Second Reading report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Second Reading report - Essay Example She held strong beliefs on the need for social service as a calling from the Deity. At this point, I concur with her assertion that every human being is tasked with social responsibility and she puts it in a way that can be explained as God’s delegation to humanity. In addition, interprets the words of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, or Amos as pleas for humanity to enhance justice by denouncing arrogance and iniquity. It is convincing to conclude that Coles achieves his agenda through the call of service to eliminate the rife selfishness by denouncing the culture of narcissism (185). Similar to Coles’ call of service, Mother Teresa utilizes the â€Å"Words to Love† to urge humanity to accept divine intervention to represent Jesus on earth. Her words are convincing and sufficient to grant concurrence. She makes sense by asking humanity to spread the prayer of love. In a broad context, it is through love that individuals can embrace community service. In addition, it is only through having love for neighbors that we can be a representation of Jesus. I concur to the fact that by offering community service and care for others, the love would be as profound as shining Jesus’ light on others through us. John F. Kennedy in the â€Å"Special Message to Congress on the Peace Corps March 1, 1961† deviates from the divine calling aspect of social service to the call of duty aspect. He adopts a global perspective of community service by establishing the Peace Corps. The agency is tasked with providing skilled labor in foreign countries. I hold similar opinions to those represented in the article and concur strongly with J.F. Kennedy’s assertion that the future of freedom lies in the ability for men to live in dignity whereby hunger, poverty, and ignorance become a thing of the past (678). He asserts that economic development entails skilled labor towards the societal demands. The societal demands entail offering to teach in the

Mobile Phones Essay Example for Free

Mobile Phones Essay A mobile operating system, also referred to as mobile OS, is the operating system that operates a smartphone, tablet, PDA, or other digital mobile devices. Modern mobile operating systems combine the features of a personal computer operating system with touchscreen, cellular, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS mobile navigation, camera, video camera,speech recognition, voice recorder, music player, Near field communication, personal digital assistant (PDA), and other features. History Main article: Smartphone Mobile operating system milestones mirror the development of mobile phones and smartphones: ââ€" ª 1979–1992 Mobile phones have embedded systems to control operation. ââ€" ª 1993 The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, had a touchscreen, email, and PDA features. ââ€" ª 1996 Palm Pilot 1000 personal digital assistant is introduced with the Palm OS mobile operating system. ââ€" ª 1996 First Windows CE Handheld PC devices are introduced. ââ€" ª 1999 Nokia S40 OS was officially introduced with the launch of the Nokia 7110 ââ€" ª 2000 Symbian became the first modern mobile OS on a smartphone with the launch of the Ericsson R380. ââ€" ª 2001 The Kyocera 6035 is the first smartphone with Palm OS. ââ€" ª 2002 Microsofts first Windows CE (Pocket PC) smartphones are introduced. ââ€" ª 2002 BlackBerry releases its first smartphone. ââ€" ª 2005 Nokia introduced Maemo OS on the first internet tablet N770. ââ€" ª 2007 Apple iPhone with iOS introduced as an iPhone, mobile phone and internet communicator.[1] ââ€" ª 2007 Open Handset Alliance (OHA) formed by Google, HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc.[2] ââ€" ª 2008 OHA releases Android 1.0 with the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) as the first Android phone. ââ€" ª 2009 Palm introduced webOS with the Palm Pre. By 2012 webOS devices were no longer sold. ââ€" ª 2009 Samsung announces the Bada OS with the introduction of the Samsung S8500. ââ€" ª 2010 Windows Phone OS phones are released but are not compatible with the previous Windows Mobile OS. ââ€" ª 2011 The MeeGo the first mobile Linux, combined Maemo and Moblin, was introduced with Nokia N9 in effect of cooperation of Nokia, Intel and Linux Foundation ââ€" ª In September 2011 Samsung, Intel and the Linux Foundation announced that their efforts will shift from Bada, MeeGo to Tizen during 2011 and 2012. ââ€" ª In October 2011 the Mer project was announced, centered around an ultra-portable Linux + HTML5/QML/JS Core for building products with, derived from the MeeGo codebase. ââ€" ª 2012 The Lenovo K800 will be the first Intel powered smartphone (Android OS).[3] ââ€" ª Common software platforms ââ€" ª See also: Comparison of Android devices, List of BlackBerry products, List of iOS devices, Comparison of Symbian devices, and List of Windows Phone devices ââ€" ª The most common mobile operating systems are: ââ€" ª Android from Google Inc.[4] (free and open source)[5] ââ€" ª The Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0.1 ââ€" ª Android was developed by a small startup company that was purchased by Google Inc. in 2005, and Google continues to update the software. Android is a Linux-derived OS backed by Google, along with major hardware and software developers (such as Intel, HTC, ARM, Samsung, Motorola and eBay, to name a few), that form the Open Handset Alliance.[6] Released on November 5th 2007, the OS received praise from a number of developers upon its introduction.[7] Android releases prior to 2.0 (1.0, 1.5, 1.6) were used exclusively on mobile phones. Most Android phones, and some Android tablets, now use a 2.x release. Android 3.0 was a tablet-oriented release and does not officially run on mobile phones. The current Android version is 4.1. Android releases are nicknamed after sweets or dessert items like Cupcake (1.5), Frozen Yogurt (2.2), Honeycomb (3.0), Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) and Jelly Bean (4.1). Most major mobile service providers carry an Android device. Since the HTC Dream was introduced, there has been an explosion in the number of devices that carry Android OS. From Q2 of 2009 to the second quarter of 2010, Androids worldwide market share rose 850% from 1.8% to 17.2%. On 15 November 2011, Android reached 52.5% of the global smartphone market share.[8] ââ€" ª The Apple iPad tablet computer uses a version of iOS. ââ€" ª bada from Samsung Electronics (closed source, proprietary) ââ€" ª This is a mobile operating system being developed by Samsung Electronics. Samsung claims that bada will rapidly replace its proprietary feature phone platform, converting feature phones to smartphones.The name bada is derived from ë °â€Ã«â€¹ ¤, the Korean word for ocean or sea. The first device to run bada is called Wave and was unveiled to the public at Mobile World Congress 2010. The Wave is a fully touchscreen running the new mobile operating system. With the phone, Samsung also released an app store, called Samsung Apps, to the public. It has close to 3000[9] mobile applications. ââ€" ª Samsung has said that they dont see Bada as a smartphone operating system, but as an OS with a kernel configurable architecture, which allows the use of either a proprietary real-time operating system, or the Linux kernel. Though Samsung plans to install bada on many phones, the company still has a large lineup of Android phones. ââ€" ª BlackBerry OS from RIM (closed source, proprietary) ââ€" ª This OS is focused on easy operation and was originally designed for business. Recently it has seen a surge in third-party applications and has been improved to offer full multimedia support. Currently Blackberrys App World has over 50,000 downloadable applications. RIMs future strategy will focus on the newly acquired QNX, having already launched the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet running a version of QNX and expecting the first QNX smartphones in early 2012.[10] ââ€" ª iOS from Apple Inc.[4] (closed source, proprietary, on top of open source Darwin core OS) ââ€" ª The Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and second-generation Apple TV all use an operating system called iOS, which is derived fromMac OS X. Native third party applications were not officially supported until the release of iOS 2.0 on July 11th 2008. Before this, jailbreaking allowed third party applications to be installed, and this method is still available. Currently all iOS devices are developed by Apple and manufactured by Foxconn or another of Apples partners. ââ€" ª S40 (Series40) from Nokia (closed source, proprietary) ââ€" ª Nokia uses S40 OS in their low end phones (aka feature phones). Over the years over 150 phone models have been developed running S40 OS.[11] Since the introduction of S40 OS it has evolved from monochrome low resolution UI to full touch 256k color UI. ââ€" ª Symbian OS from Nokia and Accenture[4] (open public license) ââ€" ª Symbian has the largest smartphone share in most markets worldwide, but lags behind other companies in the relatively small but highly visible North American market.[12] This matches the success of Nokia in all markets except Japan. In Japan Symbian is strong due to a relationship with NTT DoCoMo, with only one of the 44 Symbian handsets released in Japan coming from Nokia.[13] It has been used by many major handset manufacturers, including BenQ, Fujitsu, LG, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, andSony Ericsson. Current Symbian-based devices are being made by Fujitsu, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson. Prior to 2009 Symbian supported multiple user interfaces, i.e. UIQ from UIQ Technologies, S60 from Nokia, and MOAP from NTT DOCOMO. As part of the formation of the Symbian OS in 2009 these three UIs were merged into a single OS which is now fully open source. Recently, though shipments of Symbian devices have increased, the operating systems worldwide market share has declined from over 50% to just over 40% from 2009 to 2010. Nokia handed the development of Symbian to Accenture, which will continue to support the OS until 2016.[14] ââ€" ª The Palm Pre running HP (formerly Palm)webOS. HP purchased Palm in 2010. ââ€" ª Windows Phone from Microsoft (closed source, proprietary) ââ€" ª On February 15th, 2010, Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile OS, Windows Phone. The new mobile OS includes a completely new over-hauled UI inspired by Microsofts Metro Design Language. It includes full integration of Microsoft services such as Windows Live, Zune, Xbox Live and Bing, but also integrates with many other non-Microsoft services such as Facebook andGoogle accounts. The new software platform has received some positive reception from the technology press.

