The Things They Carried, Tim OBrien | Analysis

The Things They Carried, Tim OBrien | Analysis Tim OBrien, in an interview has discussed the definition of truth by saying, You have to understand about life itself. There is a truth as we live it; there is a truth as we tell it. Those two are not compatible all the time. There are times when the storys truth can be truer, I think, than a happening truth (Herzog 120). This definition of truth is a great challenge for readers of OBriens works. It is hard even for the author himself to distinguish whether a detail is truth or no-truth. In this essay, I will discuss the blurry border between truth and fiction in OBriens Vietnam War stories, The Things They Carried. The technique that OBrien uses to blend truth and fiction in his book is his use of metafiction narrative to describe Vietnam War. Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. (Patricia Waugh). In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim OBrien purposely makes the boundary between truth and fiction invisible. For him, truth depends on the context of the situation that someone experiences it and what going on in that persons mind. The author starts his book with the quote, This is a work of fiction. Except for a few details regarding the authors own life, all the incidents, names, and characters are imaginary(6). However, just few pages later OBrien gives his dedication to the men of Alpha Company, and in particular to Jimmy Cross, Norman Bowker, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Henry Dobbins, and Kiowa. Ironically, they are all the main characters of the novel. Tim OBrien has already require his readers to notice the blur lines between fiction and fact in his stories. Tim OBrien blurs this line of truth in many ways. He uses truth in his fiction to make the story more believable. The protagonist as well as narrator of The Things They Carried is named Tim OBrien, he also comes fr om the same town as the author Tim OBrien. The character is a college graduate and is also a drafted Vietnam War vet. He is in his late forties and also is a writer whose book Going After Cacciato got published. Those are obviously more than few details that the character shares with the real OBrien. The author successfully manages deploying his purpose that he wants the readers to feel what he felt. He wants his readers to know why story-truth is truer than happening-truth (203). Hence, readers cant help but trying to connect the relationship between the narrator with the author. Readers will always need to raises the question of what is reality and what is fiction. Even in the work of fiction, OBrien more than once insists readers to believe things he says is the truth. Before revealing the gruesome story of Rat Kiley slowly killing a baby water buffalo, OBrien writes, This one does it for me. Ive told it beforemany times, many versionsbut heres what actually happened (78). OBrien confesses that he has told the story in several ways, it means somehow the story has been fictionalized. However, he still convinces readers that: but heres what actually happened,. The truth in this story is being tested. Readers know that the story contains fictional detail after being told several different ways; they have been notified that The Things They Carried is a fiction. However, they are still to believe the story is true, because the author affirms so. This writing style defines OBriens work as a metafiction where the author consciously challenges the readers to distinguish truth with what he wants readers to believe is truth between the very blurry line. In this case, according to Lynn Whartons remark, everything is true but nothing authentic (Blyn 189). In the chapter How to Tell a True War Story OBrien is most clear in telling his opinion about truth of the war: A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done (OBrian 68). Furthermore, In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical. Its a question of credibility. Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isnt, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness (OBrien 71). OBriens short stories follow these rules. For example, the author describes a group of soldiers was ordered to listen for movements of the Viet Cong in the jungle. After few nights, they begins to hears the sounds of a cocktail party: popping champagne corks, several simultaneous conversations, opera-style music. Sanders, the soldier telling the story, says, All these different voices. Not human voices, though. Because its the mountains. Follow me? The rock-its talking. And the fog, too, and the grass and the goddamn mongooses (OBrien 74). The definition of a true war story have been established, in this case, the unbelievable fictional details were created in order to tell the real truth from the war. In Speaking of Courage, OBriens fiction become so believable. Readers can easily relate as if they witness this real life story everywhere. The protagonist Norman Bowker cannot restart his life because he cannot accept his self-described lack of courage in the shit field. No one is interested in his war stories any more, Norman becomes depressed by all the horrific memories, the guilt he carries. Readers can see the image of any soldier with PTSD then and now. Though OBrien has said this is a work of fiction (OBrien 5), hence readers need to treat Norman Bowker as a fictional character. However, in this story he is so real as a non-fictional truth. Following Speaking of Courage, the