allowed to apply for American residency. Some became citizens and went on to have extraordinary careers as radiologists, physicists, composers, teachers, physicians and writers. One, Dr. Alex Margulies, who came as a teenager from Yugoslavia, helped develop the CAT-scan and the MRI. Another, Rolph Manfred, helped develop the Polaris and Minuteman missiles. Later, Manfred dedicated his life to teaching engineers in developing countries about peaceful uses of atomic energy.

For more about Ruth Gruber’s life, read her memoir Witness: One of the Great Correspondents of the 20th Century Tells Her Story . Other books include Exodus 1947: The Ship that Launched a Nation and Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America . 

Chapters in American Jewish History are provided by the American Jewish Historical Society, collecting, preserving, fostering scholarship and providing access to the continuity of Jewish life in America for more than 350 years (and counting). Visit www.ajhs.org .

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The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

Ruth gruber.

by Barbara Seaman

Journalist and writer Ruth Gruber, photographed circa 1944 when she escorted Jewish refugees to the United States. Courtesy of Ruth Gruber

Ruth Gruber graduated from New York University at eighteen and travelled to Germany to study, where at age twenty, she became the youngest PhD in the world. She returned to the United States, where she became the first foreign correspondent allowed to travel to the Soviet Arctic and witness Stalin’s gulags. In 1944, Gruber was made a simulated US general to escort European refugees to America. Deeply moved by the stories of the refugees, she recorded them in her book  Haven . In the years leading up to Israel’s independence, Gruber visited concentration camps and profiled David Ben-Gurion and other Israeli leaders. She covered the crisis of the  Exodus 1947 as it unfolded, and her book became the basis for Leon Uris’s novel and the award-winning movie. In 1985, she helped rescue Ethiopian Jews and recorded their stories.

Early Life and Education

Ruth Gruber moved across most of the twentieth century as a compassionate writer, eloquent speaker, humanitarian, and rescuer of Jews.

Gruber was born on September 30, 1911, in Brooklyn, the fourth of five children of David and Gussie (Rockower) Gruber, Russian Jewish immigrants who owned a wholesale and retail liquor store and later went into real estate. She graduated from New York University at age eighteen and in 1930 won a fellowship to the University of Wisconsin, where she received her MA in German and English literature. In 1931, Gruber received a fellowship from the Institute of International Education for study in Cologne, Germany. Her parents pleaded with her not to go: Hitler was coming to power. Nevertheless, she went to Cologne and took courses in German philosophy, modern English literature, and art history. She also attended Nazi rallies, her American passport in her purse, a tiny American flag on her lapel. She listened, appalled, as Hitler ranted hysterically against Americans and even more hysterically against Jews.

Gruber’s professors asked her to stay in Cologne and study for a PhD. Analyzing the writings of Virginia Woolf, she received her doctorate magna cum laude in one year. The  New York Times  reported that, at age twenty, she was the youngest PhD in the world.

Early Journalism Career and Work with the Government

Gruber returned home in the midst of the Great Depression and, like most of her peers, was unable to find a job, so she began writing. After many rejections of her work, she wrote an article about Brooklyn, describing its colorful neighborhoods as a microcosm of Europe, which the  New York Times  bought for the Sunday paper. Then Gruber began sending stories to the  New York Herald Tribune,  and with their acceptance felt she had found her home.

In 1935, she won another fellowship, given at the recommendation of the Guggenheim Foundation, to write a study of women under fascism, communism, and democracy. The  Herald Tribune  gave her press credentials, and she became the first foreign correspondent, male or female, allowed to fly through Siberia into the Soviet Arctic. She lived among pioneers and prisoners, many of them Jews, in the gulag in Stalin’s iron age.

In 1941, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, after reading her book  I Went to the Soviet Arctic,  sent Gruber as his field representative to make a social and economic study of Alaska in connection with opening it for GIs and homesteaders. For over eighteen months she covered the vast territory by plane, train, truck, paddle-wheel steamer, and dogsled. On Gruber’s return to Washington, Ickes appointed her his special assistant. She worked for him five years.