The role of Women in Julius Ceasar Essay -- Essays Papers

The role of Women in Julius Ceasar In the play â€Å"Julius Caesar† by William Shakespeare, women play an important role. The women are important factors in foreshadowing and in the development of many of the characters. To look at the role of women in the play we must look deeper in to the roles of the only two women in the play; Calpurnia, wife of Caesar, and Portia, wife of Brutus. Both of these women are key in foreshadowing the murder of Caesar. After Caesar’s murder we do not hear much of either of them. The main thing Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia does in the play is tell Caesar to stay at home on the day of his murder because of many unnatural events that have taken place the night before and because she has had nightmares about his assassination. On the morning of the ides of march is the first time we meet Calpurnia, her entrance is act 2 scene one when she tells Caesar â€Å"You shall not stir out of your house today.† Caesar decides he shall â€Å"forth† until Calpurnia tells him why he shouldn’t go to the capitol today. Some of the reasons she included were:  · A lioness â€Å"whelped† in the streets.  · Graves opened and showed their dead people.  · Warriors of fire fought on the clouds and drizzled blood upon the capitol.  · Horses neighed and dead men groaned.  · Ghosts shrieked in the streets. She than showed her discomfort with these things by saying †O Caesar, these things are beyond all use, / and I do fear them.† Caesar says these are just as... The role of Women in Julius Ceasar Essay -- Essays Papers The role of Women in Julius Ceasar In the play â€Å"Julius Caesar† by William Shakespeare, women play an important role. The women are important factors in foreshadowing and in the development of many of the characters. To look at the role of women in the play we must look deeper in to the roles of the only two women in the play; Calpurnia, wife of Caesar, and Portia, wife of Brutus. Both of these women are key in foreshadowing the murder of Caesar. After Caesar’s murder we do not hear much of either of them. The main thing Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia does in the play is tell Caesar to stay at home on the day of his murder because of many unnatural events that have taken place the night before and because she has had nightmares about his assassination. On the morning of the ides of march is the first time we meet Calpurnia, her entrance is act 2 scene one when she tells Caesar â€Å"You shall not stir out of your house today.† Caesar decides he shall â€Å"forth† until Calpurnia tells him why he shouldn’t go to the capitol today. Some of the reasons she included were:  · A lioness â€Å"whelped† in the streets.  · Graves opened and showed their dead people.  · Warriors of fire fought on the clouds and drizzled blood upon the capitol.  · Horses neighed and dead men groaned.  · Ghosts shrieked in the streets. She than showed her discomfort with these things by saying †O Caesar, these things are beyond all use, / and I do fear them.† Caesar says these are just as...

Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Ki lay fast asleep just as I had left her, on her side with the filthy little stuffed dog clutched under her jaw. It had put a smudge on her neck but I hadn't the heart to take it away from her. Beyond her and to the left, through the open bathroom door, I could hear the steady plink-plonk-plink of water falling from the faucet and into the tub. Cool air blew around me in a silky twist, caressing my cheeks, sending a not unpleasurable shiver up my back. In the living room Bunter's bell gave a dim little shake. Water's still warm, sugar, Sara whispered. Be her friend, be her daddy. Go on, now. Do what I want. Do what we both want. And I did want to, which had to be why Jo at first tried to keep me away from the TR and from Sara Laughs. Why she'd made a secret of her possible pregnancy, as well. It was as if I had discovered a vampire inside me, a creature with no interest in what it thought of as talk-show conscience and op-ed page morality. A part that wanted only to take Ki into the bathroom and dunk her into that tub of warm water and hold her under, watching the red-edged white ribbons shimmer the way Carla Dean's white dress and red stockings had shimmered while the woods burned all around her and her father. A part of me would be more than glad to pay the last installment on that old bill. ‘Dear God,' I muttered, and wiped my face with a shaking hand. ‘She knows so many tricks. And she's so fucking strong.' The bathroom door tried to swing shut against me before I could go through, but I pushed it open against hardly any resistance. The medicine-cabinet door banged back, and the glass shattered against the wall. The stuff inside flew out at me, but it wasn't a very dangerous attack; this time most of the missiles consisted of toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, plastic bottles, and a few old Vick's inhalers. Faint, very faint, I could hear her shouting in frustration as I yanked the plug at the bottom of the tub and let the water start gurgling out. There had been enough drowning on the TR for one century, by God. And yet, for a moment I felt an incredibly strong urge to put the plug back in while the water was still deep enough to do the job. Instead I tore it off its chain and threw it down the hall. The medicine-cabinet door clapped shut again and the rest of the glass fell out. ‘How many have you had?' I asked her. ‘How many besides Carla Dean and Kerry Auster and our Kia? Two? Three? Five? How many do you need before you can rest?' All of them! the answer shot back. It wasn't just Sara's voice, either; it was my own, as well. She'd gotten into me, had snuck in by way of the basement like a burglar . . . and already I was thinking that even if the tub was empty and the water-pump temporarily dead, there was always the lake. All of them! the voice cried again. All of them, sugar! Of course only all of them would do. Until then there would be no rest for Sara Laughs. ‘I'll help you to rest,' I said. ‘That I promise.' The last of the water swirled away . . . but there was always the lake, always the lake if I changed my mind. I left the bathroom and looked in on Ki again. She hadn't moved, the sensation that Sara was in here with me had gone, Bunter's bell was quiet . . . and yet I felt uneasy, unwilling to leave her alone. I had to, though, if I was to finish my work, and I would do well not to linger. County and State cops would be along eventually, storm or no storm, downed trees or no downed trees. Yes, but . . . I stepped into the hall and looked uneasily around. Thunder boomed, but it was losing some of its urgency. So was the wind. What wasn't fading was the sense of something watching me, something that was not-Sara. I stood where I was a moment or two longer, trying to tell myself it was just the sizzle of my overcooked nerves, then walked down the hall to the entry. I opened the door to the stoop . . . then looked around again sharply, as if expecting to see someone or something lurking behind the far end of the bookcase. A Shape, perhaps. Something that still wanted its dust-catcher. But I was the only Shape left, at least in this part of the world, and the only movement I saw was ripple-shadows thrown by the rain rolling down the windows. It was still coming down hard enough to redrench me as I crossed my stoop to the driveway, but I paid no attention. I had just been with a little girl when she drowned, had damned near drowned myself not so long ago, and the rain wasn't going to stop me from doing what I had to do. I picked up the fallen branch which had dented the roof of my car, tossed it aside, and opened the Chevy's rear door. The things I'd bought at Slips ‘n Greens were still sitting on the back seat, still tucked into the cloth carry-handle bag Lila Proulx had given me. The trowel and the pruning knife were visible, but the third item was in a plastic sack. Want this one in a special bag? Lila had asked me. Always sa]b, never sorry. And later, as I was leaving, she had spoken of Kenny's dog Blueberry chasing seagulls and had given out with a big, hearty laugh. Her eyes hadn't laughed, though. Maybe that's how you tell the Martians from the Earthlings the Martians can never laugh with their eyes. I saw Rommie and George's present lying on the front seat: the Stenomask I'd at first mistaken for Devore's oxygen mask. The boys in the basement spoke up then murmured, at least and I leaned over the seat to grab the mask by its elastic strap without the slightest idea of why I was doing so. I dropped it into the carry-bag, slammed the car door, then started down the railroad-tie steps to the lake. On the way I paused to duck under the deck, where we had always kept a few tools. There was no pick, but I grabbed a spade that looked up to a piece of gravedigging. Then, for what I thought would be the last time, I followed the course of my dream down to The Street. I didn't need Jo to show me the spot; the Green Lady had been pointing to it all along. Even had she not been, and even if Sara Tidwell did not still stink to the heavens, I think I would have known. I think I would have been led there by my own haunted heart. There was a man standing between me and the place where the gray forehead of rock guarded the path, and as I paused on the last railroad tie, he hailed me in a rasping voice that I knew all too well. ‘Say there, whoremaster, where's your whore?' He stood on The Street in the pouring rain, but his cutters' outfit green flannel pants, checked wool shirt and his faded blue Union Army cap were dry, because the rain was falling through him rather than on him. He looked solid but he was no more real than Sara herself. I reminded myself of this as I stepped down onto the path to face him, but my heart continued to speed up, thudding in my chest like a padded hammer. He was dressed in Jared Devore's clothes, but this wasn't Jared Devore. This was Jared's great-grandson Max, who had begun his career with an act of sled-theft and ended it in suicide . . . but not before arranging for the murder of his daughter-in-law, who'd had the temerity to refuse him what he had so dearly wanted. I started toward him and he moved to the center of the path to block me. I could feel the cold baking off him. I am saying exactly what I mean, expressing what I remember as clearly as I can: I could feel the cold baking off him. And yes, it was Max Devore all right, but got up like a logger at a costume party and looking the way he must have around the time his son Lance was born. Old but hale. The sort of man younger men might well look up to. And now, as if the thought had called them, I could see the rest shimmer into faint being behind him, standing in a line across the path. These were the ones who had been with Jared at the Fryeburg Fair, and now I knew who some of them were. Fred Dean, of course, only nineteen years old in '01, the drowning of his daughter still over thirty years away. And the one who had reminded me of myself was Harry Auster, the firstborn of my great-grandfather's sister. He would have been sixteen, barely old enough to raise a fuzz but old enough to work in the woods with Jared. Old enough to shit in the same pit as Jared. To mistake Jared's poison for wisdom. One of the others twisted his head and squinted at the same time I'd seen that tic before. Where? Then it came to me: in the Lake-view General. This young man was the late Royce Merrill's father. The others I didn't know. Nor did I care to. ‘You ain't a-passing by us,' Devore said. He held up both hands. ‘Don't even think about trying. Am I right, boys?' They murmured growling agreement the sort you could hear coming from any present-day gang of headbangers or taggers, I imagine but their voices were distant; actually more sad than menacing. There was some substance to the man in Jared Devore's clothes, perhaps because in life he had been a man of enormous vitality, perhaps because he was so recently dead, but the others were little more than projected images. I started forward, moving into that baking cold, moving into the smell of him the same invalid odors which had surrounded him when I'd met him here before. ‘Where do you think you're going?' he cried. ‘For a constitutional,' I said. ‘And no law against it. The Street's the place where good pups and vile dogs can walk side-by-side. You said so yourself.' ‘You don't understand,' Max-Jared said. ‘You never will. You're not of that world. That was our world.' I stopped, looking at him curiously. Time was short, I wanted to be done with this . . . but I had to know, and I thought Devore was ready to tell me. ‘Make me understand,' I said. ‘Convince me that any world was your world.' I looked at him, then at the flickering, translucent figures behind him, gauze flesh heaped on shining bones. ‘Tell me what you did.' ‘It was all different then,' Devore said. ‘When you come down here, Noonan, you might walk all three miles north to Halo Bay and see only a dozen people on The Street. After Labor Day you might not see any one at all. This side of the lake you have to walk through the bushes that are growing up wild and around the fallen trees there'll be even more of em after this storm and even a deadfall or two because nowadays the townfolk don't club together to keep it neat the way they used to. But in our time ! The woods were bigger then, Noonan, distances were farther to go, and neighboring meant something. Life itself, often enough. Back then this really was a street. Can you see?' I could. If I looked through the phantom shapes of Fred Dean and Harry Auster and the others, I could. They weren't just ghosts; they were shimmerglass windows on another age. I saw a summer afternoon in the year of . . . 