author adds Notes, to claim that Norman Bowker wrote to OBrien after the war. He also provides an update that Bowker has killed himself to reinforce the realistic factor in his fictional story. By doing this, more than ever OBrien has created the blurry line between truth and fiction in his works. Although the work is classified as a fiction, OBrien continually emphasizes the truthfulness of stories he tells . This technique creates uncertainty for the readers, resemble with the uncertainty of the young soldiers must have felt while fighting in Vietnam as the author confides: Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? (OBrien 122). Steven Kaplan discusses this point in his essay The Things They Carried includes staging what might have happened in Vietnam while simultaneously questioning the a ccuracy and credibility of the narrative act itselfà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ the reader is permitted to experience at first hand the uncertainty that characterized being in Vietnam (Kaplan 48). By blurring the line between fact and fiction, Tim OBrien can objectively speak to readers about war. Throughout the book there are many different versions of the truth. In any war story, but especially a true one, its difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happenThe angles of vision are skewed (OBrien 71).The story called Spin tells of the Vietnamese soldier that the narrator killed. The story The Man I Killed describes the same dead Vietnamese man and creates a history for him. He loved mathematics (OBrien 142), he had only been a soldier for a single day (OBrien 144), and like the narrator he went to war in order to avoid disgracing himself, and therefore his family and village (OBrien 142). The story Ambush makes the reader wonder whether any of this ever happened. That narrator tells us that he was not the thrower of the grenade that killed the soldier and then Even that story is made up (203). in a true war story, if theres a moral at all, its like the thread that makes the cloth. OBrien keeps giving the readers truth and then revising it or reshaping that trut h to something else. The reader is never quite sure where the real fact is but finds that it does not matter. In OBriens own words, You cant extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning (77) For OBrien, truth can change, truth evolves through time and depends on the contexts and circumstances. OBrien also said Truth is fluid. Truth is a function of language. According to the authors own concept about truth, fiction is sometimes can be also considered truth. His brilliant and humorous example was: in 1964 I love Sally is the truth, but in 1965 the truth is I love Jenna. So they are both the truth told by the same person, but are very different just by the time they were told. OBrien said: A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written. The things they carried as a whole is vastly under the shadow of this definition, where fiction and nonfiction get seperated by a very blurry line; where it contains both truths and imaginations. Even for OBrien, he sometimes could not even distinguish what really happened and what he thinks it happened because the border between those two is so paper thin. In OBriens point of view, lives are about stories-the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell others. What is really true in our lives as we live it? Might there be events that we view incredibly significant now that we wont remember twenty years from now? Are there trivial details now that might come to have great impact on our lives or teach us incredible lessons? So where is this elusive truth? Truth is what we see from our own personal experience, and truth changes as we live our lives and as we keep remembering things, events, and people in our lives. Truth changes as we mature and as we continue to tell our stories or play them over in our minds. As critic Kaplan says, OBrien saves himself by demonstrating in this book that events have no fixed or final meaning and that the only meaning that events can have is one that emerges momentarily and then shifts and changes each time that the events come alive as they are remembered or portrayed (Kaplan). In an interview, OBrien was asked: What can stories do for us? He said: Stories do a lot for us. They can help us heal. They can make us feel part of something bigger. We all tell stories to ourselves-about today and tomorrow-we live our lives based on a story we tell ourselves. And were constantly adjusting ithoping for a happy ending. (Curran) For him, the key is hopefully to learn something or gain some insight from the process of telling and retelling in which truth and non-truth may get blend into each other to make sense. By stating his book is a work of fiction, OBrien gives himself a license to have more room to create and to write even though the materials are based on the truth. OBrien says One of the chapters in The Things They Carried is about a character with my name going to the Canadian border. He meets an old man up there, almost crosses into Canada but doesnt. I never literally did any of these things, but I thought about it. It was all happening in my dreams and in my head. And the one thing fiction can do is make it seem real. To let the reader participate in this kid making this journey and it feels like its really happening. You hope the readers asking the same questions that you were back then. You know, like What would I do? Would I go to Canada? What