In 1944, while war and the Holocaust raged, President Roosevelt decided to bring a thousand refugees from Europe to Fort Ontario, a former army camp in Oswego, a small town in upper New York State. Gruber was selected by Ickes to fly to Europe on a secret mission to escort the refugees to America. Ickes told her, “You’re going to be given the rank of simulated general,” and he explained: “If you’re shot down and the Nazis capture you as a civilian, they can kill you as a spy. But as a general, according to the Geneva Convention, they have to give you food and shelter and keep you alive.”

Escorting the refugees by ship from Naples, Italy, Gruber recorded their stories of how they had survived. Often, she had to stop writing because tears were wiping out the words in her notebook. Soon the refugees began calling her “Mother Ruth.” The voyage became the defining Jewish moment of her life. She knew that from then on, her life would be inextricably bound with rescuing Jews in danger.

Gruber’s book about the experience,  Haven: The Unknown Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees,  became the basis for the permanent Holocaust exhibit in the State Museum in Albany called “From Holocaust to Haven.” On Sunday, October 6, 2002, she helped dedicate the Safe Haven Museum in Oswego, NY. In her honor the museum library is called The Dr. Ruth Gruber Library and Resource Center.

In 2001,  Haven  was made into a four-hour television miniseries by Columbia Broadcasting System. The actress Natasha Richardson played Ruth, and Anne Bancroft received an Emmy nomination for her role as Ruth’s mother.

Israel Reporting and Exodus 1947

In 1946, the war over, Gruber left the government and returned to journalism. The  New York Post  asked her to cover the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. For four months, she traveled with the committee to the death camps and the displaced persons camps in Germany, then she went on to Palestine, where she became a trusted friend of the founding fathers and mothers of the State of Israel. Her profiles of David Ben-Gurion, who was then almost unknown in the United States, made American readers aware of his prophetic character and unswerving Lincoln-like determination to build a Jewish state.

The next year, Gruber returned to the  New York Herald Tribune  as a foreign correspondent and traveled with the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine through Europe and the Middle East. In Jerusalem, she learned that a ship called  Exodus 1947,  with forty-five hundred survivors of the Holocaust aboard, was battling the British in the Mediterranean. Gruber decided to cover the  Exodus.

In Haifa, surrounded by tanks and barbed wire, Gruber watched as British soldiers carried down the battered bodies of Bill Bernstein, the beloved American second mate, and two sixteen-year-old orphans. Some of the refugees came down dejectedly; those who refused were pulled down. All were transferred to three prison ships,  Runnymede Park ,  Ocean Vigour , and  Empire Rival . The British told her they were being sent to the island of Cyprus, where in three years from 1945 to 1948 fifty-two thousand survivors of the Holocaust were imprisoned. She flew to Cyprus to wait for the ships, but they never came. Instead, they were returned to Port de Bouc, near Marseilles, the port from which they had sailed. After three weeks, the British announced they were sending the Jews of the  Exodus  back to Germany. They selected Gruber as the pool correspondent to represent the American press. Her photos of the agony inside the  Runnymede Park  were sent by the  Herald Tribune  around the world, and her photo of the swastika painted on the British Union Jack became  Life  magazine’s Picture of the Week. Her book,  Exodus 1947: The Ship that Launched a Nation , provided source material for the book and movie  Exodus  and for numerous TV documentaries.

Later Reporting and Personal Life

In 1951, Gruber married Philip H. Michaels, a lawyer, vice president of the Sachs Quality Stores, and a member of the New York City Youth Board. In 1952, at age forty-one, she gave birth to her first child, Celia; her son, David, was born in 1954. Gruber continued working as a special foreign correspondent for the  Herald Tribune,  covering every major wave of immigrants into Israel until the paper’s demise in 1966. At the same time, she also wrote a popular column for  Hadassah Magazine,  “Diary of an American Housewife,” and, as a volunteer, served as associate chair of the Greater New York Women’s Division of United Jewish Appeal, where she wrote and directed the scripts for their many performances. In 1991, she became honorary chair of the Israel Bonds Golda Meir Club.