1898? Perhaps 1902? 1907? Doesn't matter. This is a period when all time seems the same, as if time had stopped. This is a time the old-timers remember as a kind of golden age. It is the Land of Ago, the Kingdom of When-I-Was-a-Boy. The sun washes everything with the fine gold light of endless late July; the lake is as blue as a dream, netted with a billion sparks of reflected light. And The Street! It is as smoothly grassed as a lawn and as broad as a boulevard. It is a boulevard, I see, a place where the community fully realizes itself. It is the main conduit of communication, the chief cable in a township criss-crossed with them. I'd felt the existence of these cables all along even when Jo was alive I felt them under the surface, and here is their point of origin. Folks promenade on The Street, all up and down the east side of Dark Score Lake they promenade in little groups, laughing and conversing under a cloud-stacked summer sky, and t his is where the cables all begin. I look and realize how wrong I have been to think of them as Martians, as cruel and calculating aliens. East of their sunny promenade looms the darkness of the woods, glades and hollows where any miserable thing may await, from a hot lopped off in a logging accident to a birth gone wrong and a young mother dead before the doctor can arrive from Castle Rock in his buggy. These are people with no electricity, no phones, no County Rescue Unit, no one to rely upon but each other and a God some of them have already begun to mistrust. They live in the woods and the shadows of the woods, but on fine summer afternoons they come to the edge of the lake. They come to The Street and look in each other's faces and laugh together and then they are truly on the TR in what I have come to think of as the zone. They are not Martians,' they are little lives dwelling on the edge of the dark, that's all. I see summer people from Warrington's, the men dressed in white flannels, two women in long tennis dresses still carrying their rackets. A fellow riding a tricycle with an enormous front wheel weaves shakily among them. The party of summer fo1k has stopped to talk with a group of young men from town; the fellows from away want to know if they can play in the townies' baseball game at Warrington's on Tuesday night. Ben Merrill, Royce's father-to-be, says Ayuh, but we won't go easy on ya just cause you're from N'Yawk. The young men laugh; so do the tennis girls. A little farther on, two boys are playing catch with the sort of raw homemade baseball that is known as a horsey. Beyond them is a convention of young mothers, talking earnestly of their babies, all safely prammed and gathered in their own group. Men in overalls discuss weather and crops, politics and crops, taxes and crops. A teacher from the Consolidated High sits on the gray stone forehead I know so well, patiently tutoring a sullen boy who wants to be somewhere else and doing anything else. I think the boy will grow up to be Buddy Jellison's father. Horn broken watch for finger, I think. All along The Street folks are fishing, and they are catching plenty; the lake fairly teems with bass and trout and pickerel. An artist another summer fellow, judging from his smock and nancy beret has set up his easel and is painting the mountains while two ladies watch respectfully. A giggle of girls passes, whispering about boys and clothes and school. There is beauty here, and peace. Devore' s right to say this is a world I never knew. It's ‘Beautiful,' I said, pulling myself back with an effort. ‘Yes, I see that. But what's your point?' ‘My point?' Devore looked almost comically surprised. ‘She thought she could walk there like everyone else, that's the fucking point! She thought she could walk there like a white gal! Her and her big teeth and her big tits and her snotty looks. She thought she was something special, but we taught her different. She tried to walk me down and when she couldn't do that she put her filthy hands on me and tumped me over. But that was all right; we taught her her manners. Didn't we, boys?' They growled agreement, but I thought some of them young Harry Auster, for one looked sick. ‘We taught her her place,' Devore said. ‘We taught her she wasn't nothing but a nigger. This is the word he uses over and over again when they are in the woods that summer, the summer of1901, the summer that Sara and the Red-bps become the musical act to see in this part of the world. She and her brother and their whole nigger family have been invited to Warrington's to play for the summer people,' they have been rid on champagne and ersters . . . or so says Jared Devore to his little school of devoted followers as they eat their own plain lunches of bread and meat and salted cucumbers out of lard-buckets given to them by their mothers (none of the young men are married, although Oren Peebles is engaged). Yet it isn't her growing renown that upsets Jared Devore. It isn't the fact that she has been to Warrington's; it don't cross his eyes none that she and that brother of hers have actually sat down and eaten with white folks, taken bread join the same bowl as them with their blacknigger fingers. The folks at Warrington's are flatlanders, after all, and Devore tells the silent, attentive young men that he's heard that in places like New York and Chicago white women sometimes even fuck blackniggers. Naw! Harry Auster says, looking around nervously, as if he expected a few white women to come tripping through the woods way out here on Bowie Ridge. No white woman'd fuck a nigger! Shoot a pickle! Devore only gives him a look, the kind that says When you're my age. Besides, he doesn't care what goes on in New York and Chicago; he saw all the flatland he wanted to during the Civil War . . . and, he will tell you, he never fought that war to free the damned slaves. They can keep slaves down there in the land of cotton until the end of the eternity, as far as Jared Lancelot Devore is concerned. No, he fought in the war to teach those cracker sons of bitches south of Mason and Dixon that you don't pull out of the game just because you don't like some of the rules. He went down to scratch the scab off the end of old Johnny Reb's nose. Tried to leave the United States of America, they had! The Lord! No, he doesn't care about slaves and he doesn't care about the land of cotton and he doesn't care about blackniggers who sing dirty songs and then get treated to champagne and ersters (Jared always says oysters in just that sarcastic way) in payment for their smut. He doesn't care about anything so long as they keep in their place and let him keep in his. But she won't do it. The uppity bitch will not do it. She has been warned to stay off The Street, but she will not listen. She goes anyway, walking along in her white dress just as if there was a white person inside it, sometimes with her son, who has a blacknigger African name and no daddy his daddy probably just spent the one night with his mommy in a haystack somewhere down Alabama and now she walks around with the get of that just as bold as a brass monkey. She walks The Street as if she has a right to be there, even though not a soul will talk to her ‘But that's not true, is it?' I asked Devore. ‘That's what really stuck in old great-granddaddy's craw, wasn't it? They did talk to her. She had a way about her that laugh, maybe. Men talked to her about crops and the women showed off their babies. In fact they gave her their babies to hold and when she laughed down at them, they laughed back up at her. The girls asked her advice about boys. The boys . . . they just looked. But how they looked, huh? They filled up their eyes, and I expect most of them thought about her when they went out to the privy and filled up their palms.' Devore glowered. He was aging in front of me, the lines drawing themselves deeper and deeper into his face; he was becoming the man who had knocked me into the lake because he couldn't bear to be crossed. And as he grew older he began to fade. ‘That was what Jared hated most of all, wasn't it? That they didn't turn aside, didn't turn away. She walked on The Street and no one treated her like a nigger. They treated her like a neighbor.' I was in the zone, deeper in than I'd ever been, down where the town's unconscious seemed to run like a buried river. I could drink from that river while I was in the zone, could fill my mouth and throat and belly with its cold minerally taste. All that summer Devore had talked to them. They were more than his crew, they were his boys: Fred and Harry and Ben and Oren and George Armbruster and Draper Finney, who would break his neck and drown the next summer trying to dive into Eades Quarry while he was drunk. Only it was the sort of accident that's kind of on purpose. Draper Finney drank a lot between July of 1901 and August of 1902, because it was the only way he could sleep. The only way he could get the hand out of his mind, that hand sticking straight out of the water, clenching and unclenching until you wanted to scream Won't it stop, won't it ever stop doing that. All summer long Jared Devore filled their ears with nigger bitch and uppity bitch. All summer long he told them about their responsibility as men, their duty to keep the community pure, and how they must see what others didn't and do what others wouldn't. It was a Sunday afternoon in August, a time when traffic along The Street dropped steeply. Later on, by five or so, things would begin to pick up again, and from six to sunset the broad path along the lake would be thronged. But three in the afternoon was Low tide. The Methodists were back in session over in Harlow for their afternoon Song Service; at Warrington's the assembled company of vacationing flatlanders was sitting down to a heavy mid-afternoon Sabbath meal of roast chicken or ham; all over the township families were addressing their own Sunday dinners. Those who had already finished were snoozing through the heat of the day in a hammock, wherever possible. Sara liked this quiet time. Loved it, really. She had spent a great deal of her life on carny midways and in smoky gin-joints, shouting out her songs in order to be heard above the voices of redfaced, unruly drunks, and while part of her loved the excitement and unpredictability of that life, part of her loved the sereni ty of this one, too. The peace of these walks. She wasn't getting any younger, after all; she had a kid who had now left purt near all his babyhood behind him. On that particular Sunday she must have thought The Street almost too quiet. She walked a mile south from the meadow without seeing a soul even Kito was gone by then, having stopped off to pick berries. It was as if the whole township were deserted. She knows there's an Eastern Star supper in Kashwakamak, of course, has even contributed a mushroom pie to it because she has made friends of some of the Eastern Star ladies. They'll all be down there getting ready. What she doesn't know is that today is also Dedication Day for the new Grace Baptist Church, the first real church ever to be built on the TR. A slug of locals have gone, heathen as well as Baptist. Faintly, from the other side of the lake, she can hear the Methodists singing. The sound is sweet and faint and beautiful,' distance and echo has tuned every sour voice. She isn't aware of the