Simple Past Tense

Explanation

1. The simple past tense is expressed with the past form of the verb and nothing else.

My grandfather died last year.  (Correct)

My grandfather was died last year.  (Incorrect)
My grandfather has died last year.   (Incorrect)
2. The simple past tense refers to

a. action which occurred at a specific time in the past
b. completed action
c. past status

Examples

Specific past actionI ate lunch at noon today.
He drove to work yesterday.

Completed action
She finally mailed the letter.
Jan finished her report on time.

Past status
John was still single in 1995.
Jane was a movie star.

Note the usage of the past tense in the following story.

Yesterday Mrs. Hubbard had a very rough day. In the morning, she went to the kitchen and looked in the cupboard for some food for her dog, but the cupboard was empty. Her poor dog stared up at her with its hungry eyes, and she knew she had to do something quickly. She hurried to the grocery store to buy some dog food, but unfortunately the store was out of her dog's favorite brand, so she had to catch a bus downtown. After buying the food, she waited for a half hour in the rain to get a taxi. When she finally got home, her dog was sound asleep on the living room sofa.

Common problems with the past tense

1. Using the present tense when the past tense is required.

Last week, Tonya fix her neighbor's car.  (Incorrect)

Last week, Tonya fixed her neighbor's car.  (Correct)

2. Using "was" with verbs in the past tense.

It was happened one night in September.  (Incorrect)

It happened one night in September.  (Correct)

Exercises

Change the verbs in the following sentence into past tense.

1. Yesterday, I go to the restaurant with a client.
2. We drive around the parking lot for 20 minutes in order to find a parking space.
3. When we arrive at the restaurant, the place is full.
4. The waitress asks us if we have reservations.
5. I say, "No, my secretary forgets to make them."
6. The waitress tells us to come back in two hours.
7. My client and I slowly walk back to the car.
8. Then we see a small grocery store.
9. We stop in the grocery store and buy some sandwiches.
10. That is better than waiting for two hours.

Correct the mistakes in the following sentences:

1. Last night, Samantha have pizza for supper.
2. My pet lizard was died last month.
3. Yesterday I spend two hours cleaning my living room.
4. This morning before coming to class, Jack eats two bowls of cereal.
5. What was happened to your leg?

Conjunction

In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, phrases or clauses together. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" should be defined for each language. In general, a conjunction is an invariable grammatical particle, and it may or may not stand between the items it conjoins.

The definition can also be extended to idiomatic phrases that behave as a unit with the same function as a single-word conjunction (as well as, provided that, etc.).

Types of conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions, also called coordinators, are conjunctions that join two or more items of equal syntactic importance. Coordinating conjunctions include for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. The mnemonic acronym FANBOYS may be used to remember these, with each letter being the initial letter of a conjunction. It is often stated that these seven words are the only coordinating conjunctions; however (at least in British English) others have been identified including whilst, now, and nor, and but nor

Correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions that work together to coordinate two items. English examples include both … and, (n)either … (n)or, and not (only) … but (also)....

Subordinating conjunctions, also called subordinators, are conjunctions that introduce a dependent clause. The most common subordinating conjunctions in the English language include after, although, as much as, as long as, as soon as, because, before, if, in order that, lest, since, so that, than, that, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, wherever, whether, while. Complementizers can be considered to be special subordinating conjunctions that introduce complement clauses (e.g., "I wonder whether he'll be late. I hope that he'll be on time"). Some subordinating conjunctions (although, before, until, while), when used to introduce a phrase instead of a full clause, become prepositions with identical meanings.

In many verb-final languages, subordinate clauses must precede the main clause on which they depend. The equivalents to the subordinating conjunctions of non-verb-final languages such as English are either clause-final conjunctions (e.g. in Japanese), or suffixes attached to the verb and not separate words

Such languages in fact often lack conjunctions as a part of speech because:

1.the form of the verb used is formally nominalised and cannot occur in an independent clause

2.the clause-final conjunction or suffix attached to the verb is actually formally a marker of case and is also used on nouns to indicate certain functions. In this sense, the subordinate clauses of these languages have much in common with postpositional phrases.

Coordinating conjunctions

For: indicates reason (used as a synonym of 'because'), or purpose

And: used to connect words, phrases, or clauses

Nor: presents an alternate negative idea

But: indicates a contrast or exception

Or: presents opinions, alternates, or substitutes for ideas of equal importance

Yet: connects ideas that follow logically and are contrary

So: shows the consequences of related ideas

Interjections

Interjections

Hi! That's an interjection. :-)

Interjections like er and um are also known as "hesitation devices". They are extremely common in English. People use them when they don't know what to say, or to indicate that they are thinking about what to say. You should learn to recognize them when you hear them and realize that they have no real meaning.

Interjection is a big name for a little word. Interjections are short exclamations like Oh!, Um or Ah! They have no real grammatical value but we use them quite often, usually more in speaking than in writing. When interjections are inserted into a sentence, they have no grammatical connection to the sentence. An interjection is sometimes followed by an exclamation mark (!) when written.

The table below shows some interjections with examples.

interjection..... meaning...................................................example

ah..................expressing pleasure ...................................."Ah, that feels good."

.....................expressing realization .................................."Ah, now I understand."

.....................expressing resignation.................................."Ah well, it can't be heped."

.....................expressing surprise...................................... "Ah! I've won!"

alas ................expressing grief or pity ................................"Alas, she's dead now."

dear ...............expressing pity ..........................................."Oh dear! Does it hurt?"

......................expressing surprise ....................................."Dear me! That's a surprise!"

eh ..................asking for repetition ...................................."It's hot today."
....................................................................................."Eh?" "I said it's hot today."

......................expressing enquiry ......................................"What do you think of that, eh?"

......................expressing surprise ......................................"Eh! Really?"

.......................inviting agreement ......................................"Let's go, eh?"

er ...................expressing hesitation ..................................."Lima is the capital
......................................................................................of..er..Peru."

hello, hullo ........expressing greeting ......................................"Hello John. How are you
.......................................................................................today?"

.......................expressing surprise ......................................."Hello! My car's gone!"

hey .................calling attention ..........................................."Hey! look at that!"

.......................expressing surprise, joy etc ............................"Hey! What a good idea!"

hi ....................expressing greeting ......................................"Hi! What's new?"

hmm ................expressing hesitation, doubt
.......................or disagreement ..........................................."Hmm. I'm not so sure."

oh, o ...............expressing surprise ........................................"Oh! You're here!"