Michaels died in 1968, and six years later Gruber married Henry Rosner, then deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Human Resources. He accompanied her to Israel, where she spent nearly a year writing her best-known biography,  Raquela: A Woman of Israel,  which won the National Jewish Book Award for Best Book on Israel in 1979. In 1982, Henry Rosner died.

In 1985, Gruber traveled to the isolated Jewish villages in the highlands of Ethiopia to aid in the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews. Her book  Rescue: The Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews  was acclaimed by critics and such leaders as Menachem Begin, Abba Eban, and Elie Wiesel. The recipient of many awards, in 1995 Gruber was given Na’amat USA’s Golda Meir Human Rights Award for her life’s work. That same year, for  Na’mat Woman  magazine, she covered the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In 1997, she won several prestigious awards from the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance for her lifelong work rescuing Jews. In 1998, Gruber received a Lifetime Achievement Award from her peers in the American Society of Journalists and Authors as “a pioneering journalist and author whose books chronicle the most important events of the twentieth century.” In 2010, the Norman Mailer Center awarded Gruber a special Distinguished Journalism Prize.

Gruber received five honorary doctorates including University of Wisconsin, University of New York (SUNY) Oswego and Hebrew Union College.

In 2001, at the age of ninety, she completed a twenty-city tour to publicize the reprinting of four of her books. When asked the secret of her success, Ruth Gruber replied, “Have dreams, have visions and let no obstacle stop you.”

Gruber passed away on November 17, 2016, at the age of 105.

Selected Works by Ruth Gruber

Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel: A Memoir with Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold L. Ickes, Golda Meir, and Other Friends  (2003). It received a Pulitzer nomination.

Ahead of Time: My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent  (1991).

Destination Palestine: The Story of the Haganah Ship Exodus 1947  (1948). Republished in a revised edition as  Exodus 1947: The Ship that Launched a Nation  (1999).

Felisa Rincon de Gautier: The Mayor of San Juan  (1972).

Haven: The Unknown Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees  (1983).

I Can Tell It Now: Members of the Overseas Press Club  (1960).

Israel on the Seventh Day  (1968).

Israel Today: Land of Many Nations  (1958).

Israel Without Tears  (1950).

Puerto Rico: Island of Promise  (1960).

Raquela: A Woman of Israel  (1978).

Rescue: The Exodus of the Ethiopian Jews  (1987).

Science and the New Nations  (1961).

They Came to Stay  (1976).

Virginia Woolf: A Study  (1934).

Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman (2005)

I Went to the Soviet Arctic  (1939).

Witness: One of the Great Correspondents of the Twentieth Century Tells Her Story (2007)

Sources for this biography include Ruth Gruber’s books, magazine articles, lectures, and appearances in films and documentaries, including  The Great Depression  for PBS,  Truman  for PBS,  Exiles and Emigrants  for Los Angeles County Museum of Art,  Exodus 1947,  and the 1997 Oscar Award Documentary  The Long Way Home,  her biography on the website “Miriam’s Cup,” as well as interviews and conversations with the author.

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How to cite this page

Seaman, Barbara. "Ruth Gruber." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women . 27 February 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on April 28, 2024) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gruber-ruth>.

My Life as a Book

89 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

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Summary and Study Guide

My Life as a Book is a middle grade fiction and humor novel written by Janet Tashjian and originally published in 2010. The first of 11 books in the My Life series, the novel is illustrated by Tashjian’s son, Jake. Tashjian uses humor and the illustrations to make the novel more approachable to young, reluctant readers. My Life as a Book earned the 2011 Bank Street – Children’s Book of the Year award.

This guide utilizes the 2010 Square Fish (Macmillan) version of the novel.