men most of them very young men, the kind who under ordinary circumstances dare only look at her from the corners of their eyes until the oldest one among them speaks. ‘Wellnow, a black whore in a white dress and a red belt! Damn if that ain't just a little too much color for lakeside. What's wrong with you, whore? Can't you take a hint?' She turns toward him, afraid but not showing it. She has lived thirty-six years on this earth, has known what a man has and where he wants to put it since she was eleven, and she understands that when men are together like this and full of redeye (she can smell it), they give up thinking for themselves and turn into a pack of dogs. If you show fear they will fall on you like dogs and likely tear you apart like dogs. Also, they have been laying for her. There can be no other explanation for them turning up like this. ‘What hint is that, sugar?' she asks, standing her ground. Where is everyone? Where can they all be? God damn! Across the lake, the Methodists have moved on to ‘Trust and Obey,' a droner if there ever was one. ‘That you ain't got no business walking where the white folks walk,' Harry Auster says. His adolescent voice breaks into a kind of mouse-squeak on the last word and she laughs. She knows how unwise that is, but she can't help it she's never been able to help her laughter, any more than she's ever been able to help the way men like this look at her breasts and bottom. Blame it on God. ‘Why, I walk where I do,' she says. ‘I was told this was common ground, ain't nobody got a right to keep me out. Ain't nobody has. You seen em doin it?' ‘You see us now,' George Armbruster says, trying to sound tough. Sara looks at him with a species of kindly contempt that makes George shrivel up inside. His cheeks glow hot red. ‘Son,' she says, ‘you only come out now because the decent folks is all somewhere else. Why do you want to let this old fella tell you what to do? Act decent and let a lady walk.' I see it all. As Devore fades and fades, at last becoming nothing but eyes under a blue cap in the rainy afternoon (through him I can see the shattered remains of my swimming float washing against the embankment), I see it all. I see her as she starts forward, walking straight at Devore. If she stands here jawing with them, something bad is going to happen. She feels it, and she never questions her tidings. And if she walks at any of the others, ole massa'll bore in on her from the side, pulling the rest after. Ole massa in the little ole blue cap is the wheeldog, the one she must face down. She can do it, too. He's strong, strong enough to make these boys one creature, his creature, at least for the time being, but he doesn't have her force, her determination, her energy. In a way she welcomes this confrontation. Reg has warned her to be careful, not to move too fast or try to make real friends until the rednecks (only Reggie calls them ‘the bull gators') show themselves how many and how crazy but she goes her own course, trusts her own deep instincts. And here they are, only seven of em, and really just the one bull gator. I'm stronger than you, ole massa, she thinks, walking toward him. She fixes her eyes on his and will not let them drop,' his are the ones that drop, his the mouth that quivers uncertainly at one corner, his the tongue that comes out as quick as a lizard's tongue to wet the lips, and all that's good . . . but even better is when he falls back a step. When he does that the rest of them cluster in two groups of three, and there it is, her way through. Faint and sweet are the Methodists, faithy music carrying across the lake's still surface. A droner of a hymn, yes, but sweet across the miles. When we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way . . . I'm stronger than you, sugar, she sends, I'm meaner than you, you may be the bull gator but I'm the queen bee and if you don't want me stingin on you, you best clear me the rest of my path. ‘You bitch,' he says, but his voice is weak; he is already thinking this isn't the day, there's something about her he didn't quite see until he saw her right up close, some blacknigger hougan he didn't feel until now, better wait for another day, better Then he trips over a root or a rock (perhaps it's the very rock behind which she will finally come to rest) and falls down. His cap falls off, showing the big old bald spot on top of his head. His pants split all the way up the seam. And Sara makes a crucial mistake. Perhaps she underestimates Jared Devore's own very considerable personal force, or perhaps she just cannot help herself the sound of his britches ripping is like a loud fart. In any case she laughs that raucous, smoke-broken laugh which is her trademark. And her laugh becomes her doom. Devore doesn't think. He simply gives her the leather from where he lies, big feet in pegged loggers' boots shooting out like pistons. He hits her where she is thinnest and most vulnerable, in the ankles. She hollers in shocked pain as the left one breaks,' she goes down in a tumble, losing her furled parasol out of one hand. She draws in breath to scream again and Jared says from where he is lying, ‘Don't let her! Dassn't let her holler!' Ben Merrill falls on top of her full-length, all one hundred and ninety pounds of him. The breath she has drawn to scream with whooshes out in a gusty, almost silent sigh instead. Ben, who has never even danced with a woman, let alone lain on top of one like this, is instantly excited by the el of her struggling beneath him. He wriggles against her, laughing, and when she rakes her nails down his cheek he barely feels it. The way it seems to him, he's all cock and a yard long. When she tries to roll over and get out from under that way, he rolls with her, lets her be on top, and he is totally surprised when she drives her forehead down on his. He sees stars, but he is eighteen years old, as strong as he will ever be, and he loses neither consciousness nor his erection. Oren Peebles tears away the back of her dress, laughing. ‘Pig-pile!' he cries in a breathy little whisper, and drops on top of her. Now he is dry-humping her topside and Ben is dry-humping just as enthusiastically from underneath, dry-humping like a billygoat even with the blood pouring down the sides of his head from the split in the center of his brow, and she knows that if she can't scream she is lost. If she can scream and if Kito hears, he'll run and get help, run and get Reg But before she can try again, ole massa is squatting beside her and showing her a long-bladed knife. ‘Make a sound and I'll cut your nose off,' he says, and that's when she gives up. They have brought her down after all, partly because she laughed at the wrong time, mostly out of pure buggardly bad luck. Now they will not be stopped, and best that Kito should stay away please God keep him back where he was, it was a good patch of berries, one that should keep him occupied an hour or more. He loves berry-picking, and it won't take these men an hour. Harry Auster yanks her hair back, tears her dress off one shoulder, and begins to sucker on her neck. Ole massa the only one not at her. Old massa standing back, looking both ways along The Street, his eyes slitted and wary; old massa look like a mangy timber-wolf done eaten a whole generation of chickenhouse chickens while managing to avoid every trap and snare. ‘Hey Irish, quit on her a minute,' he tells Harry, then widens his wise gaze to the others. ‘Get her in the puckies, you damn fools. Get her in there deep.' They don't. They can't. They are too eager to have her. They arm-yank her behind the forehead of gray rock and call it good. She doesn't pray easily but she prays now. She prays for them to let her live. She prays for Kito to stay clear, to keep filling his bucket slow by eating every third handful. She prays that if he does take a notion to catch up with her, he will see what's happening and run the other way as fast as he can, run silent and get Reg. ‘Stick this in your mouth,' George Armbruster pants. ‘And don't you bite me, you bitch.' They take her top and bottom, back and front, two and three at a time. They take her where anybody coming along can't help but see them, and ole massa stands off a little, looking first at the panting young men grouped around her, kneeling with their trousers down and their thighs scratched from the bushes they are kneeling in, then he peers up and down the path with his wild and wary eyes. Incredibly, one of them it is Fred Dean says ‘Sorry, ma'am' after he's shot his load feels like halfway up to east bejeezus. It's as if he accidentally kicked her in the shin while crossing his legs. And it doesn't end. There's come down her throat, come running down the crack of her ass, the young one has bitten the blood right out of her left breast, and it doesn't end. They are young, and by the time the last one has finished, the first one, oh God, the first one is ready again. Across the river the Methodists are now singing ‘Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine' and as ole massa approaches her she thinks, It's almost over, woman, he the last, hold on hold steady and it be over. He looks at the skinny redhead and the one who keeps squinching his eye up and tossing his head and tells them to watch the path, he's going to take his turn now that she's broke in. He unbuckles his belt, he unbuttons his flies, he pushes down his underwear dirty black at the knees and dirty yellow at the crotch-and as he drops a knee on either side of her she sees that ole massa' s little massa is just as floppy as a snake with its neck broke and before she can stop it, that raucous laugh bursts all unexpected from her again even lying here covered with the hot jelly spend of her rapists, she can't help but see the funny side. ‘Shut up!' Devore growls at her, and smashes the heel of one hard hand across her face, breaking her cheekbone and her nose. ‘Shut up that howling!' ‘Reckon it might get stiffer if it was one of your boys layin here with his rosy red ass stuck up in the air, sugar?' she asks, and then, For the last time, Sara laughs. Devore draws his hand back to hit her again, his naked loins lying against her naked loins, his penis a flaccid worm between them. But before he can bring the hand down a child's voice cries, ‘Ma! What they doin to you, Ma? Git off my mama, you bastards!' She sits up in spite of Devore's weight, her laughter dying, her wide eyes searching Kito out and finding him, a slim young boy of eight standing on The Street, dressed in overalls and a straw hat and brand-new canvas shoes, carrying a tin bucket in one hand. His lips are blue with juice. His eyes are wide with confusion and fright. ‘Run, Kito!' she screams. ‘Run away h ‘ Red fire explodes in her head,' she swoons back into the bushes, hearing ole massa from a great distance: ‘Get him. Dassn't let him ramble, now.' Then she's going down a long dark slope, she's lost in a Ghost House corridor that leads only deeper and deeper into its own convoluted bowels,' from that deep falling place she hears him, she hears, her darling one, he is screaming. I heard him screaming as I knelt by the gray rock with my carry-bag beside me and no idea how I'd gotten to where I was I certainly had no memory of walking here. I was crying in shock and horror and pity. Was she crazy? Well, no wonder. No fucking wonder. The rain was steady but no longer apocalyptic. I stared at my fishy-white hands on the gray rock for a few seconds, then looked around. Devore and the others were gone. The ripe and gassy stench of decay filled my nose it was like a physical assault. I fumbled in the carry-bag, found the Stenomask Rommie and George had given me as a joke, and slipped it over my mouth and nose with fingers that felt numb and distant. I breathed shallowly and tentatively. Better. Not a lot, but enough to keep from fleeing, which was undoubtedly what she wanted. ‘No!' she cried from somewhere behind me as I grabbed the spade and dug in. I tore a great mouth in the ground with the first swipe, and each subsequent one deepened and widened it. The earth was soft and yielding, woven through with mats of thin roots which parted easily under the blade. ‘No! Don't you dare!' I wouldn't look around, wouldn't give her a chance to push me away. She was stronger down here, perhaps because it had happened here. Was that possible? I didn't know and didn't care. All I cared about was getting this done. Where the roots were thicker, I hacked through them with the pruning knife. ‘Leave me be!' Now I did look around, risked one quick glance because of