Addiction and Homelessness - Essay Example

Homeless People and Homelessness (Houseless & Houselessness), is a useful website that provides sufficient material to understand what homelessness is. This website has arranged different topics related to homelessness and has published the details of homeless people, pictures, statistics, News, Homeless children, and so on. (Homeless).
Divorce:
Divorce appears as a quite common theme in contemporary realistic fiction and the website ‘JWI Jewish Women International’ (What is Divorce), is useful for those who seek the details of the divorce. One can use the additional links provided on this web page for an understanding of divorce and related topics.
Coming-of-age:

The online article, ‘Coming of age in the years of living dangerously’ by Brill Briggs clearly expresses the issue, ‘coming-of-age.’ It is available at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31670059/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/ (Briggs).
Death and disease:
‘The problem of death and disease’ is the website that deals with the topics of death and disease. It also discusses the reasons for deaths caused by the abuse of tobacco and other drugs. (The Problem Death and Disease).

Critical evaluation of the realistic fiction, ‘Monster’ by Walter Dean Myers:
‘Monster’ by Myers is a widely discussed novel that fulfills most of the characteristics of realistic fiction. One of the main features of the novel concerns the presentation of its content in such an honest way that the readers feel nothing exaggerated with the characters or the setting. “The mood is very dark and filled with despair as we see Steve learning to cope with what may be the outcome of this trial.” (Myers). The protagonist of the novel Steve is a true representative of youngsters who had spent their life in jail either as an aftereffect of their crime or become prey to the existing social customs. The novel exposes social as well as personal values through Steve and his identity remains as a question to society. The novel allows the readers to reach personal conclusions. “Guilty or innocent, Steve becomes a pawn in the hands of "the system,” cluttered with cynical authority figures and unscrupulous inmates.” (Myers).


The novel truly reflects realistic attributes when it portrays the story of a young ‘monster’ by taking an episode from Steve’s life. It reminds the readers of the necessity of caring for the juveniles who are expelled from family and society. The violence in the novel is justifiable when appreciating it from Steve’s side but disputable from the moral point of view. Finally, through the portrayal of the youngster in the novel, the story provides enjoyment to both children and elders. This prompted The New York Times in writing about the novella as: "Chilling and engrossing." (Myers).
With the recent problems of sports heroes being arrested for violence, drugs, and other crimes, should the teacher be sensitive to the issue and remove all references to those particular individuals from the classroom library? Why or why not?:

It has been generally viewed that the main role of teachers is to motivate their students in their studies. World Youth Report, 2003 states that “The intensity and severity of juvenile offenses are generally determined by the social, economic and cultural conditions prevailing in a country.” (Chapter 7: Juvenile Delinquency, 6). Narrating the achievements of various sports heroes is one of the best ways a teacher can adopt in implementing this process. If a teacher refers to a sports hero’s criminal background or the abuse of drugs to his/her students, they may tend to imitate the sports heroes as role models. It may induce them in testing such behaviors which further leads to crimes or to juvenile delinquency. World Youth Report, 2003 analyses suggest that “When young people are exposed to the influence of adult offenders they have the opportunity to study delinquent behaviour, and the possibility of their engaging in adult crime becomes more real.” (Chapter 7: Juvenile Delinquency, 8). It is clear from the previous comment that adult offenders have a significant influence on children in making them criminals. Read More