.......................expressing pain ............................................"Oh! I've got a toothache."
.......................expressing pleading ......................................."Oh, please say 'yes'!"

ouch ................expressing pain ............................................."Ouch! That hurts!"

uh ...................expressing hesitation ......................................"Uh...I don't know the answer to that."

uh-huh ..............expressing agreement ....................................."Shall we go?" "Uh-huh."

um, umm ...........expressing hesitation ......................................."85 divided by 5 is...um...17."

well ..................expressing surprise ........................................."Well I never!"

........................introducing a remark ......................................."Well, what did he say?"

Prepositions

This is a list of English prepositions. In English, some prepositions are short, typically containing six letters or fewer. There are, however, a significant number of multi-word prepositions. Throughout the history of the English language, new prepositions have come into use, old ones fallen out of use, and the meaning of existing prepositions has changed. Nonetheless, the prepositions are by and large a closed class.

Single words -

aboard - about - above - across - after - against - along - alongside - amid - amidst - among - amongst - around - as - aside - astride - at - athwart - atop - barring - before - behind - below - beneath - beside - besides - between - beyond - but - by - circa - concerning - despite - down - during - except - excluding - failing - following - for - from -given - in - including - inside - into - like - mid (from "amid". Usually used poetically.) - minus - near - next - notwithstanding (also used post positionally) - of - off - on - onto - opposite - out - outside - over - pace - past - per - plus - qua - regarding - round - save - since - than - through - throughout - till - times - to - toward - towards - under - underneath - unlike - until - up - upon - versus - via - with - within - without - worth

Multiple words

Two words -

according to - ahead of - as of - as per - as regards - aside from - because of - close to - due to - except for - far from - in to (contracted as into) - inside of (note that inside out is an adverb, not a preposition) - instead of - near to - next to - on to (contracted as onto) - out from - out of - outside of - owing to - prior to - pursuant to - regardless of - subsequent to - thanks to - that of

Three words -

as far as - as well as - by means of - in accordance with - in addition to - in case of - in front of - in lieu of - in place of - in point of - in spite of - on account of - on behalf of - on top of - with regard to - with respect to

Archaic or infrequently used -

anent - anti (loan word) - behither - betwixt - cum (loan word) - ere - fornenst - fornent - outwith - pro (loan word) - qua (loan word) - re (loan word) - sans (loan word) - unto (largely supplanted by to; used in some formal, religious, or archaic contexts) - vis-à-vis (loan word)

Not fully grammaticalised -

concerning - considering - regarding - worth

Preposition-like modifiers of quantified noun phrases -

apart from - but - except - plus - save

Postpositions -

ago as in "five years ago", sometimes (wrongly) considered an adverb rather than a postposition

apart as in "this apart", also used prepositionally ("apart from this")

aside as in "such examples aside", also used prepositionally ("aside from such examples")

away as in "five light years away", sometimes (wrongly) considered an adverb or an adjective rather than a postposition

hence as in "five years hence", sometimes considered an adverb rather than a postposition notwithstanding also used prepositionally

on as in "five years on", also used prepositionally

through as in "the whole night through", also used prepositionally

withal archaic as a postposition meaning with

Drunken Santa

(oil painting by Jaisini)

Drunken Santa is a work that creates a miracle of equilibrium. What seemed like a clash of an opposite spectrum's colors became the unlikely harmony in this painting. Jaisini's artistic vision here is formed from two components of physical and emotional states of being.

Freezing and heating serve as a symbol to a human need for warming up from the chill of solitude by means known to people at all times. The artist pursues his art philosophical quest for worldly knowledge that had left its traces in many of his works. A line of composition literally ignites the

painting's surface with the movement. The color of this work is "phosphorescent," and it create the different planes if the subtle color nature. The warm color of purple supports the hot color of Santa's figure and an exotic fish above Santa. This hot color may represent the so-called material universe, the world of the gross senses that can be observed in a sober state. The cold, arctic blue color represents the unknown, the world of a deep state of drunkenness where real is unreal and otherwise. The only hard reality is the self, which never changes in any state. And maybe that is why

Jaisini favors the painting's main hero, Santa, to possess the vivacious color of fire. Jaisini chooses this color of fire to manifest the self and the cold cerulean, cobalt and ultramarine to renounce self as a mortal entity surrounded by the eternal unknown.

While Santa drinks his feelings of frigid loneliness vanish. And so, he gets a company of some almost hallucinatory nature. A shark, a ghostly image, a profile of another prototypical drunk who is not accidentally situated in a horizontal position. An amalgam of the several female figures that consists of a woman in stockings, a nun, a big-breasted silhouette that create a shadow between.

A heat can be sensed around the hot colored Santa who has lost his beard and is holding a glass of red wine. He shows his thumb that may be just a polite substitution for the middle finger sign.

The colors of the work are balanced by a virtuoso composition of a cubist character. The picture's space is divided endlessly. More images start to appear. The world of "Drunken Santa" vitalizes to almost chaotic state.

The work is a treasure. It depicts and witnesses the intangible mechanism of reality transformation. In the state of intoxication, what happens to the solid world of sober state? Everything disappears. It is just like the dream-world, that we call unreal, because when we are awaken it is not there.

Just so the solid world must be unreal because it also vanishes in the drunk or deep-sleep states. Then what is reality? In "Drunken Santa," this problem is elaborated to the triumphant conclusion. The simplicity of symbolism of the warm and cold colors. The dazzling composition of figuration superimposed to abstraction. And besides the beauty of artistic logic, Jaisini's works are marked with the rich, magnetic colors, as in "Drunken Santa" and others, strikingly attractive pictures in their intricate game of light and shadow, in their absolute congruence of visual and conceptual.

Review of oil painting "Drunken Santa" by Paul Jaisini

Writing with a Sense of Purpose

It's important to know why you're writing. If your purpose in writing is to please your instructor or to get a better grade, that may not be enough. Many instructors devise strategies to persuade their students to write for a larger community — publishing students' best work in a newsletter or online publication, asking students to send their papers to local newspapers, putting their best papers in a collection in the college library — something that allows students to feel that more than one person, sitting alone at the kitchen table, is going to read this bit of writing. Knowing that there is more than one person to please, a public "out there," is a motivation in itself to do well, to communicate clearly. It will help establish, also, that consistent sense of tone that is so important to a paper's success.

