...it hopes and its aspirations, before you lies the future, a future full of golden promises” (Jefferson Davis) “A Long Way Gone” was written by Ishmael Beah and published in 2007. This is a novel about a young boy who was affected by war. Ishmael Beah experienced a lot of horrible things because of the war like losing his family. He later is recruited by the rebel army. The rebel army gives drugs to the recruited child soldiers and make them addicted so they kill without feeling anything. He then gets rehabilitated with the help of the UNICEF. The three most important scenes in this story include going into mattru jong to perform dances, trying to survive day to day troubles,and his life in New York City....
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...A Long Way Gone is a story about persevere descriptive imagery that made it easier for me comprehend and seen clear image. A Long Way Gone is story about a boy name Ishmael Beah. Ishmael Beah is just a young boy who had to go through many difficult things in his life. Ishmael Beah had to run away from his home because of the civil war he ran away for survival .The army captured him and forced him into army. He mentally changed when he got a life changing opportunity. The first reason I like about A Long Way Gone is ishmael beah is very brave. The first reason why he was brave because he going back to Mattru Jong for food and to get the money they had left. “We had no choice but to sneak back into mattru jong, along with some people we...
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...A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah illustrates Beah’s childhood under Sierra Leone's Civil war in the 1990s. The book recounts Beah’s experience as a 12 year old boy struggling to find his family. Although this book mainly follows Beah, it also gives a lot of insight on the instability in African countries like Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah was a normal child before the Civil war in Sierra Leone, which is what the beginning of the book illustrates. In the early chapters, Beah talks about his childhood, which seemed to be very normal (Beah, 6). However, his childhood would take a drastic turn for the worse. When visiting his friends in Mattru Jong, Beah runs into swarms of people talking of rebellion. One passerby warned...
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...Weapon Conflict Throughout history, humans have used literature as a way to express emotions, feelings, and tell intriguing stories. A Long Way Gone, a memoir written by Ishmael Beah and “Weapon Conflict”, a song performed by Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars are two differing pieces of literature that render powerful messages about the menaces of war that these authors have faced. In the 1990’s, war broke out between harsh rebels and the corrupt government of Sierra Leone. Beah and the members of Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars have different, yet effective ways of telling their stories about the horrors of Sierra Leone. Nevertheless, A Long Way Gone, expresses the true dangers of war more effectively than “Weapon Conflict” because it goes into...
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...Aj Jackson Ehrensaft 12/1/13 A long way gone essay Ishmael Beah shows a loss of innocence all throughout his book "A long way gone". He shows us just how his childhood was taken from him and how that translates into loosing his innocence in the following ways. In the beginning of the story he talks about how horrific it was to see his village ransacked and burned. He talks about how scared he is like when the rebels found him and he looked into his brother's eyes and could feel the fear but tried to hide it. He was just trying to survive and yet people at other villages saw him as a threat and this made him sad. He didn't understand why people could be afraid of him when he was just an innocent kid trying to stay alive after he had lost everything. The first part in the story where I think Ishmael starts to lose his innocence is when he and his friends steal corn from a younger boy so they can eat. "One evening we actually chased a little boy who was eating two boiled ears of corn by himself. He was about five years old and was enjoying the corn that he held in both hands, taking turns biting each ear. We didn't say a word or even look at each other. Rather, we rushed on the boy at the same time, and before he knew what was happening, we had taken the corn from him."(Beah 30). I don't believe he completely loses his innocence because he did it to survive not for the thrill of doing it. "I felt guilty about it for a few minutes, but in our position...
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...child soldiers throughout the world that no one knows about, who are forced to fight in wars with no cause like Ishmael Beah. The memoir A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah is appropriate for the Sterling High School English IV curriculum because the content of the text has connections to the real world and the text is complex enough that the reader has to infer information about the circumstances Beah is in and the ability of humans to come out of the devastating effect of war. Throughout the memoir, the reader has to connect Beah’s scenarios with the outside world for a better understanding of the content in the memoir. In general, while Beah is in New York with other child soldiers he states, “Some of the children had risked their life to attend the conference” (196). Here, Beah connects his circumstance with others to portray that there are child soldiers all over the world fighting battles and risking their lives for a cause they do not believe in. The reader gets a better understanding of the outside world from the content of the book because they have to make connections with what is happening outside of their comfort zone. This is appropriate for English IV curriculum because the reader begins to understand the world from Beah’s explanations of what he has been through to understand the reality and toll of war. Furthermore, during the beginning...
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...Throughout the book, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, we see that he faces many challenges and conflicts. These challenges prevent Ishmael from reaching safety and living a normal life back in Sierra Leone. Most of the time, the main character is facing challenges that are caused by other people. These people, like Ishmael, are trying to get away from the war that has caused chaos in the country. Children and teens around his age were most likely to be thrown into the war to fight either on the Sierra Leonean government’s side or the rebels, the Revolutionary United Front. The people that saw Ishmael and his friends, they tried to kill them because they could have been rebels. All of the problems he faces prevent Ishmael and his friends from getting somewhere safe. First, we see Ishmael running away from his home in Sierra Leone. Once a peaceful village full of music and laughter , then was brutally attacked by the...
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...Reading A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by: Ishmael Beah Chapters 1-4 Quote Selection and Theme Analysis Theme: The Horrors of War “The sound of the guns was so terrifying it confused everyone. No one was able to think clearly. In a matter of seconds, people started screaming and running in different directions, pushing and trampling on whoever had fallen on the ground. No one had the time to take anything with them. Everyone just ran to save his or her life. Mothers lost their children, whose confused, sad cries coincided with the gunshots. Families were separated and left behind everything they had worked for their whole lives”(p. 23). This quotation...
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...NOTE: This is a published paper and should be cited as follows: Simmons, A.M. (2012). Class on fire: Using the Hunger Games trilogy to encourage social action. The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 56(1), 22-34. Abstract This article explores ways to utilize students’ interest in fantasy literature to support critical literacy. Focusing on Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games series (2008, 2009, 2010), the author addresses how elements of the trilogy relate to violent acts in our world, helping student understand that violence and brutality toward children is not fiction, but very real, and that they can play a role in its abolishment, just like Katniss, through social action projects. Issues such as hunger, forced labor, child soldiers, and the sex trade that appear in both the fictional series and our world are discussed, encouraging students to assess their world and advocate for change. Examples of social action projects that utilize multiple literacies are suggested as a way to inspire students take action in the community and to stand up to injustice and brutality in hopes of creating a better world and a better human race. Using popular literature to pique student interest, this article explores how to incorporate the books in the Hunger Games series into the ELA classroom to support literacy and critical goals. Class on Fire: Using the Hunger Games Trilogy to Encourage Social Action Introduction The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, comprising...
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