Mary Ellen Johnson

To Hindus, the cow is a sacred animal, so they do not eat beef or touch any part of a slaughtered cow. This is an important consideration with regard to the tannery in the novel because it explains...

Romeo and Juliet is fashioned after another, older, and parallel Greek story Pyramus and Thisbee. (I'll let you look up this story for the similarities.) Unrequited love is a common theme in...

Frankenstein is a wonderful story of man's attempt at playing creator. In the beginning of the novel Mary Shelley references several books Victor is reading. Look them up. You'll find they deal in...

I have taught this book to gifted 6-8 graders in the midst of a Holocaust unit which also included The Devil's Arithmetic, The Diary of Anne Frank, Daniel's Story, and a few others.  We did...

The contents of Caesar's will is Antony's key in "turning" the people against the conspirators. (I'll give you the contents in a minute.) The conspirators disliked and envied Caesar, for a...

Was Poe Crazy? So many of Poe's characters seem to have a separation from reality.  Is this just a narrator's persona, or did Poe himself have serious mental issues?  I am thinking of...

This is one of my favorite stories! Here are some helpful hints on finding the climax of ANY story. Author's usually write their plots in a typical format. Here it is:  1. The exposition (the...

Your teacher is asking you to look at the similarities between real fireman and the fireman in Faranheit 451. Sometimes, however, teachers are also looking for some differences. Look at the...

Your term, "change", has some interesting inferences. If you mean change, as in which jurors changed their final vote--three jurors changed their minds. The final vote was 9 to 3 for acquittal. You...