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Plot Summary

My Life as a Book is narrated by its 12-year-old protagonist , Derek Fallon . Derek lives in California with his mom, dad, and dog, Bodi. His summer is about to begin, and he’s looking forward to spending his days relaxing, causing mischief, and hanging out with his dog and best friend, Matt . Meanwhile, a mystery begins to unfold when Derek finds an old newspaper in the attic indicating the drowning of a girl in Martha’s Vineyard. Derek asks his mother why she has the newspaper, and she refuses to discuss it, so Derek resolves to investigate the occurrence.

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Derek’s visions of an easygoing summer of adventure and mystery are dashed, however, when he finds out that his teacher, Ms. Williams , is assigning a summer reading list. Everyone in the class must read three books from the list and write a report on each one. Although Derek has been labeled a reluctant reader by his teacher, tutor, and parents, he insists that he likes to read but prefers comic books instead. Derek is a passionate illustrator like his father and holds drawing in high precedence over reading. In addition, Derek knows a lot about caring for animals, as his mother is a veterinarian. To appease his teacher and parents’ concerns about his lack of interest in English, Derek devised a system for remembering words: He draws stick-figure illustrations acting out the words. However, this strategy doesn’t inspire him to read more; instead, it inspires him to draw more.

Derek spends the last few days of the school year in class and otherwise hangs out with his friend Matt at the mall, in the yard, or skateboarding. On the last day of school, Derek is relieved and excited for it to be over. He dreads the thought of summer reading, but Ms. Williams hands him a book that she annotated specifically for him. It includes prompts and questions to get Derek thinking and visualizing what he’s reading. It takes time for him to feel inclined to read the book, but by the end of the summer, he manages to finish it.

A girl in Derek’s class, Carly , is smart and seems to be good at everything. She volunteers to take home the class pet, a hedgehog named Ginger, for the summer. Meanwhile, Derek starts to do his own research on the newspaper article and finds out that the name of the girl who drowned was Susan James, and she was only a teenager at the time.

Derek pushes his parents to tell him about Susan, and finally his mother gives in when she finds him on the roof playing croquet with the satellite dish. She tells Derek everything she knows about the incident. Susan was babysitting Derek one day when he was two years old and foolishly decided to take him to South Beach in Martha’s Vineyard, despite being instructed to stay home. According to Susan’s mother, Derek wandered into the water, and when Susan went in to save him, the riptide pulled her out and she drowned. When Derek hears this information, which later turns out to be inaccurate, he’s overcome with guilt and a feeling of responsibility. He wonders why Susan chose to save him and whether he’s obligated to become a great person as a result.

Derek regularly visits Susan’s memorial website and one day bravely posts his own comment revealing that he’s the child from the day Susan died. At the same time, Derek makes a new friend, a monkey named Pedro, who is a helper for a boy named Michael. Derek later befriends Michael, too, after he shows Derek how to animate his drawings and bring them to life. Derek reluctantly starts Learning Camp, which goes for the rest of the summer and is a way for Derek’s parents to keep him out of trouble and (they hope) help him learn to read. Carly is attending Learning Camp, too, which Derek finds off-putting at first, but the two soon begin to bond.

On Derek’s first day of Learning Camp, he’s surprised to find that his counsellor ( Margot ) is fun and has good ideas. Margot understands Derek’s reluctance to read novels without pictures and gives him some advice that he takes forward with him: She tells him to visualize the stories as if they’re movies. Margot begins reading a chapter out of her book, asking Derek to visualize the setting and imagine what the characters are feeling. Derek finds the process extremely helpful and uses it to finish the novel assigned by Ms. Williams. While Derek is at Learning Camp, Matt is on vacation on the East Coast. His family plans to stop at Martha’s Vineyard on their trip, and Derek is jealous that Matt gets to see the place where Susan died. Although Derek can’t go with Matt, he has the idea to convince his mother to take him to visit his grandma in Boston and stop at Martha’s Vineyard on their way back.

Derek emails his grandma, who’s excited to hear from him and expresses how much she misses the family. In addition, Derek makes a pivotal discovery about his drawings when he finds that he can flip through them like a flipbook. They animate a story of his summer. This becomes another way that Derek overcomes his aversion to reading.