Beyond that feeling that there is an audience out there, waiting breathlessly for this paper you're working on, it helps to have a clear sense of what you're trying to do for this audience. Are you trying to entertain them? That is surely a lofty purpose: writing to lighten someone's spirits is not a project to be undertaken lightly. Is your paper a matter of self-expression? Do you have opinions or feelings that you need to share with others? Are you trying to persuade others that you have a view of things that is clear-sighted, useful, and needs to be shared? Or that someone else's position is faulty, muddle-headed, or otherwise wrong? Are you trying to provide an exposition of facts or process or definition that others can take advantage of, or are you trying to persuade them of the rightness of a moral or ethical position? Do you want your audience to read your paper and then act, filled with new energy because of what you've told them? The objectivity, mood, and earnestness of your prose will be determined by this attitude or sense of purpose.

The writing process is normally aided by a sense of pressure. This paper that we're working on is something that has to be written — not just because we must please our writing instructors or because we need a good grade in this course (those pressures have their own sense of emergency) but because there is information or a point of view that we need to share with the reader. Karl Schnapp, an English professor at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, Connecticut, calls this sense of pressure exigence.

The pressure to write is determined by the relationship between you as writer and the audience you're trying to reach and affect. Let's examine two essay beginnings with an eye toward determining the writer's purpose and how that sense of purpose establishes tone and word choice. Let's say that for a course in Art Appreciation we have to write (there's a bit of pressure right there!) a brief analysis of a famous painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c. 1558; Oil on canvas, mounted on wood, 73.5 x 112 cm; Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels). [Clicking on the image below will call up a larger version of the same painting —179 kb, not recommended with slow connections.] As you read the beginnings, think about the relationship between writer and audience and how this might have influenced how the writer wrote as he or she did.

Birds In My Garden

Birds in my garden

I live in a bungalow surrounded by a fairly large garden. There are a number of fruit trees growing here along with many plants and a lot of grass. At first glance the garden appears very quiet but actually many birds and animals live in it or visit it frequently.

Every morning I am awakened by the shrill songs of a magpie-robin. The sound is so sweet and I just lie in bed listening to the songs until the bird flies away.

All through the day I see various birds come and perch on the trees and plants. Some come to sing or rest a bit. Others come to look for food. So it is always a pleasure to see them. I just sit quietly and they go about their business undisturbed. I have seen the oriole, spotted-dove, pigeon, yellow-vented bulbul, mynah, fan-tailed flycatcher and various other little birds which I cannot name. They sing, dance and display their beautiful colors. It is quite a treat. On the other hand there are those pesky little sparrows that come into the house to steal food.

One morning I saw a white-breasted water hen sunning itself just next to a mango tree. This normally shy bird must really be feeling the pinch of progress to take refuge in my garden. Sad to say, the surrounding area is being developed and the wildlife are being chased away or destroyed.

Some people keep birds in cages to listen to their songs. I say it is far better for the birds to live freely. Then they sing, or not sing, their songs naturally. It is wonderful to see them fly freely among the trees. It is not so wonderful to see caged birds unable to move more than a foot in any direction.

shrill high-pitched and sharp tone

pesky annoying

feel the pinch be affected by hardship

Walking - 3

WALKING AND BLOOD PRESSURE

Regular walking can reduce high blood pressure - hypertension - by making the heart work more efficiently and by improving the circulation. It has been shown that blood pressure can be reduced by weight loss. Regular walking combined with a low fat, high fiber-diet is an excellent form of weight control. There are other ways in which you can help yourself to reduce high blood pressure:-

Do not smoke.

Decrease your intake of alcohol and caffeine.

And make sure your diet is low in salt, sugar and fat.

WALKING AND CHOLESTEROL

Cholesterol is present not only in the blood stream but in all of the body's tissues. Most of the cholesterol in the blood stream is made in the body, but some foods which we contain cholesterol (Dietary cholesterol).

Cholesterol is transported in the blood by lipoproteins. There are two types of lipoproteins - High density (HDLs) and Low density (LDLs). HDLs are sometimes called "good" and LDLs "bad" cholesterol. The higher your HDL level the lower the risk of heart disease.

Stress can also affect your cholesterol levels. Regular walking can increase the levels of "good" cholesterol in the blood, reducing chances of a heart attack. So try to avoid stress - and relax. Go for a walk.

WALKING AND HEART

Regular walking may reduce the risk of a heart attack by half. It can help to lower the risk of coronary heart diseases as there is a link between vigorous physical exercise and a low incidence of heart failure.

Although regular, vigorous exercise can reduce the risk of developing coronary heart diseases, it cannot provide immunity. So many other factors have to be considered. And another way in which you can help yourself is by having a healthy and balanced diet.

WALKING ANG SELF CONFIDENCE

When you feel fit and healthy your self-confidence increases and you feel more able to cope with the demands mode on you. Time spent walking means time taken off from the stresses of daily life. As a result you feel less anxious. Regular exercise can increase the levels of endorphins - naturally secreted hormones - that appear to work in the brain, increasing a sense of well being. And this feeling of contentment in turn increase your Self confidence.

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Walking - 2

HOW WALKING AFFECTS YOUR BODY COMPONENTS

Lets learn how walking affects our body components. It affects the five components of fitness:

BODY COMPOSITION :

Walking four times a weak, 45 minutes each time, the average person can lose 18 pounds in a year with no change in diet. Walking can help you trim fat as well as tone your muscles.

CARDIOVASCULAR FITNESS : Walking, at any level or speed, two or three times a weak for at least 20 minutes increases cardiovascular strength. By increasing the strength of your heart and lungs, you increase your ability not only to exercise longer and harder but also to perform everyday task without tiring.

FLEXIBILITY: As with any endurance activity, walking doesn't significantly increase your flexibility. Every activity uses certain muscles groups more than others. Therefore you don't stretch the muscles that walking uses extensively. They'll tighten, straighten and perhaps cause pains or strains. These exercises are vital for remaining free injury.

MUSCULAR ENDURANCE: All walkers develop a moderate amount of endurance, which enables them to exercise longer before becoming exhausted. Race walker have high endurance comparable to that of marathon runners. Walking helps build your ability to do something longer without fatigue.