do I think of war? So even if the story never happened, literally, it happened in my head. If I were to tell you the literal truth about that summer, the truth would be that I played a lot of golf and worried a lot about the draft. But t hats a crummy story. It doesnt make you feel anything. (Richmond.com). It turns out he did not do the things in the story, but he considered them. The real truth would be boring but the embellished truth is still true. Just because he did not live these things does not mean that they are not true. He has embellished the truth in his head in order to dramatize the moral dilemma for the reader. With the pass he has given to himself in writing fiction base on truth, and letting truth hidden in fiction, everything is believable. In the book The Things They Carried, OBrien says, By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths (OBrien 158). For OBrien, stories can make events happen over again, can bring back to life ones weve lost. He writes, The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head (230). The Things They Carried, then, brings back to life for OBrien lives such as Norman Bowker and Bowkers best friend Kiowa. Since stories can have such an incredible effect, they save us. The us implies OBrien, other veterans, as well as general readers. By using metafiction as a vehicle for the Vietnam War, OBrien is able to discuss with readers why the stories are told and retold. Readers are better able to understand the aftereffects on veterans and relate to experiences they may never personally under go. OBrien uses fiction to be able to tell whole truth because the fact is fiction is often closer to the truth than what surrounds us on a daily basis. By explaining to readers how The Things They Carried operates on different levels, OBrien is arguing that his fiction piece is more accurate than nonfiction pieces on the Vietnam War. Even when OBrien exaggerates the truth or changes the details of a story, he does so to make the Vietnam War more real for the readers. As explained through the story of Norman Bowker and in How to Tell a True War Story, for OBrien, the truth of a story depends almost solely on how real the experience seems for the readers. In this way, happening truth remains historically and emotionally distant (Silbergleid 133). If the story is not technically true, at least the reader understands the significance of the event. Silbergleid notes story truth, is full of excruciating detail and specificity (133). OBrien uses story-truth to recreate Vietnam for outsiders. If the readers can fully imagine the shit field where Norman Bowker lost his best friend because of a sudden lack of courage, then that story of Vietnam is real. Although a Norman Bowker may not have ever existed, may only be a character in the fiction piece The Things They Carried, his experience undoubtedly happened to other soldiers. Even with exaggeration and falsification, the reality of Vietnam is accurately created by OBrien. The character Mitchell Sanders summarizes The Things They Carried best: I got a confession to make, Sanders said. Last night, man, I had to make up a few things. Yeah, but listen, its still true. (OBrien 77)

Filipino Accounting Education Essay

This Statement is issued by the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC). The AECC was appointed in 1989 by the American Accounting Association and supported by the Sponsors’ Education Task Force, representing the largest public accounting firms in the United States. Its objective is to be a catalyst for improving the academic preparation of accountants so that entrants to the accounting profession possess the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required for success in accounting career paths. The Commission encourages reproduction and distribution of its statements. The Commission’s first Position Statement, on the objectives of education for accountants, emphasized the importance of teaching. The Statement cited the need for training in instructional methods, recognizing and rewarding contributions to teaching and curriculum design, and measurement and evaluation systems that encourage continuous improvement of instructional methods and materials.1 Without progress in these prerequisites to effective teaching, the objectives of that Statement cannot be realized. Moreover, progress is needed in mechanisms for sharing ideas and techniques and in the culture and organizational climate that establishes and maintains the scholarly status of teaching within the professoriate. All interested parties (e.g., university boards of trustees, regents, legislatures, governors, parents of students, and other sponsors of education) should help establish a priority on teaching and otherwise improve its effectiveness, but faculty and administrative leaders bear the greatest responsibility. CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING The characteristics of effective teaching must be identified if their presence is to be measured and improvements envisioned. Understanding the characteristic of effective teaching is essential for faculty (so they know what is expected) and administrators (so they can assess performance). Five characteristics of effective teaching are listed below. Curriculum Design and Course Development. To effectively design curricula and develop courses the teacher must: set appropriate objectives; develop a useful framework for the conduct of courses and programs; conceptualize, organize, and properly