One day after camp, Derek’s mom drops Carly off at her house, and they decide to go inside for a visit. Derek finds out that Carly has created a burglar heist maze out of fishing line in her basement and is amazed. He didn’t realize Carly could be fun, and the two spend the afternoon playing together. Derek receives an email from Susan’s mother, Madeline, thanking him for his post on the website. It pulls him further into the mystery of Susan, and he can’t wait to go to Martha’s Vineyard and find out more. Derek convinces his mother by guilting her over his grandma’s loneliness, and she agrees that the family will head there for a visit. Before they leave, Derek does a few more searches and finds out that a girl named Lauren was with Susan the day she died—and that Lauren still lives in Martha’s Vineyard.

The family arrives at Grandma’s house, and she’s happy to see everyone, especially Derek. She dotes on him and spoils him, even reading to him while he sits on her lap. Derek loves his grandma dearly and enjoys every minute he spends with her. After a few days of visiting, the family heads to Martha’s Vineyard. Derek’s mother hopes that doing so will help Derek move on from the whole event. As they drive around the island, Derek spots the place where Lauren works and asks to go in. He gets up the courage to talk to Lauren (on his second attempt) and tells her who he is. Lauren reveals that Susan took Derek to the beach because she was hoping to meet a boy there. She left Derek alone, and Lauren ended up watching him instead. After Susan returned from hanging out with the boy, she was in a state of ecstasy and dove into the ocean. She was quickly pulled out by the riptide and drowned, and Derek didn’t wander into the water until much later. Furthermore, Bodi—not Susan—saved Derek. Lauren gives Derek a leather necklace with feathers and shells on it before he leaves.

Derek is relieved that his guilt is unnecessary, but he’s still sad for Susan. Derek’s mother reacts with anger over Susan’s mother, Madeline, lying to her for years about Susan being a hero and Derek being involved in her death. When Derek’s mother takes the family to go to confront Madeline, however, she sees how grief-stricken Madeline still is, so she refrains from accusing her of lying. Instead, they spend the afternoon talking about Susan and her many achievements and good qualities. Derek is proud of his mom for making a sacrifice for Madeline in this moment. After visiting Madeline, Derek decides that everyone should stop at the beach where Susan died before they leave. His parents agree, and they walk along the beach, staring into the ocean. He reflects on Susan before saying goodbye to her. Later, at Lambert Cove, Derek’s mother receives a phone call and hears that the pet hedgehog has died. Carly is distraught. Derek takes the phone and listens to Carly as she cries. He assures her that it’s not her fault and she did nothing wrong—the same assurance he needed all summer about Susan.

When Derek arrives back home, he’s almost immediately greeted by Matt. The two of them decide to visit Carly and help her plant flowers for the hedgehog, and they spend the rest of the day playing in the maze together. Derek’s last day of Learning Camp arrives, and Derek spends it visualizing as Margot reads, before participating in a water balloon fight.

Before school begins, Derek goes to visit Michael again, who shows him a video of Pedro training to become a helper. Derek realizes that with persistence and effort, Pedro learned tasks that he couldn’t normally complete. He wonders if the same is true for him when it comes to reading. Derek reaches an understanding about the nature of learning and its evolution throughout one’s lifetime. On his first day of school, Derek gives his book report in the form of an animation, which Michael helped him prepare. Derek drew out the book’s plot, setting, and characters and demonstrated his knowledge of the story. He thinks about how his life is like a story and looks back on all the other life stories he has been part of this summer.

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A Psalm of Life Summary & Analysis by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"A Psalm of Life" was written by the famed New England poet and professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. First published in 1838 in the New York literary magazine The Knickerbocker , the poem was inspired by a conversation between Longfellow and a fellow professor. As such, the poem is framed as a dramatic monologue spoken by the "Heart of a Young Man" to a "Psalmist." In the poem, the speaker declares that living in the present is more godly than the kind of austere and restrained life the Psalmist champions. In doing so, the poem captures the spirit of carpe diem , or "seize the day."