MUSCULAR STRENGTH: You will gain muscular strength with walking but probably not enough for well rounded fitness. Muscles that get an extra workout in walking include the entire back of the leg, calves, hamstrings, and gluteus. You will use muscles in the back of shoulders when you swing your arms. Walking provides other physical benefits and prevents dangers associated with other types of exercise. Walking is a low-impact exercise, which puts less strain on bones and tissues.

BENEFITS OF WALKING

Walking brings significant health benefits to body and mind. Research shows that regular walking contributes much to your overall health and fitness in important ways:

Strengthens your heart

Delays or prevents major diseases or illness

Reduces blood pressure and the risk of stroke

Reduces cholesterol

Strengthens joints and bones

Helps control weight

Improves mood and self-esteem

Contributes to “brain fitness”

Gives you energy and a good night’s rest

Relieves stress and worry

Improves balance and circulation

Boosts immune system

WALKING IS THE BEST MEDICINE

It works to build fitness, slimness and cardiovascular health and helps with relaxation.

WALKING AND BACKPAIN

Taking a walk regularly is one of the best things you can do for your back. It promotes muscular development, increases circulation, and speeds up the release of endorphins which provide a natural "high".

WALKING AND OSTEOPOROSIS

As we get older there is a gradual decrease in skeletal strength. The mineral content of bones decreases and their texture becomes thinner. And because the bones are too porous and brittle, they are more likely to fracture. This condition is known as osteoporosis.

Calcium and exercise are the keys to the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. Walking may help you combat it. It is the easiest and safest form of exercise for people of all ages. The studies show that a walk of just half an hour, four times a week, can help prevent osteoporosis.

WALKING AND CIGERETTE SMOKING

It has been seen that the people who are active and fit are not so likely to smoke as those people who are sedentary and less fit. Although walking does not actually stop people from smoking, the regular routine of walking can be applied as a positive habit to replace the negative habit of smoking.

In order to improve your general health, you must find the will power to stop. Smoking causes feelings of fatigue because it impairs the delivery of oxygen to the cells of all the body's organs, destroys vitamin c in the body, impairing the immune system and increases the amount of carbon monoxide in the bloodstream, leading to heart and lung disorders and cancer.

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Walking

KNOW ABOUT WALKING

Walking stretches your mind and your soul. It is dynamic mind & body process which creates a sense of rhythm. As you listen to your own silent rhythm, the pulse of life, your own heartbeat - you become whole, a complete man - fit in Mind, Body and Soul.

Walking energizes you, awakens you and stills your mind to fully relax. With the change of mind your moods change and you experience a physical and a spiritual upliftment. As you relax, your perception change and you reach from the everyday conscious mind to your highest level of mind - the intuitive mind. Your subconscious cuts through the mental clutter, releasing latent vitality and creativity, transcending traditional linear thinking and helping you find a creative solution.

There are many ways you could possibly benefit yourselves from i.e. an exercise as simple as morning walk. In today’s irritatingly fast world, you deprive your self of the much needed oxygen that is anyways getting depleted with the time. The earliest hours in the morning would probably give you fresh oxygen and quality time to spend with the greenery and beauty around you that perhaps only writers and poets around you seem to notice.

The oxygen that you get early in the morning also gives you great amount of energy especially to your joints. The movement in your legs releases good cholesterol in your blood, opening up some of the "chakras" or channels of energy. By constantly moving your joints, you increase your blood circulation in a way that can only be completed with your daily morning walk.

Awareness walking is a walking meditation. Focusing on the rhythm of the breath and rhythm of each step, we induce a state of a deep relaxation and self awareness. Adding mind-body technique to walking, we can provide greater relaxation and stress management, and can turn a routine walk into a creative & rejuvenating experience.

WHY WALKING

Ordinarily, in today’s hectic world, its quite possible that amidst so much that’s happening around you, makes you feel that an ideal life is but a living dream (which may remain as one) and you tend to lose out on great many things that the future holds for you. A great walk in the woods while admiring nature talks to you in many ways than one. For many of us this may be one of those things for which you either need luck or perhaps the time. And most of us believe that these are never in one’s grasp.

Much of the time our bodies are sluggish and our blood never gets an airing. Oxygen is rarely allowed to surge through our veins making us feel energetic, alive and vital. But exercise can change all that. It rejuvenates and revitalizes the body's cells, releasing muscular tension and relishing our energy levels. Exercise motivates, energizes and empowers. "The easiest way to change yourself is physically". 'Physical change quick'. So kick, start your day with a morning walk. They will tone and energizes you and connect you with your inner rhythms. Walking decreases stress hormones and increases relaxation hormones (beta-endorphins) which elevate your mood and increase your sense of well being.

Walking is natural mood elevator. It helps in promoting feelings of happiness and can ease mild depression. Walking gets you going, revs up your circulation and gives you the energy to get through the day.

The human body is the ultimate exercise machine and walking is the easiest and safest way for most people to re-energizes their bodies and burn away the harmful affects of stress. In other words, to experience health, fitness and deep relaxation, walk.

Walking can be a whole philosophy of life. After all, from the moment we rise in the morning till we climb into bed at night, we are on and off our feet.

MORNING WALK AS EXERCISE

This is perhaps the most overlooked and neglected form of exercise. Because it sounds and look easy, most of us do not bother to walk, but prefer to sign up for expensive aerobic classes and spend a lot of time in a gym.

We recommend walking as exercise since it costs nothing, requires no partner and expensive gadgets, but will burn nearly the same calories as jogging does. It does not burden the body, instead if done in calm and peaceful surroundings like a park or country road, it will let off the tension in your mind and body.

Before you use walking as exercise

Make sure you do not eat an hour before going out for a walk. Digesting takes a lot of energy from the body. If you exercise right away after eating, you are going to overburden yourself. Fruits or juices are okay, since they do not tax the system as much.

Exercise alone will not make you healthy. No amount of walking or jogging will help the body if you do not eat properly or have greater affection with cigarettes and alcohol.

It does not really matter when you do it. Although we acknowledge that an early morning walk is better because the air is significantly fresher, for people who only have the afternoon to do it, it is okay.

Avoid busy roads. You need fresh air with green & clean surroundings. The aim is to relax the mind as well as exercise the body. If you are taking more carbon dioxide than oxygen, you are harming your body. So, find a nice, peaceful and green place.