sequence the subject matter; integrate courses with other related courses, disciplines, and current research; and be innovative and adaptive to change. Use of Well Conceived Course Materials. Effective course materials enhance presentation skills, fulfill course objectives, are consistent with current developments and new technology in the field, create a base upon which continued learning can be built, challenge students to think, and give them the tools to solve problems. Presentation Skills. Effective presentation skills stimulate students’ interests and their active participation in the learning process, respond to classroom developments as they occur, convey mastery of the subject matter, achieve clarity of exposition, instill professionalism, and engage students with different learning styles. Well Chosen Pedagogical Methods and Assessment Devices. Effective pedagogical methods (e.g., experiments, cases, small group activities) vary with circumstances (e.g., size of class, nature of the subject, ability or skill being developed). Assessment devices (e.g., examinations, projects, papers, presentations) should be geared both to course objectives and to the progress of the course and should have a pedagogical component (e.g., fixing in the student’s mind what is most important, learning by thinking through a problem, identifying weaknesses to be corrected, reinforcing acquired skills). Guidance and Advising. An effective teacher guides and advises students as appropriate to the level of study and research (e.g., a freshman’s exploration of potential careers, a senior’s job placement, or a doctoral student’s work on a dissertation). THE ADMINISTRATIVE TASK Administrators should ensure that the reward structure stimulates effective teaching. They should also give attention to the other administrative issues that can affect the quality of teaching. These include: The school’s or department’s infrastructure for learning. This infrastructure includes, for example, classrooms, EDP and projection equipment, library facilities, and study space. Deployment of discretionary resources (e.g., availability of secretarial assistance, printing and duplicating, travel funds for teaching conferences). Appropriate class sizes and teaching loads, given the educational mission and resources of the school. Administrators should consider how each of the factors above is influencing the quality of teaching at their institutions and whether improvements can be made. Finally, administrators should be satisfied with the quality of the procedures in place in their institutions to evaluate teaching and continuously improve it. REWARDING EFFECTIVE TEACHING Faculty and administrators have a joint responsibility to develop incentive systems that produce the best educational outcomes for students. No one reward system or set of reward criteria can serve all institutions, but all should create adequate incentive for effective teaching. The incentive systems should reward effective teaching in deed as well as in word. Effective teaching should be a primary consideration in the tenure, promotion, and merit evaluation process. Effectiveness and innovation are not free, and it would be a mistake to assume that in the long term simply faculty pride and altruism are sufficient to accomplish continual change and improvement in the instructional function. STRATEGIES FOR EVALUATING AND IMPROVING TEACHING There is a close relationship between evaluating and improving teaching. Information about performance provides feedback on where improvements might be made. Assessments of performance need not have a purely administrative function of determining salaries and promotions; they can be devoted to improving teaching. The techniques below illustrate the range of what is available. Regardless of the technique chosen, assessments of teaching should be systematic and consistent. Self-assessment. Every teacher should regularly assess his or her work in order to improve. Self-assessment requires an evaluation of what was effective, what was not, why some things were relatively more effective, and what changes are desirable. Self-assessments can include documentation of purposes and techniques provided to colleagues as part of formal evaluations and are a natural basis for informal discussions of teaching techniques. Observations by Colleagues. Faculty should be primarily responsible for evaluating the teaching performance of colleagues. The evaluation process should be systematic and should strive for objectivity. A structured approach lends consistency to observations, which can make subsequent observations less stressful. All observations by colleagues should have as a major purpose to make recommendations for improvement, even if the occasion for the observation is administrative. Experience should be considered in assigning faculty observers. Student Evaluations. Student evaluations provide direct evidence of student attitudes toward the classroom experience. Students can report reactions to course workload; to the course materials; to the teacher’s classroom enthusiasm, demeanor and control; and to their personal interaction with the teacher. They can also estimate their own academic growth in the course. Alumni Input. Graduates can report on the thoroughness of their preparation, the usefulness of specific educational experiences in their lives and careers, and recollections of effective courses and teachers. Aggregate data on alumni outcomes (e.g., employment data) can be combined with information