• Read the full text of “A Psalm of Life”

The Full Text of “A Psalm of Life”

1      What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

2 Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

3    Life is but an empty dream!

4 For the soul is dead that slumbers,

5    And things are not what they seem.

6 Life is real! Life is earnest!

7    And the grave is not its goal;

8 Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

9    Was not spoken of the soul.

10 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

11    Is our destined end or way;

12 But to act, that each to-morrow

13    Find us farther than to-day.

14 Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

15    And our hearts, though stout and brave,

16 Still, like muffled drums, are beating

17    Funeral marches to the grave.

18 In the world’s broad field of battle,

19    In the bivouac of Life,

20 Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

21    Be a hero in the strife!

22 Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

23    Let the dead Past bury its dead!

24 Act,— act in the living Present!

25    Heart within, and God o’erhead!

26 Lives of great men all remind us

27    We can make our lives sublime,

28 And, departing, leave behind us

29    Footprints on the sands of time;

30 Footprints, that perhaps another,

31    Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

32 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

33    Seeing, shall take heart again.

34 Let us, then, be up and doing,

35    With a heart for any fate;

36 Still achieving, still pursuing,

37    Learn to labor and to wait.

“A Psalm of Life” Summary

“a psalm of life” themes.

Living in the Present

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Psalm of Life”

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,    Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers,    And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!    And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest,    Was not spoken of the soul.

Lines 10-13

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,    Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow    Find us farther than to-day.

Lines 14-17

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,    And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating    Funeral marches to the grave.

Lines 18-21

In the world’s broad field of battle,    In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle!    Be a hero in the strife!

Lines 22-25

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!    Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,— act in the living Present!    Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lines 26-29

Lives of great men all remind us    We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us    Footprints on the sands of time;

Lines 30-33

Footprints, that perhaps another,    Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,    Seeing, shall take heart again.

Lines 34-37

Let us, then, be up and doing,    With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing,    Learn to labor and to wait.

“A Psalm of Life” Symbols

• See where this symbol appears in the poem.

Field of Battle

“a psalm of life” poetic devices & figurative language, personification.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Alliteration

“a psalm of life” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Mournful Numbers
• Howe'er
• O'erhead
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Psalm of Life”

Rhyme scheme, “a psalm of life” speaker, “a psalm of life” setting, literary and historical context of “a psalm of life”, more “a psalm of life” resources, external resources.

A Biography of Longfellow — A detailed biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, along with more poems.

Longfellow at the Maine Historical Society — A valuable resource from the Maine Historical Society, including a full database of Longfellow's poems and biographical information.

"A Psalm of Life" Music Video — Listen to and watch a music video interpretation of the poem by the Annie Moses Band.

"A Psalm of Life" Read Aloud — Listen to a reading of the entire poem.

"Labour and Wait" Art Exhibit — Read about the art exhibition "Labour and Wait," inspired by "A Psalm of Life."

"A Psalm of Life" Song Adaptation — Listen to the entire poem sung to music.

Leslie Odom Jr.'s Music Album "Mr." and "A Psalm of Life" — Read about a singer—and the original Burr in the musical Hamilton—whose new album titled "Mr." includes a track that incorporates "A Psalm of Life."

LitCharts on Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Tn life exam

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Brooksyouthsnyder, the assignment of my life summary.

I had not been at Chanute for quite a year when I was notified that I would be reassigned. More books than SparkNotes.

This is a sample of your writing for me so that I know where you are in terms of writing in class.

. DUMBEST ASSIGNMENT OF MY LIFE. Mostly these personal narrative essays are based upon the life experiences of a person like. This preview shows page 1 out of 1 page.

School Southlands Christian Schools. Her next big step came again as she was trying to solve a problem. Word Pictures and History biography The selection is an example of a reflective narrative a type of writing in which an author tells a true story about his or her own life and explores its meaning.

Thru the exodus and the assignment of my life ruth gruber was a friend. This new assignment would turn out to be the shortest assignment of my twenty years. She tells us about the different places where she works.