How to do it

Actually, the human body is designed to walk, no one should be taught how to do it. However, for walking as exercise to give more impact, this is our recommendation

Get at least 30 minutes walk everyday. Keep your pace at 3 to 5 miles an hour.

Vary your routes so that you are not walking on flat ground.

If you cannot maintain brisk pace, this is what you should do. Alternate between a 2 minutes brisk walk with a more comfortable pace for the next 2 minutes. After that 2 minutes “rest”, pick up your pace again. If you can maintain brisk walk, do it for approximately 20 minutes. If you cannot allocate 30 minutes a day, don’t worry. The most important thing is to do it regularly. Walking as exercise will restore your peace of mind, make your blood pressure normal and control your appetite. It is better than any pills invented by mankind.

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What An Effective Teacher Like?

An efficient teacher is one who does the right thing consistently and knows what they are doing. An effective teacher is one who touches the lives of children, and runs an effective classroom.

To be and efficient and effective teacher you must have three very important characteristics for student. know how to design lessons for student mastery, extremely good classroom management skills, and Positive expectations.

When the teacher has high expectations, not high standards, the students will perform to your expectations. Positive expectations are essential to student success.

If you believe that all students are capable learners and that they all are above average, these expectations will transmit to the student, and the student will succeed.

If these expectations are apparent toward all students it will benefit both the students and the teacher.

Designing lessons for student mastery is also very important for student success. To teach for mastery, an effective teacher must do two things, know how to evaluate the learning, and know how to design lessons in which the student can learn to see if the student has mastered the concept. You can study to be an effective teacher by learning from fellow teachers as well as from your mentors and your mistakes. Every one of us is both a student and a teacher. We are at our best when we teach ourselves what we need to learn.

Good classroom management is important for student success. For this to happen, the teacher has consistent in everything, and to be very organized. The teacher must maintain control so that instruction and learning can occur. Much of the control that a teacher has over a class is effected by what the teacher does on the first day of school. If you can maintain control during the first week, that is an accurate indicator for how well the students will do for the rest of the year.

Author: Free Essays Center http://www.free-essays.cn/

Link: What An Effective Teacher Like? http://www.free-essays.cn/2009/01/what-effective-teacher-like.html

Public Health - 4

Schools of public health

The Welch-Rose Report of 1915 has been viewed as the basis for the critical movement in the history of the institutional schism between public health and medicine because it led to the establishment of schools of public health supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The report was authored by William Welch, founding dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Wycliffe Rose of the Rockfeller Foundation. The report focused more on research than practical education. Some have blamed the Rockfeller Foundation's 1916 decision to support the establishment of schools of public health for creating the schism between public health and medicine and legitimizing the rift between medicine's laboratory investigation of the mechanisms of disease and public health's nonclinical concern with environmental and social influences on health and wellness.

A year following the report, the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health was founded in 1916. By 1922, schools of public health were established in Columbia, Harvard and Yale universities. By 1999 there were twenty nine schools of public health enrolling around fifteen thousand students.

Over the years, the types of students and training provided have also changed. In the beginning, students who enrolled in public health schools had already obtained a medical degree. However, in 1978, 69% of students enrolled in public health schools had only a bachelors degree. Public health school training had evolved from a second degree for medical professionals to a primary public health degree with a focus on the six core disciplines of biostatistics, epidemiology, health services administration, health education, behavioral science and environmental science.

Education and training

Schools of public health offer a variety of degrees which generally fall into two categories: professional or academic.

Professional degrees are oriented towards practice in public health settings. The Master of Public Health (M.P.H.), Doctor of Public Health (Dr.PH.) and the Master of Health Care Administration (M.H.A.) are examples of degrees which are geared towards people who want careers as practitioners of public health in health departments, managed care and community-based organizations, hospitals and consulting firms among others. Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees broadly fall into two categories, those that put more emphasis on an understanding of epidemiology and statistics as the scientific basis of public health practice and those that include a more eclectic range of methodologies.

Academic degrees are more oriented towards those with interests in the scientific basis of public health and preventive medicine who wish to pursue careers in research, university teaching in graduate programs, policy analysis and development, and other high-level public health positions. Examples of academic degrees are the Master of Science (M.S.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Doctor of Science (Sc.D.). The doctoral programs are distinct from the M.P.H. and other professional programs by the addition of advanced coursework and the nature and scope of a dissertation research project.

The Association of Schools of Public Health[10] represents Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accredited schools of public health in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

Delta Omega is the honorary society for graduate studies in public health. The society was founded in 1924 at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Currently, there are approximately 50 chapters throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.

Public health programs

This 1963 poster featured CDC’s national symbol of public health, the "Wellbee", encouraging the public to receive an oral polio vaccine.Today, most governments recognize the importance of public health programs in reducing the incidence of disease, disability, and the effects of aging, although public health generally receives significantly less government funding compared with medicine. In recent years, public health programs providing vaccinations have made incredible strides in promoting health, including the eradication of smallpox, a disease that plagued humanity for thousands of years.

An important public health issue facing the world currently is HIV/AIDS. Antibiotic resistance is another major concern, leading to the reemergence of diseases such as Tuberculosis.

Another major public health concern is diabetes. In 2006, according to the World Health Organization, at least 171 million people worldwide suffered from diabetes. Its incidence is increasing rapidly, and it is estimated that by the year 2030, this number will double.

A controversial aspect of public health is the control of smoking. Many nations have implemented major initiatives to cut smoking, such as increased taxation and bans on smoking in some or all public places. Proponents argue by presenting evidence that smoking is one of the major killers in all developed countries, and that therefore governments have a duty to reduce the death rate, both through limiting passive (second-hand) smoking and by providing fewer opportunities for smokers to smoke. Opponents say that this undermines individual freedom and personal responsibility (often using the phrase nanny state in the UK), and worry that the state may be emboldened to remove more and more choice in the name of better population health overall. However, proponents counter that inflicting disease on other people via passive smoking is not a human right, and in fact smokers are still free to smoke in their own homes.

There is also a link between public health and veterinary public health which deals with zoonotic diseases, diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans.

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Public Health - 3

Modern public health

As the prevalence of infectious diseases in the developed world decreased through the 20th century, public health began to put more focus on chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease. An emphasis on physical exercise was reintroduced.