the unnatural crackling sounds which had accompanied her voice which now seemed to make her voice. The Green Lady was gone. The birch had somehow become Sara Tidwell: it was Sara's face growing out of the criss-crossing branches and shiny leaves. That rain-slicked face swayed, dissolved, came together, melted away, came together again. For a moment all the mystery I had sensed down here was revealed. Her damp shifting eyes were utterly human. They stared at me with hate and supplication. ‘I ain't done!' she cried in a cracked, breaking voice. ‘He was the worst, don't you understand? He was the worst and it's his blood in her and I won't rest until I have it out!' There was a gruesome ripping sound. She had inhabited the birch, made it into a physical body of some sort and intended to tear it free of the earth. She would come and get me with it if she could; kill me with it if she could. Strangle me in limber branches. Stuff me with leaves until I looked like a Christmas decoration. ‘No matter how much of a monster he was, Kyra had nothing to do with what he did,' I said. ‘And you won't have her.' ‘Yes I will!' the Green Lady screamed. The ripping, rending sounds were louder now. They were joined by a hissing, shaky crackle. I didn't look around again. I didn't dare look around. I dug faster instead. ‘Yes I will have her!' she cried, and now the voice was closer. She was coming for me but I refused to see; when it comes to walking trees and bushes, I'll stick to Macbeth, thanks. ‘I will have her! He took mine and I mean to take his!' ‘Go away,' a new voice said. The spade loosened in my hands, almost fell. I turned and saw Jo standing below me and to my right. She was looking at Sara, who had materialized into a lunatic's hallucination a monstrous greenish-black thing that slipped with every step it tried to walk along The Street. She had left the birch behind yet assumed its vitality somehow the actual tree huddled behind her, black and shrivelled and dead. The creature born of it looked like the Bride of Frankenstein as sculpted by Picasso. In it, Sara's face came and went, came and went. The Shape, I thought coldly. It was always real . . . and if it was always me, it was always her, too. Jo was dressed in the white shirt and yellow slacks she'd had on the day she died. I couldn't see the lake through her as I had been able to see it through Devore and Devore's young friends; she had materialized herself completely. I felt a curious draining sensation at the back of my skull and thought I knew how. ‘Git out, bitch!' the Sara-thing snarled. It raised its arms toward Jo as it had raised them to me in my worst nightmares. ‘Not at all.' Jo's voice remained calm. She turned toward me. ‘Hurry, Mike. You have to be quick. It's not really her anymore. She's let one of the Outsiders in, and they're very dangerous.' ‘Jo, I love you.' ‘I love you t ‘ Sara shrieked and then began to spin. Leaves and branches blurred together and lost coherence; it was like watching something liquefy in a blender. The entity which had only looked a little like a woman to begin with now dropped its masquerade entirely. Something elemental and grotesquely inhuman began to form out of the maelstrom. It leaped at my wife. When it struck her, the color and solidity left Jo as if slapped away by a huge hand. She became a phantom struggling with the thing which raved and shrieked and clawed at her. ‘Hurry, Mike!' she screamed. ‘Hurry!' I bent to the job. The spade struck something that wasn't dirt, wasn't stone, wasn't wood. I scraped along it, revealing a filthy mold-crusted swatch of canvas. Now I dug like a madman, wanting to clear as much of the buried object as I could, wanting to fatten my chances of success as much as I could. Behind me, the Shape screamed in fury and my wife screamed in pain. Sara had given up part of her discorporate self in order to gain her revenge, had let in something Jo called an Outsider. I had no idea what that might be and never wanted to know. Sara was its conduit, I knew that much. And if I could take care of her in time I reached into the dripping hole, slapping wet earth from the ancient canvas. Faint stencilled letters appeared when I did: J.M. MCCURDIE SAWMILL. Mccurdie's had burned in the fires of '33, I knew. I'd seen a picture of it in flames somewhere. As I seized the canvas, the tips of my fingers punching through and letting out a fresh billow of green and gassy stench, I could hear grunting. I could hear Devore. He's lying on top of her and grunting like a pig. Sara is semiconscious, muttering unintelligibly through bruised lips which are shiny with blood. Devore is looking back over his shoulder at Draper Finney and Fred Dean. They have raced after the boy and brought him back, but he won't stop yelling, he's yelling to beat the band, yelling to wake the dead, and if they can hear the Methodists singing ‘How I Love to Tell the Story' over here, then they may be able to hear the yowling nigger over there. Devore says ‘Put him in the water, shut him up.' The minute he says it, as though the words are magic words, his cock begins to stiffen. ‘What do you mean?' Ben Merrill asks. ‘You know goddam well,' Jared says. He pants the words out, jerking his hips as he speaks. His narrow ass gleams in the afternoon light. ‘He seen us! You want to cut his throat, get his blood all over you? Fine by me. Here. Take my knife, be my guest!' ‘N-No, Jared!' Ben cries in horror, actually seeming to cringe at the sight of the knife. He is finally ready. It takes him a little longer, that's all, he ain't a kid like these other ones. But now ! Never mind her smart mouth, never mind her insolent way of laughing, never mind the whole township. Let them all show up and watch if they like. He slips it to her, what she's wanted all along, what all her kind want. He slips it in and sinks it deep. He continues giving orders even as he rapes her. Up and down his ass goes, tick-tock, just like a cat's tail. ‘Somebody take care of him! Or do you want to spend forty years rotting in Shawshank because of a nigger boy's tattle?' Ben seizes one of Kito Tidwell's arms, Oren Peebles the other, but by the time they have dragged him as far as the embankment they have lost their heart. Raping an uppity nigger woman with the gall to laugh at Jared when he fell down and split his britches is one thing. Drowning a scared kid like a kitten in a mud-puddle . . . that's another one altogether. They loosen their grip, staring into each other's haunted eyes, and Kito pulls free. ‘Run, honey!' Sara cries. ‘Run away and get ‘Jared clamps his hands around her throat and begins choking. The boy trips over his own berry bucket and thumps gracelessly to the ground. Harry and Draper recapture him easily. ‘What you going to do? ‘ Draper asks in a kind of desperate whine, and Harry replies ‘What I have to.' That's what he replied, and now I was going to do what I had to in spite of the stench, in spite of Sara, in spite of my dead wife's shrieks. I hauled the roll of canvas out of the ground. The ropes which had tied it shut at either end held, but the roll itself split down the middle with a hideous burping sound. ‘Hurry!' Jo cried. ‘I can't hold it much longer!' It snarled; it bayed like a dog. There was a loud wooden crunch, like a door being slammed hard enough to splinter, and Jo wailed. I grabbed for the carry-bag with Slips ‘n Greens printed on the front and tore it open as Harry the others call him Irish because of his carrot-colored hair grabs the struggling kid in a clumsy kind of bearhug and jumps into the lake with him. The kid struggles harder than ever,' his straw hat comes off and floats on the water. ‘Get that!' Harry pants. Fred Dean kneels and fishes out the dripping hat. Fred's eyes are dazed, he's got the look of a fighter about one round from hitting the canvas. Behind them Sara Tidwell has begun to rattle deep in her chest and throat like the sight of the boy's clenching hand, these sounds will haunt Draper Finney until his final dive into Eades Quarry. Jared sinks his fingers deeper, pumping and choking at the same time, the sweat pouring off him. No amount of washing will take the smell of that sweat out of these clothes, and when he begins to think of it as ‘murder-sweat,' he burns the clothes to get shed of it. Harry Auster wants to be shed of it all to be shed of it and never see these men again, most of all Jared Devore, who he now thinks must be Lord Satan himself. Harry cannot go home and face his father unless this nightmare is over, buried. And his mother! How can he ever face his beloved mother, Bridget Auster with her round sweet Irish face and graying hair and comforting shelf of bosom, Bridget who has always had a kind word or a soothing handler him, Bridget Auster who has been Saved, shed in the Blood of the Lamb, Bridget Auster who is even now serving pies at the picnic they're having at the new church, Bridget Auster who is mamma; how can he ever look at her again or she him if he has to stand in court on a charge of raping and beating a woman, even a black woman? So he yanks the clinging boy away Kito scratches him once, just a nick on the side of the neck, and that night Harry will tell his mamma it was a bush-pricker that caught him unawares and he will let her put a kiss on it and then he plunges the child into the lake. Kito looks up at him, his face shimmering, and Harry sees a little fish flick by. A perch, he thinks. For an instant he wonders what the boy must see, looking up through the silver shield of the surface at the face of the fellow who's holding him down, the fellow who's drowning him, and then Harry pushes that away. Just a nigger, he reminds himself desperately. That's all he is, just a nigger. No kin of yours. Kito's arm comes out of the water his dripping dark-brown arm. Harry pulls back, not wanting to be clawed, but the hand doesn't reach for him, only sticks straight up. The fingers curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. The boy's thrashing begins to ease, the kicking feet begin to slow down, the eyes looking up into Harry's eyes are taking on a curiously dreamy look, and still that brown arm sticks straight up, still the hand opens and closes, opens and closes. Draper Finney stands on the shore crying, sure that now someone will come along, now someone will see the terrible thing they have done the terrible thing they are in fact still doing. Be sure your sin will find you out, it says in the Good Book. Be sure. He opens his mouth to tell Harry to quit, maybe it's still not too late to take it back, let him up, let him live, but no sound comes out. Behind him Sara is choking her last. In front of him her drowning son's hand opens and closes, opens and clos es, the reflection of it shimmering on the water, and Draper thinks Won't it stop doing that, won't it ever stop doing that? And as if it were a prayer that something is now answering, the boy's locked elbow begins to bend and his arm begins to sag; the fingers begin to close again into a fist and then stop. For a moment the hand wavers and then I slammed the heel of my hand into the center of my forehead to clear these phantoms away. Behind me there was a frenzied snap and crackle of wet bushes as Jo and whatever she was holding back continued to struggle. I put my hands inside the split in the canvas like a doctor spreading a wound. I yanked. There was a low ripping sound as the roll tore the rest of the way up and down. Inside was what remained of them two yellowed skulls, forehead to forehead as if in intimate conversation, a woman's faded red leather belt, a molder of clothes . . . and a heap of bones. Two ribcages, one large and one small. Two sets of legs, one long and one short. The early remains of Sara and Kito Tidwell, buried here by the lake for almost a hundred years. The larger of the two skulls turned. It glared at me with its empty eyesockets. Its teeth chattered as if it would bite me, and the bones below it began a tenebrous, jittery stirring. Some broke apart immediately; all were soft and pitted. The red belt stirred restlessly and the rusty buckle rose like the head of a snake. ‘Mike!' Jo screamed. ‘Quick, quick!' I pulled the sack out of the carry-bag and grabbed the plastic bottle which had been inside. Lye stille, the Magnabet letters had said; another little word-trick. Another message passed behind the unsuspecting guard's back. Sara Tidwell was a fearsome creature, but she had underestimated Jo . . . and she had underestimated the telepathy of long association, as well. I had gone to Slips ‘n Greens, I had bought a bottle