on curriculum design and teaching effectiveness to evaluate how both an accounting program and teaching approaches might be improved. Instructional Consultants. Consultants can analyze teaching techniques and styles and provide recommendations for improvement. Sometimes it is useful to work with a consultant and a faculty colleague, with the colleague focusing on course content and the consultant on teaching techniques. Teaching Portfolios. A teaching portfolio is a factual description or collection of a professor’s teaching achievements (i.e., an extended teaching resume). The teaching portfolio is to a professor’s teaching what lists of publications, grants, and academic honors are to research. A portfolio might include documentation of one’s teaching experience and philosophy, syllabi, evidence of student learning, student and faculty evaluations, videotapes, and documentation of work on curriculum design and course development. A teaching portfolio may be critical to providing the teaching vita with the portability and external review enjoyed for so long by the publishing vita. CONCLUSION Every party with a stake in improving accounting education has a stake in improving accounting professors’ teaching, but faculty and administrators can do the most to bring it about. They can work to ensure that teaching is appropriately rewarded and supported, that campus conditions are conducive to effective teaching, that effective teaching strategies are shared with others, that sound mechanisms for feedback on teaching effectiveness are in place and functioning, and that methods of evaluating teaching are refined and viewed as credible by those who play key roles in the evaluation and reward process. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Angelo, Thomas A. and K. Patricia Cross. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (2nd Edition) San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993 Boyer, Ernest L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, N.J.: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990. Blackburn, Robert T. and Judith A. Pitney. Performance Appraisal for Faculty: Implications for Higher Education. Ann Arbor, MI: national Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Education, The University of Michigan, 1988. Braskamp, Larry A. and John C. Ory. Assessing Faculty Work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers (in preparation), 1993. Cashin, William E. â€Å"Defining and Evaluating College Teaching,† IDEA Paper No. 21. Kansas State University, Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development, September 1989. Centra, John, Robert C. Froh, Peter J. Gray, Leo M. Lambert and Robert M. Diamond, eds. A Guide to Evaluating Teaching for Promotion and Tenure. Syracuse University, Center for Instructional Development, 1987. Diamond, Robert M. Designing and Improving Courses and Curricula in Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989. Edgerton, Russell, Patricia Hutchings and Kathleen Quinlan. The Teaching Portfolio: Capturing the Scholarship in Teaching. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1991. Gabbin, Alexander L., Scott N. Cairns and Ralph L. Benke, Jr., eds. Faculty Performance Appraisal. Harrisonburg, VA: Center for Research in Accounting Education, 1990. Lambert, Leo M. and Stacey Lane Tice, eds. Preparing Graduate Students to Teach: A Guide to Programs that Improve Undergraduate Education and Develop Tomorrow’s Faculty. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Higher Education, 1993. McKeachie, Wilbert J. Teaching Tips: A Guide Book for the Beginning College Teacher. (8th Edition) Lexington, MA: Heath and Company, 1986. Mckeachie, Wilbert J., Paul R. Pintrich, Yi-Guang Lin and David Smith. Teaching and Learning in the College Classroom: A Review of the Research Literature. Ann Arbor, MI: National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Education, The University of Michigan, 1986. Menges, Robert J, and B. Claude Matkis, eds. Key Resources on Teaching, Learning, Curriculum, and faculty Development. San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1988. Seldin, Peter. The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance and Promotion Tenure Decisions. Boston, MA: Anker Publishing, 1991. Seldin, Peter and others. How Administrators Can Improve Teaching: Moving from Talk to Action in Higher Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990. Stark, Joan S. and others. Planning Introductory College Courses: Influence on Faculty. Ann Arbor, MI: National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Education, The University of Michigan, 1990. St. Pierre, E. Kent, Michael P. Riordan and Diane A. Riordan, eds. Research in Instructional Effectiveness. Harrisonburg, VA: Center for Research in Accounting Education, 1990. The Teaching Professor. A newsletter published by Magna Publications, Inc., Madison, WI: Maryellen G. Weimer, Editor, Pennsylvania State University. The AECC acknowledge the contributions to the Statement of the following task force members who are not Commission members: Ronald J. Patten and Arthur R. Wyatt. Other Statement issued by the Accounting Education Change Commission: Issues Statement No. 1: AECC Urges Priority for Teaching in Higher Education (August 1990). Position Statement No. One: Objectives of Education for Accountants (September 1990). Issues Statement No. 2: AECC Urges Decoupling of Academic Studies and Professional Accounting Examination Preparation (July 1991).