In America, public health worker Dr. Sara Josephine Baker lowered the infant mortality rate using preventative methods. She established many programs to help the poor in New York City keep their infants healthy. Dr. Baker led teams of nurses into the crowded neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen and taught mothers how to dress, feed, and bathe their babies. After World War I many states and countries followed her example in order to lower infant mortality rates.[citation needed]

During the 20th century, the dramatic increase in average life span is widely credited to public health achievements, such as vaccination programs and control of infectious diseases, effective safety policies such as motor-vehicle and occupational safety, improved family planning, fluoridation of drinking water, anti-smoking measures, and programs designed to decrease chronic disease.

Meanwhile, the developing world remained plagued by largely preventable infectious diseases, exacerbated by malnutrition and poverty. Front-page headlines continue to present society with public health issues on a daily basis: emerging infectious diseases such as SARS, making its way from China (see Public health in China) to Canada and the United States; prescription drug benefits under public programs such as Medicare; the increase of HIV-AIDS among young heterosexual women and its spread in South Africa; the increase of childhood obesity and the concomitant increase in type II diabetes among children; the impact of adolescent pregnancy; and the ongoing social, economic and health disasters related to the 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. These are all ongoing public health challenges.

Since the 1980s, the growing field of population health has broadened the focus of public health from individual behaviors and risk factors to population-level issues such as inequality, poverty, and education. Modern public health is often concerned with addressing determinants of health across a population, rather than advocating for individual behaviour change. There is a recognition that our health is affected by many factors including where we live, genetics, our income, our educational status and our social relationships - these are known as "social determinants of health." A social gradient in health runs through society, with those that are poorest generally suffering the worst health. However even those in the middle classes will generally have worse health outcomes than those of a higher social stratum. The new public health seeks to address these health inequalities by advocating for population-based policies that improve health in an equitable manner.

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Public Health - 2

Modern public health

As the prevalence of infectious diseases in the developed world decreased through the 20th century, public health began to put more focus on chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease. An emphasis on physical exercise was reintroduced.

In America, public health worker Dr. Sara Josephine Baker lowered the infant mortality rate using preventative methods. She established many programs to help the poor in New York City keep their infants healthy. Dr. Baker led teams of nurses into the crowded neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen and taught mothers how to dress, feed, and bathe their babies. After World War I many states and countries followed her example in order to lower infant mortality rates.[citation needed]

During the 20th century, the dramatic increase in average life span is widely credited to public health achievements, such as vaccination programs and control of infectious diseases, effective safety policies such as motor-vehicle and occupational safety, improved family planning, fluoridation of drinking water, anti-smoking measures, and programs designed to decrease chronic disease.

Meanwhile, the developing world remained plagued by largely preventable infectious diseases, exacerbated by malnutrition and poverty. Front-page headlines continue to present society with public health issues on a daily basis: emerging infectious diseases such as SARS, making its way from China (see Public health in China) to Canada and the United States; prescription drug benefits under public programs such as Medicare; the increase of HIV-AIDS among young heterosexual women and its spread in South Africa; the increase of childhood obesity and the concomitant increase in type II diabetes among children; the impact of adolescent pregnancy; and the ongoing social, economic and health disasters related to the 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. These are all ongoing public health challenges.

Since the 1980s, the growing field of population health has broadened the focus of public health from individual behaviors and risk factors to population-level issues such as inequality, poverty, and education. Modern public health is often concerned with addressing determinants of health across a population, rather than advocating for individual behaviour change. There is a recognition that our health is affected by many factors including where we live, genetics, our income, our educational status and our social relationships - these are known as "social determinants of health." A social gradient in health runs through society, with those that are poorest generally suffering the worst health. However even those in the middle classes will generally have worse health outcomes than those of a higher social stratum. The new public health seeks to address these health inequalities by advocating for population-based policies that improve health in an equitable manner.

Schools of public health

The Welch-Rose Report of 1915 has been viewed as the basis for the critical movement in the history of the institutional schism between public health and medicine because it led to the establishment of schools of public health supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The report was authored by William Welch, founding dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Wycliffe Rose of the Rockfeller Foundation. The report focused more on research than practical education. Some have blamed the Rockfeller Foundation's 1916 decision to support the establishment of schools of public health for creating the schism between public health and medicine and legitimizing the rift between medicine's laboratory investigation of the mechanisms of disease and public health's nonclinical concern with environmental and social influences on health and wellness.

A year following the report, the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health was founded in 1916. By 1922, schools of public health were established in Columbia, Harvard and Yale universities. By 1999 there were twenty nine schools of public health enrolling around fifteen thousand students.

Over the years, the types of students and training provided have also changed. In the beginning, students who enrolled in public health schools had already obtained a medical degree. However, in 1978, 69% of students enrolled in public health schools had only a bachelors degree. Public health school training had evolved from a second degree for medical professionals to a primary public health degree with a focus on the six core disciplines of biostatistics, epidemiology, health services administration, health education, behavioral science and environmental science.

Education and training

Schools of public health offer a variety of degrees which generally fall into two categories: professional or academic.

Professional degrees are oriented towards practice in public health settings. The Master of Public Health (M.P.H.), Doctor of Public Health (Dr.PH.) and the Master of Health Care Administration (M.H.A.) are examples of degrees which are geared towards people who want careers as practitioners of public health in health departments, managed care and community-based organizations, hospitals and consulting firms among others. Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees broadly fall into two categories, those that put more emphasis on an understanding of epidemiology and statistics as the scientific basis of public health practice and those that include a more eclectic range of methodologies.

Academic degrees are more oriented towards those with interests in the scientific basis of public health and preventive medicine who wish to pursue careers in research, university teaching in graduate programs, policy analysis and development, and other high-level public health positions. Examples of academic degrees are the Master of Science (M.S.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Doctor of Science (Sc.D.). The doctoral programs are distinct from the M.P.H. and other professional programs by the addition of advanced coursework and the nature and scope of a dissertation research project.

The Association of Schools of Public Health[10] represents Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accredited schools of public health in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

Delta Omega is the honorary society for graduate studies in public health. The society was founded in 1924 at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Currently, there are approximately 50 chapters throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.

Public health programs

This 1963 poster featured CDC’s national symbol of public health, the "Wellbee", encouraging the public to receive an oral polio vaccine.Today, most governments recognize the importance of public health programs in reducing the incidence of disease, disability, and the effects of aging, although public health generally receives significantly less government funding compared with medicine. In recent years, public health programs providing vaccinations have made incredible strides in promoting health, including the eradication of smallpox, a disease that plagued humanity for thousands of years.