of lye, and now I opened it and poured it, smoking, over the bones of Sara and her son. There was a hissing sound like the one you hear when you open a beer or a bottled soft drink. The belt-buckle melted. The bones turned white and crumpled like things made out of sugar I had a nightmare image of Mexican children eating candy corpses off long sticks on the Day of the Dead. The eyesockets of Sara's skull widened as the lye filled the dark hollow where her mind, her prodigious talent, and her laughing soul had once resided. It was an expression that looked at first like surprise and then like sorrow. The jaw fell off; the nubs of the teeth sizzled away. The top of the skull caved in. Spread fingerbones jittered, then melted. ‘Ohhhhhh . . . ‘ It whispered through the soaking trees like a rising wind . . . only the wind had died as the wet air caught its breath before the next onslaught. It was a sound of unspeakable grief and longing and surrender. I sensed no hate in it; her hate was gone, burned away in the corrosive I had bought in Helen Auster's shop. The sound of Sara's going was replaced by the plaintive, almost human cry of a bird, and it awakened me from the place where I had been, brought me finally and completely out of the zone. I got shakily to my feet, turned around, and looked at The Street. Jo was still there, a dim form through which I could now see the lake and the dark clouds of the next thundersquall coming over the mountains. Something flickered beyond her that bird venturing out of its safe covert for a peek at the re-arranged environment, perhaps but I barely registered that. It was Jo I wanted to see, Jo who had come God knew how far and suffered God knew how much to help me. She looked exhausted, hurt, in some fundamental way diminished. But the other thing the Outsider was gone. Jo, standing in a ring of birch leaves so dead they looked charred, turned to me and smiled. ‘Jo! We did it!' Her mouth moved. I heard the sound, but the words were too distant to make out. She was standing right there, but she might have been calling across a wide canyon. Still, I understood her. I read the words off her lips if you prefer the rational, right out of her mind if you prefer the romantical. I prefer the latter. Marriage is a zone, too, you know. Marriage is a zone. So that's all right, isn't it? I glanced down into the gaping roll of canvas and saw nothing but stubs and splinters sticking out of a noxious, uneasy paste. I got a whiff, and even through the Stenomask it made me cough and back away. Not corruption; lye. When I looked back around at Jo, she was barely there. ‘Jo! Wait!' Can't help. Can't stay. Words from another star system, barely glimpsed on a fading mouth. Now she was little more than eyes floating in the dark afternoon, eyes which seemed made of the lake behind them. Hurry . . . She was gone. I slipped and stumbled to the place where she'd been, my feet crunching over dead birch leaves, and grabbed at nothing. What a fool I must have looked, soaked to the skin, wearing a Stenomask askew over the lower half of my face, trying to embrace the wet gray air. I got the faintest whiff of Red perfume . . . and then only damp earth, lakewater, and the vile stink of lye running under everything. At least the smell of putrefaction was gone; that had been no more real than . . . Than what? Than what? Either it was all real or none of it was real. If none of it was real, I was out of my mind and ready for the Blue Wing at Juniper Hill. I looked over toward the gray rock and saw the bag of bones I had pulled out of the wet ground like a festering tooth. Lazy tendrils of smoke were still rising from its ripped length. That much was real. So was the Green Lady, who was now a soot-colored Black Lady as dead as the dead branch behind her, the one that seemed to point like an arm. Can't help . . . can't stay . . . hurry. Couldn't help with what? What more help did I need? It was done, wasn't it? Sara was gone: spirit follows bone, good night sweet ladies, God grant she lye stille. And still a kind of stinking terror, not so different from the smell of putrescence which had come out of the ground, seemed to sweat out of the air; Kyra's name began to beat in my head, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, like the call of some exotic tropical bird. I started up the railroad-tie steps to the house, and although I was exhausted, by the time I was halfway up I had begun to run. I climbed the stairs to the deck and went in that way. The house looked the same save for the broken tree poking in through the kitchen window, Sara Laughs had stood up to the storm very well but something was wrong. There was something I could almost smell . . . and perhaps I did smell it, bitter and low. Lunacy may have its own wild-vetch aroma. It's not the kind of thing I would ever care to research. In the front hall I stopped, looking down at a heap of paperback books, Elmore Leonards and Ed Mcbains, lying on the floor. As if they had been raked off the shelf by a passing hand. A flailing hand, maybe. I could also see my tracks there, both coming and going. They had already begun to dry. They should have been the only ones; I had been carrying Ki when we came in. They should have been, but they weren't. The others were smaller, but not so small that I mistook them for a child's. I ran down the hall to the north bedroom crying her name, and I might as well have been crying Mattie or Jo or Sara. Coming out of my mouth, Kyra's name sounded like the name of a corpse. The duvet had been thrown back onto the floor. Except for the black stuffed dog, lying where it had in my dream, the bed was empty. And Ki was gone.

Personal Development: Time Management Essay

Effective Time Management is a valuable resource. Those who learn to value it go much ahead in life. On the other hand, the people who take time for granted often end up losing much. Prioritizing well is the key to time management and proper management of time can improve the quality of your life, almost dramatically. These are some of the benefits of Effective Time Management: Allows You To Be In Control Everyone keeps harping about how life is beyond their control. While certain things really are, it is still possible to take command of most of the things in life with much ease. Reduces Stress & Frustration Effective Time management is the most valuable resource and yet, the most undervalued. It needs to be acknowledged that a paucity of time for finishing tasks makes you feel stressed out and frustrated and the spill-over effect is to be seen in every aspect of your life. Saves Quality Time Managing time also helps you in saving precious time, which you can utilize in pursuing your hobbies or spending quality time with your family. Boosts Confidence And A Sense Of Achievement Completing tasks within a set time period boosts your confidence and self belief, as your life seems to be under your control. REVIEW TIME-MANAGEMENT SKILLS TO ACHIEVE ORGANASATIONAL AND PERSONAL OBJECTIVES. Time management skills to achieve organisational and personal objective are: MAKE USE OF DOWN TIME by Using walking, driving, showering, or otherwise â€Å"dead† times to plan. Think about what your goals are for that day or the next. Again, REWARD YOURSELF Whenever you accomplish something, especially the important things, make sure to take the time to reward yourself. Also AVOID PROCRASTINATION AT ALL COST When trying to be more productive and trying to save time, procrastination should be avoided like nothing else. APPROPRIATE TOOLS TO CONDUCT A TIME MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS Activity logs are the key component to any sort of time management. Record your time spent on tasks and spot what areas that need improvement. Prioritization is the next critical ingredient to time management success; it’s what lets you know what you should be spending the most time and effort on. Another crucial part to add to your time management tools is the enforcement of setting goals for you and your team. SECTION 2: SKILLS AUDIT EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTINUAL SELF DEVELOPMENT Continual self Development are activities that improve self-knowledge and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realisation of dreams and aspirations. This encourages one be the complete entity, it allows an open frame of mind and encourages positivity. The importance of continual self development are: It helps you understand yourself better It assist you in creating your goals and life purpose It guides you in managing and spending your time effectively It enhances your ability to handle stress, adversity and change It supports you in managing your finances more wisely It teaches you to build better relationship with people It allows you to live a balanced lifestyle It provides an opportunity to take care of your health. USE APPROPRIATE METHOS TO ASSESS SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES AGAINST ORGANISATION AND PERSONAL OBJECTIVES. 1. Thinking critically and making judgments: Present a case for an interest group, prepare a committee briefing paper for a specific meeting 2. Solving problems and developing plans : Identifying problems, analyzing data, reviewing and applying information 3. Performing procedures and demonstrating techniques: By following protocols, carrying out instructions, observing real or simulated professional practice 4. Managing and developing oneself : working co-operatively, learning independently, being self directed, manage time, manage task 6. Demonstrating knowledge and understanding: By relating and interrelating, recognizing and identifying. MAKE SUGGESTIONS FOR FILLING IDENTIFIED SKILLS GAPS Know your organization â€Å"Many companies these days are taking on the ‘lean philosophy’ to cut expenses,†. individuals study the organization, and look for the positions that will likely take on greater responsibilities if and when positions are cut. Know where your company is going â€Å"Employees should look at future goals that are outlined in company-wide annual goal-setting meetings,†. By reviewing these goals, it’s easy for employees to uncover other educational frameworks that will meet these goals. Focus on customer service Employees should dig into their customer base to uncover any customer service improvement ideas that can be brought to the superiors. Find a mentor Connecting with a professional mentor or becoming active in relevant professional organizations can help employees learn more about the trends within their industry. SECTION 3: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN PRODUCE A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN AGAINST S.M.A.R.T OBJECTIVES Personal Development Plan is a continuous process of targeted reflection and self-improvement – identifying your current and future needs, and working out how you can meet them. It also includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitate employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. Producing a personal development plan against S.M.A.R.T objectives by: Improving self-awareness, improving self-knowledge, improving or learning new skills, becoming a self-leader, building or renewing identity/self-esteem, developing strengths or talents, improving wealth, spiritual development, identifying or improving potential, building employability or human capital, enhancing lifestyle or the quality of life, fulfilling aspirations, initiating a life enterprise or personal autonomy PLAN RESOURCES NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT THE PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN Questionnaires; Semester planners; Details of your meetings with your personal tutor; Academic and/or personal problems you may have encountered; Your academic targets; Personal records of your progress in course units; Exam results and other achievements; Your career goals. SECTION 4: IMPLEMENTING A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN DESCRIBE THE IMPORTANCE OF MONITORING A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN The importance of monitoring a personal development plan is to ensure that activities are kept within the parameters of the agreed strategic aims and objectives; Also to ensure that activities are consistent with personal vision, mission and values; and keep under review internal and external changes which may require changes to the personal’s strategy or affect their ability to achieve their objectives. It also helps in monitoring one’s progress, it helps in evaluating personal performance. USE APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUES TO REVIEW THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN. Solicit Feedback Regularly: Perception is reality. Seek to understand how people perceive you. You may not be achieving the impact you expected in leading or working with others. You cannot adjust your approach without the benefit of feedback that can inform you in terms of how your intentions were received by others. Be proactive in finding out what people think about you and your style of interacting and your approach. Be open to and appreciative of the feedback you receive, not defensive. Reflect on Performance: Some successful people are gregarious and extroverted while others are reserved and introverted. But all successful people know how to spend time alone being reflective and thoughtful about recent performance and behaviour. Always take ample time at the conclusion of major elements of work to reflect on the quality of what you produced and the effectiveness of your work with others. The key to reflecting on performance is remaining balanced in your self-assessment. Be self -critical: understand what you could have done better and learn from these mistakes. Know Your Strengths  and Weaknesses: As you collect feedback and reflections, come to understand your personal strengths and weaknesses. Know that everyone has both. Successful people build success from their strengths while they limit the negative impact of their weaknesses. UPDATE THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN To develop the ability to make choices, set goals and take action. Develop a rational opinion and explain the reasoning behind it. Seek solutions/alternative options Listen and observe Be aware of disadvantage and changing needs – old age/ illness/ disability Develop positive relationships with a variety of people Share responsibility for group tasks Anticipate and counter negative reaction and rationale Resolve conflicts Make choices and decisions Set goals, plan, organise, promote, implement, evaluate. Recognized their own worth Demonstrate assertiveness, to enable active citizenship, at home, at school and in the community. REFLECTIVE LEARNING STATEMENT The main theme of this unit which is PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT have a significant impact in my work role and has helped me to realised the talent and competency in me. It allows me to be in control of my time, managing it effectively and utilizing it to the fullest. It also boost my confidence and sense of achievement with self belief as my life seems to be under my control. It assist me in setting adequate goals for myself and avoid procrastination at all cost The belief that I can achieve and be successful in whatsoever am doing is my strength at the start and end of this unit While time interval and access to books from the library serve as a weakness.

Government backed initiatives to promote female participation in STEM The WritePass Journal

Government backed initiatives to promote female participation in STEM Introduction Government backed initiatives to promote female participation in STEM IntroductionReferencesRelated Introduction This essay aims to explore the UK based initiatives designed to promote female participation within Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematical (STEM) disciplines focusing predominately on Physics. The essay will consider the different teaching techniques and styles that have been researched and implemented in order to appeal specifically to a female audience and their relative success in terms of encouraging females to pursue both higher education in STEM based disciplines and careers. It has been well documented that women in STEM based subjects are under-represented which has lead to an absence of females actively employed within STEM careers. Women were only 12.3 per cent of the workforce in all STEM occupations including health and skilled trades in 2008. This is, however, an increase of 2.0 percentage points since 2003 (Kirkup, et al., 2010. Women and men in science, engineering and technology: the UK statistics guide 2010. Bradford: the UKRC) showing that there has been some successful work towards encouraging females towards STEM careers. This under-representation is no more apparent than within the science discipline of Physics, which displays the persistent problem of a lack of girls continuing to study physics after the age of 16 (physics is a compulsory part of the GCSE curriculum). A substantial number of girls do well at Key Stage 4 but do not choose to study physics post-16. In 2005, only 14% of girls who were awarded an A* or A for GCSE Double Award Science or physics progressed to A level physics (Hollins et al., 2006). Whilst there has been a small year-on-year increase in the number of A level physics candidates between 2006 and 2008 (Institute of Physics, 2008), there has been little change in the proportion of girls that have taken the subject post-16. In 2008, only 22% of the entries for A-level Physics were female (Institute of Physics, 2008). These statistics can be seen clearly in the appendix where the number of female entries in 2008 actually illustrates a decrease in female uptake in comparison to 2007 of -0.3%.   In addition, recruitment to biology has remained relatively stable with more females than males being entered for A-level examinations. Chemistry entries for both male and females are relatively equal and mathematics still sees a top-heavy male count, although less dramatically than physics. There has been an extensive amount of research into the potential reasons behind the consistently low numbers of females within Physics.   The development of institutionalised education in England was based on principles of class and gender differentiation (Purvis, 1981) and many scholars attribute existing gender culture today to their historical roots where middle-class girls were to be educated to take up roles as wives and mothers of elite men. Consequently, physics, with its high mathematical content and often abstract ideas, was a subject thought suitable only to males with girls focusing on the religious and moral aspects of science and the possibilities it provided for enhancing domestic accomplishments. Many still believe connotations of this attitude exist today and while it is important to recognise that although ‘educational policy may change, what students, their parents and their teachers have come to understand as appropriate ways for girls and boys to be, to k now and to behave, will continue to reflect the historical roots of the culture’ (Murphy,P.,Whitelegg,E .,2006).   In addition, research by Alison Kelly (1987) identifies three factors that appear to account for a lack of interest by women in science, namely women see it as likely to be difficult, masculine, and impersonal. A number of modern day initiatives and specific teaching techniques have been coined to address these misconceptions and will be explored, with their relative success critiqued, in the remaining body of the essay. Many initiatives to encourage female participation in science try to address the causes of the phenomena known in academia as the ‘leaky pipeline’. The phrase has been devised to illustrate what statistics clearly show, much like a leaky pipeline, women steadily drop out of the science educational system, which carries students from secondary school through university and on to a job in STEM. Figure 1 illustrates the risks that may be experienced by women already in the science pipeline upon commencement of a STEM based career. Source: International federation of university women [image online] Available at:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ifuw.org/imgs/blog/blog_leaky_pipeline.jpg [Accessed 16 April 2011]. Pell (1996) acknowledges that much of the selection between men and women has taken place even before academia is entered arguing that critical phases in the selection towards an academic career include early childhood, adolescence, school years and the job entry period. Pell gives development of self-esteem in early life-course, student-teacher interaction in classrooms leading to lower aspirations amongst girls, fewer female role models, and conflicts with family responsibilities, as some of the reasons for the ‘leak’ in the pipeline.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Blickenstaff. J (2005) argues alternatively that ‘no one in a position of power along the pipeline has consciously decided to filter women out of the STEM stream, but the cumulative effect of many separate but related factors results in the sex imbalance in STEM that is observed today’. Many believe the ‘leakage’ from the pipeline requires a multi-faceted solution, and time is needed to allow innovati ons in teaching and learning to take effect, only then will this be evident within the statistics often used to prove such initiatives have failed. It can be questioned whether the merit of such initiatives can so quickly be analysed and concluded as failures if they have not had sufficient time to evolve. For example, the increase of girls choosing to study physics may only see an increase in numbers once teaching practices, academic relevance of the syllabus and functional support networks are truly aligned together and are sustainable. This issue has been further addressed by Cronin and Roger (1999) who point out that initiatives to bring women and science together focus on one of three areas: attracting women to science, supporting women already in science, or changing science to be more inclusive of women, however, some initiatives emphasise one or two of these possibilities and ignored the other(s). A.Phipps (2008) reasons that the important initiatives designed to address the problem are under-researched allowing little opportunity for educational practitioners, activists, policy-makers and scholars to analyse and learn from the practices and policies that were developed over the past decade. Outside of the classroom, many initiatives and organizations have been set up to encourage, support and engage women within STEM careers. One of the most prominent and long running initiatives, Women In Science and Engineering (WISE) was founded in 1984 with the aim of encouraging understanding of science among young girls and women and to promote choosing it as a career. WISE provide a range of different services and initiatives in order to achieve this aim, and engage with other organisations that provide such services. This includes resources for girls, teachers and parents. More can be found on their website wisecampaign.org.uk/. There is only limited work evaluating the impact of WISE policies since the organization began. Phipps (2008) suggests that although school visits by WISE did have a positive effect on girls opinions of science this was not translated into long term change in their career ambitions. Alternatively, WISE claim that the campaign has helped to double the per centage of female engineering graduates from 7% in 1984 to 15% today. They claim the success of the WISE programmes can only be measured using the proportions of engineering students and engineers who are female (WISE, 2010). To date, however, there has been no onward tracking of participants from the WISE outlook programme. This leads others to be more critical with Henwood (1996) claiming WISE have ‘inadvertently limited the ways in which girls and women could discuss the challenges they faced’ and with no detailed research evaluating whether various actions and policies by WISE have produced the impact, it can be hard to attribute the growth to WISE without questioning whether other factors were at play. Phipps (2008) echoes this uncertainty stating ‘it is difficult to definitely conclude that WISE policies have been the decisive or contributory factor in encouraging female participation in scientific careers’. The UK government made a firm commitment to remedy the current situation assisting with the launch, in 2004, of the UK Resource Centre (UKRC) for Women in SET (science, engineering and technology). This organisation aims to provide practical support and help in order to encourage more women to take up a career in STEM (UKRC, 2007; Wynarczyk, 2006, 2007a). However, the activities of the UKRC are predominantly focused on the participation of women in STEM careers and its responsibility does not include education. With the greater focus on evaluative data, the UKRC holds and actively records the numbers of women with whom it has engaged in its work, and also collects statistics on the outcomes for returners in its programmes (UKRC, 2010). Many have criticized the large number of non-governmental organisations and initiatives involved in the STEM sector stating that the process is fragmented and uncoordinated to the extent that policy and initiatives may be unable to reach their full potential. The STEM Cross-Cutting Programme also concluded that ‘at the current time there are far too many schemes, each of which has its own overheads’.