The Story of My Life Summary. Gruber worked for the department of the interior when she was chosen to escort the mostly Jewish. T he Story of My Life is an autobiography by activist Helen Keller in which she recounts her early experiences and education.

Witness are her their assignment my life ruth summary first and having people had learned later she did you. Helens paternal lineage can be traced back to Switzerland where one of her ancestors ironically was the first teacher of deaf children in Zurich. This is the only time you will write for such a long period without the assignment being graded.

Free books and textbooks as well as extensive lecture notes are available. Personal narrative essays are often a part of the students assignments that professors ask their students to write. The following is summary of my life after graduation.

The Story of My Life 3. Also it is to help warm up for the year. If you wish you may use.

Helen needed to move from knowing names of concrete things and actions to knowing how to recognize and communicate abstractions. Helen was concentrating very hard and Anne Sullivan tapped Helens forehead emphatically spelling THINK. The Story of My Life Summary.

She lived her life entirely in the. The The Story of My Life lesson plan is designed to help teachers and educators plan classroom activities and instruction. She was an accomplished journalist and humanitarian.

08302021 Kathleen Wilson 1103. Add answer 5 pts. English Holiday Assignment 2.

The Story of My Life Summary. Virtually anything belabor conciliate emulate 1. Ruth Gruber died last week at 105.

In the early years after her illness it was difficult for her to communicate even with her family. Up to 24 cash back The Assignment of My Life by Ruth Gruber. Write summary of the first paragraph of The Assignment of My Life below.

In her autobiography The Story of My Life Helen Keller recounts her early childhood through to her college years outlining the various wonders and struggles she encountered on the way to achieving her dream. Looking into the eyes of the families and friends of the victims was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Podcast of Ruth Gruber recalling events from the Assignment of My Life.

An illness left Keller deaf and blind. Because of the weakness of our army we had to try to _____ the. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

The story is an inspirational account of the world of a blind and deaf girl and how she triumphs over her disabilities going to school and college facing exams and learning to enjoy the simple things in life. Helen Keller was born on June 27th 1880 in Tuscumbia a small town in Northern Alabama. Growing up in a small Alabama town Keller suffers an illness just shy of her second birthday which robs her of her eyesight.

The assignment my life ruth summary she recounts the. Course Title AP AMERICA 123456. But in Oswego she is remembered and celebrated for the role she played when the United States offered safe harbor to 986 European refugees during World War II.

Begins her up the assignment of my life gruber summary the united nations agencies and. The assignment of my life My analysis. Hey My Courses portal has everything you needed to ace your matric exams tests assessments research tasks and assignments.

The Story of My Life Summary. When she was a year old she was stricken with an illness that left her without sight or hearing. About the author Helen Adams Keller June 271880 June 1 1968 was an American author political activist and lecturer.

Right after graduating in 1963 John Callahan Geibel High School class of 63 and I enlisted in the US Air Force. The text tells the story of a young Afro-American woman who studies and manages to graduate in journalism. DeBjKW Life orientation grade 12 sba task 2 memo Life orientation grade 11 written task 2018 memo term 1.

Summary of the story of my life-Helen Keller 1. This assignment is preparing us for the reading the short story The Most Dangerous Game. Crayons markers colored pencils paint photographs printed pictures graphic art written words stickers magazines.

Helen Keller was born on June 27 1880 in the small town of Tuscumbia Alabama. Best summary PDF themes and quotes. The beginning of Helens life was ordinary but joyfulshe lived with her parents in a small.

One day she was kidnapped along. Some of her concerns are common to all young people of her age but other concerns arose exclusively out of her desire to triumph. Blurred the us after the life ruth gruber summary where they allowed.

Just going back you dont know what to sayTheres nothing you can say. The Assignment of My Life Summary_Patrick Huangpdf -. Robert richman and the assignment my life ruth summary she was a spy.

The most important reason for assigning such essays to the students is to develop their analytical and self-reflection skills.

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