An important public health issue facing the world currently is HIV/AIDS. Antibiotic resistance is another major concern, leading to the reemergence of diseases such as Tuberculosis.

Another major public health concern is diabetes. In 2006, according to the World Health Organization, at least 171 million people worldwide suffered from diabetes. Its incidence is increasing rapidly, and it is estimated that by the year 2030, this number will double.

A controversial aspect of public health is the control of smoking. Many nations have implemented major initiatives to cut smoking, such as increased taxation and bans on smoking in some or all public places. Proponents argue by presenting evidence that smoking is one of the major killers in all developed countries, and that therefore governments have a duty to reduce the death rate, both through limiting passive (second-hand) smoking and by providing fewer opportunities for smokers to smoke. Opponents say that this undermines individual freedom and personal responsibility (often using the phrase nanny state in the UK), and worry that the state may be emboldened to remove more and more choice in the name of better population health overall. However, proponents counter that inflicting disease on other people via passive smoking is not a human right, and in fact smokers are still free to smoke in their own homes.

There is also a link between public health and veterinary public health which deals with zoonotic diseases, diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans.

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Public Health

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals." (1920, C.E.A. Winslow) It is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis. The population in question can be as small as a handful of people or as large as all the inhabitants of several continents (for instance, in the case of a pandemic). Public health is typically divided into epidemiology, biostatistics and health services. Environmental, social, behavioral, and occupational health are also important subfields.

There are 2 distinct characteristics of public health:

1. It deals with preventive rather than curative aspects of health

2. It deals with population-level, rather than individual-level health issues

The focus of public health intervention is to prevent rather than treat a disease through surveillance of cases and the promotion of healthy behaviors. In addition to these activities, in many cases treating a disease may be vital to preventing it in others, such as during an outbreak of an infectious disease. Hand washing, vaccination programs and distribution of condoms are examples of public health measures.

The goal of public health is to improve lives through the prevention and treatment of disease. The United Nations' World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

The focus of a public health intervention is to prevent rather than treat a disease through surveillance of cases and the promotion of healthy behaviors. In addition to these activities, in many cases treating a disease can be vital to preventing its spread to others, such as during an outbreak of infectious disease or contamination of food or water supplies. Vaccination programs and distribution of condoms are examples of public health measures.

Most countries have their own government public health agencies, sometimes known as ministries of health, to respond to domestic health issues. In the United States, the front line of public health initiatives are state and local health departments. The United States Public Health Service (PHS), led by the Surgeon General of the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, headquartered in Atlanta, are involved with several international health activities, in addition to their national duties.

There is a vast discrepancy in access to health care and public health initiatives between developed nations and developing nations. In the developing world, public health infrastructures are still forming. There may not be enough trained health workers or monetary resources to provide even a basic level of medical care and disease prevention. As a result, a large majority of disease and mortality in the developing world results from and contributes to extreme poverty. For example, many African governments spend less than USD$10 per person per year on health care, while, in the United States, the federal government spent approximately USD$4,500 per capita in 2000.

Many diseases are preventable through simple, non-medical methods. For example, research has shown that the simple act of hand washing can prevent many contagious diseases.

Public health plays an important role in disease prevention efforts in both the developing world and in developed countries, through local health systems and through international non-governmental organizations.

The two major postgraduate professional degrees related to this field are the Master of Public Health (MPH) or the (much rarer) Doctor of Public Health (DrPH). Many public health researchers hold PhDs in their fields of speciality, while some public health programs confer the equivalent Doctor of Science degree instead.

History of public health

In some ways, public health is a modern concept, although it has roots in antiquity. From the beginnings of human civilization, it was recognized that polluted water and lack of proper waste disposal spread communicable diseases (theory of miasma). Early religions attempted to regulate behavior that specifically related to health, from types of food eaten, to regulating certain indulgent behaviors, such as drinking alcohol or sexual relations. The establishment of governments placed responsibility on leaders to develop public health policies and programs in order to gain some understanding of the causes of disease and thus ensure social stability prosperity, and maintain order.

Early public health interventions

By Roman times, it was well understood that proper diversion of human waste was a necessary tenet of public health in urban areas. The Chinese developed the practice of variolation following a smallpox epidemic around 1000 BC. An individual without the disease could gain some measure of immunity against it by inhaling the dried crusts that formed around lesions of infected individuals. Also, children were protected by inoculating a scratch on their forearms with the pus from a lesion. This practice was not documented in the West until the early-1700s, and was used on a very limited basis. The practice of vaccination did not become prevalent until the 1820s, following the work of Edward Jenner to treat smallpox.

During the 14th century Black Death in Europe, it was believed that removing bodies of the dead would further prevent the spread of the bacterial infection. This did little to stem the plague, however, which was most likely spread by rodent-borne fleas. Burning parts of cities resulted in much greater benefit, since it destroyed the rodent infestations. The development of quarantine in the medieval period helped mitigate the effects of other infectious diseases. However, according to Michel Foucault, the plague model of governmentality was later controverted by the cholera model. A Cholera pandemic devastated Europe between 1829 and 1851, and was first fought by the use of what Foucault called "social medicine", which focused on flux, circulation of air, location of cemeteries, etc. All those concerns, born of the miasma theory of disease, were mixed with urbanistic concerns for the management of populations, which Foucault designated as the concept of "biopower". The German conceptualized this in the Polizeiwissenschaft ("Science of police").

The science of epidemiology was founded by John Snow's identification of a polluted public water well as the source of an 1854 cholera outbreak in London. Dr. Snow believed in the germ theory of disease as opposed to the prevailing miasma theory. Although miasma theory correctly teaches that disease is a result of poor sanitation, it was based upon the prevailing theory of spontaneous generation. Germ theory developed slowly: despite Anton van Leeuwenhoek's observations of Microorganisms, (which are now known to cause many of the most common infectious diseases) in the year 1680, the modern era of public health did not begin until the 1880s, with Louis Pasteur's germ theory and production of artificial vaccines.