(DfES, 2006a: p.3).   Despite this, the Government has substantially increased its STEM education budget and activities in an attempt to reverse the current STEM trends including cash initiatives to encourage more physics trained teachers, (Jha,A,. Guardian online 2005 ‘New incentives for maths and physics teachers’ [Available online] guardian.co.uk/education/2007/oct/05/schools.uk2). Within the current UK educational system, educators have been working for many years to encourage more girls to participate in school science through programs like Girls Into Science and Technology (GIST) and Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G). The later is a not-for profit employer led organisation licensed by the government with the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) currently funding it. Furthermore, the UK Government is providing support for schools to encourage more girls to study physics and to help them to become more confident and assertive in the subject. Approaches to teaching physics with an emphasis on physics as a ‘socially relevant and applied subject has led to higher attainment for both males and females’ (Murphy and Whitelegg, 2006). Previous research has also indicated that girls are motivated to study physics when they can see it as part of a ‘pathway to desirable careers’ (Murphy and Whitelegg, 2006). Successful approaches t o making physics more relevant to girls included, as presented in ‘Girls into physics-Action research’: Integrating physic-related careers in class (e.g. through direct references, set assignments, posters and displays in the classroom). Creating opportunities in lessons for students to explore the social relevance of physics (including the roles of physicists). Real life experiences with work experience and role models were also effective in ‘bringing physics to life’. Source: Daly.A   et al 2009, Girls into physics- Action Research, Research brief. Page 2. [Available online] education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DCSF-RB103.pdf However, several challenges are related to these approaches. Some students, especially those of a younger age group, struggle to articulate their careers aspirations and there may also be a lack of knowledge about career options among teachers. This could add pressure onto the teacher as they feel the need to research and bring these elements into their lesson planning and schemes of work (SoW). It is already well documented about the time constraints many teachers experience with regards to sufficient planning and marking time. It could be suggested that with the low number of trained physics teachers available within the educational system at this time and their high demand (Institue of Physics, Physics and: teacher numbers, 2010), that additional content beyond that of the curriculum could put viable trainees off this career and potentially push them into other subject areas where there is less additional material to deal with. Availability of school resources could also be a prob lem. The ‘Girls into physics action research’ commissioned by the Institue of physics and undertaken by Daly.A., et al (2009) aims to address five key assumptions that girls have about physics identfied in prior research by Murphy,P and Whitelegg,E (2006). This essential practice (figure 2) is deemed to support female participation within physics and it is hoped that it will be adopted as part of the classroom management. Figure 2: Essential practice that supports girls participation in physics Source: Daly.A.,   et al 2009, GIRLS INTO PHYSICS – ACTION RESEARCH, Figure 2, page 6. [Available online] education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DCSF-RR103.pdf The research, also carried out on behalf of the Department for Education (DfES), recommends   numerous ‘top tips’ for successful teaching and learning with these suggestions available to view in the appendix. These tips have been identified by teachers who have shown some success in enagaing female students. Alternatively, B. Ponchaud (2008) conducted a review within schools where the female uptake of physcis was already particularly high. Ponchaud identified several top tips for teachers to use to engage female students. 1 Encourage collaboration in learning through more group discussion and activities. 2 Present the big picture whenever possible rather than just concentrating on individual ideas. 3 Give students the privacy and confidence to take risks in their thinking and responses by careful use of formative questions and the use of individual whiteboards for example. 4 Vary the grouping in class for practical and other activities to avoid some students dominating and others (often girls) becoming passive. 5 Don’t ‘talk equations’; develop ideas before using technical language and then use it in context. 6 Use a variety of illustrations based on male and female students’ interests. 7 Use a variety of analogies that help the student and accept, for discussion, any they suggest. 8 Have an explicit rationale for teaching, which includes social relevance. Table 1: B.Ponchard’s top tips to engage female students in physics Source: Ponchaud, B, The Girls into Physics project. School Science Review, March 2008, 89(328) Antonia Rowlinson from St Anthony’s RC girls’ school implemented the ‘top tips’ without the need to alter the curriculum. Physics was contextualised or illustrated in the areas of interest revealed by Ponchaud’s investigation. For example, within the forces module, questions on friction were set in the context of the then current Strictly Come Dancing television programme. The follow-up survey showed that ‘whilst this new teaching technique had not substantially shifted the students’ perceptions about physics there were improvements. More girls saw physics as relevant to their career aspirations’ (Ponchaud 2008). In conclusion, evidence clearly shows that an under-representation of females is a cause for concern. Girls perceive themselves to be less capable and less interested, than boys, in science and these attitudes can be attributed to historical views of women that are proving hard to dismiss. Many believe that science educators have a responsibility to change those factors under their control. Over time, individual actions by teachers will help girls to break down the filter in the STEM pipeline and result in equal participation, benefiting society.   Teachers should pay attention to the way they address and present physics, watching out for language and terminology, which has a vast psychological effect for females who may suffer from stereotype threat and believe they are not capable. I have also explored the idea that girls respond to physics when it is taught in an accessible and socially relevant way but countered this with the argument of teaching time constraints and available school resources. Work that examines the overall successful impact of initiatives and policies aimed at promoting the cause of women in science has provided a mixed verdict and can be open to critique. It seems apparent that although these initiatives specifically target the thoroughly researched reasons why females may disengage from physics and science as whole, they cannot systematically prove that the apparent incremental growth in participation figures are down to the programmes and measures they have put in place. Only recently, has initiatives such as UKRC began to collect evaluative data on the amount of women that have been effected by their work. Some texts have assumed a positive impact for various policies, citing increases in the proportions of women pursuing certain courses as evidence for different policies success (e.g. WISE, 2010). I have explored such critique on this view including Phipps (2008) who recognises the limited successes and impact of initiatives in general, but tempers t his with statements acknowledging the wide range of challenges facing these initiatives. I believe that when more organisations begin to record and monitor engagement rates as a direct result of exposure to a particular initiative, successful programmes will become more apparent. However, I also realize that many of these organisations have limited funding and capabilities disabling them from doing this as they focus budgets on areas addressing there inherit strategy. Until this is addressed with additional funding, I fear the exact effects of many of these initiatives will never be known and it will remain a subject for academic discussion. References Blickenstaff, J C (2005). Women and science careers: leaky pipeline or gender filter? Gender and Education Vol. 17, No. 4, October 2005, pp. 369–386 Cronin, C. Roger, A. (1999) Theorizing progress: women in science, engineering, and technology in higher education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 36(6), 639–661. Computer Club for Girls. Accessed on 16/04/2011 cc4g.net/ Daly.A ,Laura Grant.L2 and Karen Bultitude. K, GIRLS INTO PHYSICS – ACTION RESEARCH, Research brief. [Available online] http://education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DCSF-RB103.pdf Daly.A ,Laura Grant.L2 and Karen Bultitude. K, GIRLS INTO PHYSICS – ACTION RESEARCH,[Available online] education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DCSF-RR103.pdf DfES, (2006a), ‘The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Programme Report’, HMSO, ISBN: 978-184478-827-9 Henwood, F. (1996), WISE Choices? Understanding occupational decision-making in a climate of equal opportunities for women in science and technology, Genderand Education, 8 (2), 119-214. Hollins, M., Murphy, P., Ponchaud, B. and Whitelegg, E. (2006) Girls in the Physics Classroom: A Teachers’ Guide for Action. London, Institute of Physics Institute of Physics (2010) Physics and: teacher numbers, An Institute of Physics briefing note: iop.org/news/10/sep10/file_44832.pdf Institute of Physics (2008) Year on year increase of physics A-level entrants. Available from: iop.org/policy/statistics/education/file_43198.doc Kelly, A. 1987,Science for girls? Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press Kirkup, G., Zalevski, A., Maruyama, T. and Batool, I. (2010). Women and men in science, engineering and technology: the UK statistics guide 2010. Bradford: the UKRC. Murphy, P. and Whitelegg, E. (2006) Girls in the Physics Classroom: A Review of the Research on the Participation of Girls in Physics. London, Institute of Physics Murphy., P and Whitelegg., E (2006) Girls and physics: continuing barriers to belonging, Curriculum Journal, 17: 3, 281 - 305 Pell AN (1996). Fixing the leaky pipeline: women scientists in academia. Journal of animal science, 74 (11), Phipps, A. (2008). Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology: three decades of UK initiatives. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books Ponchaud, B, The Girls into Physics project. School Science Review, March 2008, 89(328) Purvis, J. (1981) The double burden of class and gender in the schooling of working-class girls in nineteenth-century England 1800–1870, in: L. Barton S. Walker (Eds) Schools, teachers and teaching (Barcombe, Falmer Press). Women in Science and Engineering (WISE). Accessed on 16/04/2011 wisecampaign.org.uk/ Women in Science and Engineering Research Project. A publication by The Scottish Government. Accessed on 16/04/2011 scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/12/15144458/6 Wynarczyk, P. (2006), â€Å"An International Investigation into Gender Inequality in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)†, Guest Editor, Journal of Equal Opportunities International, Special Issue, Volume 25, issue 8, December. Wynarczyk, P., (2007a), ‘Addressing the â€Å"Gender Gap† in the Managerial Labour Market: The Case of Scientific Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the North East of England’, Management Research News: Communication of Emergent International Management Research, v.30:11, 12 Wynarczyk, P and Hale 2009, Take up of Science and Technology Subjects in Schools and Colleges: A Synthesis Review. Commissioned by: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)