Benny, the War in Europe, and Myerson’s Daughter Bella Essay

When Benny was sent overseas in the autumn of 1941 his father, Mr. Garber, thought that if he had to give up one son to the army, it might as well be Benny who was a quiet boy, and who wouldn’t push where he shouldn’t; and Mrs. Garber thought: â€Å"my Benny, he’ll take care, he’ll watch out;† and Benny’s brother Abe thought â€Å"when he comes back, I’ll have a garage of my own, you bet, and I’ll be able to give him a job.† Benny wrote every week, and every week the Garbers sent him parcels full of good things that a Jewish boy should always have, like salami and pickled herring and shtrudel. The food parcels were always the same, and the letters — coming from Camp Borden and Aldershot and Normandy and Hol ­ land — were always the same too. They began — â€Å"I hope you are all well and good† — and ended — â€Å"don’t worry, all the best to everybody, thank you for the parcel.† When Benny came home from the war in Europe, the Gar ­bers didn’t make much of a fuss. They met him at the station, of course, and they had a small dinner for him. Abe was thrilled to see Benny again. â€Å"Atta boy,† was what he kept saying all evening, â€Å"Atta boy, Benny.† â€Å"You shouldn’t go back to the factory,† Mr. Garber said. â€Å"You don’t need the old job. You can be a help to your brother Abe in his garage.† â€Å"Yes,† Benny said. â€Å"Let him be, let him rest,† Mrs. Garber said, â€Å"What’ll hap ­ pen if he doesn’t work for two weeks?†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Hey, when Artie Segal came back,† Abe said, â€Å"he said that in Italy there was nothing that guy couldn’t get for a  couple of Sweet Caps. Was he shooting me the bull, or what?† Benny had been discharged and sent home, not because the war was over, but because of the shrapnel in his leg, but he didn’t limp too badly and he didn’t talk about his wound or the war, so at first nobody noticed that he had changed. No ­ body, that is, except Myerson’s daughter Bella. Myerson was the proprietor of Pop’s Cigar & Soda, on Laurier Street, and any day of the week, you could find him there seated on a worn, peeling kitchen chair playing poker with the men of the neighbourhood. He had a glass-eye and when a player hesitated on a bet, he would take it out and polish it, a gesture that never failed to intimidate. His daugh ­ ter, Bella, worked behind the counter. She had a club-foot and mousy hair and some more hair on her face, and although she was only twenty-six, it was generally supposed that she would end up an old maid. Anyway she was the one — the first one — who noticed that the war in Europe had changed Benny. And, as a matter of fact, the very first time he came into the store after his homecoming she said to him: â€Å"What’s wrong, Benny’? Are you afraid?† â€Å"I’m all right,† he said. Benny was a quiet boy. He was short and skinny with a long narrow face, a pulpy mouth that was somewhat crooked, and soft black eyes. He had big, conspicuous hands, Thich he preferred to keep out of sight in his pockets. In fact, he seemed to want to keep out of sight altogether and whenever  possible, he stood  behind a chair or in a  light so that  people wouldn’t notice him — and, noticing  chase him  away. When he had failed the ninth grade at Baron Byng High School, his class-master, a Mr. Perkins, had sent him home with a note saying: â€Å"Benjamin is not a student, but he has all the makings of a good citizen. He is honest and at ­ tentive in class and a hard worker. I recommend that he learn a trade.†

Phosphorescence Definition