Public health nursing made available through child welfare services in U.S.Other public health interventions include latrinization, the building of sewers, the regular collection of garbage followed by incineration or disposal in a landfill, providing clean water and draining standing water to prevent the breeding of mosquitos. This contribution was made by Edwin Chadwick in 1843 who published a report on the sanitation of the working class population in Great Britain at the time. So began the inception of the modern public health. The industrial revolution had initially caused the spread of disease through large conurbations around workhouses and factories. These settlements were cramped and primitive and there was no organised sanitation. Disease was innevitable and its incubation in these areas was encouraged by the poor lifestyle of the inhabitants.

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Education Essay

Education essay covers the issues related to education. Education is a means of imparting knowledge and wisdom. It is a very vast field and there are numerous topics that can be considered while writing essay. Education is the greatest asset that cannot be lost or spoiled; and returns its value throughout one’s life. It is the best gift we can present to anyone. It brings out the hidden talents of an individual and shapes one’s personality. Our professional writers can develop customized student essay on every topic related to education field. Various exams have their entrance essay planned around the topic of education.

Education essay can be written on any topic like adult education, value of education, primary, secondary or higher education, alternative education, teaching, learning modalities, online education, vocational education and many more. Some points must be remembered while writing the essay:

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Education essay is a common assignment in various essay competitions. A student essay can concentrate on any of the various topics pertaining to the field of education. One of them is adult education. Adult education means teaching and enlightening adults. People who are not able to continue their education due to work, or had to sacrifice it because some other issue in their childhood, can opt for adult education. These are basically night schools so that people can come after their working hours. Another option is distance learning or correspondence courses. The purpose of these programs is to enhance the knowledge, potential, skills and awareness. These programs can help to raise their level of education and self-support. Continuing education gives adults more career opportunities, individual growth and social competency. Another topic can be learning disabilities in children. Children with learning disabilities face difficulties with academic success and growth. Your essay can cover points like:

• What are learning disabilities in children?

• Causes of the same.

• How prevalent are learning disabilities?

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• What is the role of parents in such cases?

• What steps can be taken for preparing children with disabilities for school?

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Harper Lee’s only novel to date is To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960 but set in the 1930s in America’s deep-south. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and was quickly made into a successful film starring Gregory Peck. The popularity that the novel immediately attracted endures to modern times.

The semi-autobiographical story concerns the trial of an innocent black man, Tom Robinson for the rape of a white woman, Mayella Ewell and around this central drama the novelist has woven a tale which reveals the appalling nature of prejudice in many forms, not just that of colour, as her ‘mocking birds’ which must not be harmed because they do none, suffer from the cruelty and ignorance of those around them.

The story is told through the eyes of the child narrator, Scout, who lives, along with her brother, Jem, with their father, Atticus, the town lawyer and destined to represent the ill-fated Tom Robinson, and their cook/housekeeper and friend, Calpurnia. In his attitude to Calpurnia, as to much in his life, Atticus challenges the contemporary view because though Calpurnia is black, she is treated as a member of the family, much to the annoyance of his sister, Alexandra. Atticus is in fact the means by which Lee examines much that is wrong with Maycomb society, from his lack of prejudice, to his defence of Mrs. Dubose and Boo Radley and his skilful means of challenging the education system which denies Scout the freedom to read by simply ignoring it. The motto by which he lives is that, ‘you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it’ and this he passes on to his children. However, Lee is keen to avoid making Atticus appear patently and self-consciously heroic, as in the mad-dog incident and, indeed, his defence of Tom Robinson, he only acts ‘heroically’ when he is compelled to do so.

Lee treats the reader to a succession of humorous, sympathetic and engaging characters as the story develops, none more so than the pivotal and mysterious Boo Radley and the quaintly eccentric Dill (the latter is thought to have been based on the author Truman Capote, with whom Lee grew up). Boo is in a sense both the greatest victim and the ultimate hero in the book and in many ways Dill is the ‘comic-relief’ as well as being the representative of what we would now call a dysfunctional family as much as is Boo.

By using the device of the child narrator, Lee invites both advantages and disadvantages. She gains the innocence and naivety of Scout together with her ingenuous curiosity and her ability to diffuse tense situations by her inherent innocence but she also has the commensurate disadvantage of having to get round the problems that necessarily attach to a child being the principal means by which a trial for rape is discussed. Lee solves this in the main by having Scout overhear conversations which she does not fully understand but which the reader, of course, does. This dual narrative relationship with the reader is one of the reasons why Lee’s narrative technique has been so highly praised.

However, the main reason why the novel has achieved such a seminal place in the development of the American novel is that it was published at a time when racial tension was at its height in America and being challenged as never before by the Civil Rights Movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. Thus, by showing the injustices which black Americans continued to suffer via a narrative set nearly thirty years before, Lee addresses a contemporary problem by means of the historical resonance with which the book is permeated. Emblematic of this is the trial of Tom Robinson which had a contemporary connective in a similar trial in the 1930s. Tom, one of Lee’s principal ‘mocking birds’, is manifestly innocent and proven to be physically incapable of having committed the crime by Atticus: ‘Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand’, he declares and the reader shares his lack of comprehension, making prejudice manifestly against reason. The fact that this does not and cannot save Tom in an atmosphere which seethes with racial hatred adds to the imperative of the narrative;

In the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.

However, Lee is even-handed in her depiction of racial tension, since when Calpurnia takes Scout and Jem to the church where the black residents of Maycomb worship, they are not universally welcomed and certainly Tom is not the only victim of prejudice in the story. Boo Radley, imprisoned by his well-meaning but misguided father after a teenage misdemeanour, has become the subject of much gossip and conjecture. Indeed, the children, Scout, Jem and Dill, make him the subject of their daily dramatics, supplanting the ‘Dracula’ stories with which they have become bored. Atticus stops this as soon as it starts and the irony is that a friendship blossoms secretly between Boo and the children, of which the culmination is Boo’s saving the lives of Scout and Jem when they are attacked by the vicious Bob Ewell. Scout reiterates the idea, slightly altered, that Atticus uttered early in the novel, that ‘you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them’ and by now the reader fully understands the meaning of those words, just as the child does.

In conclusion, perhaps it is true to say that the enduring achievement of Harper Lee’s novel is to portray racial hatred and a multiplicity of tensions motivated by misapprehension and prejudice via the microcosm of small-town America which is Maycomb. Indeed, perhaps readers continue to respond to To Kill a Mockingbord precisely because of the prejudices which sadly remain.