Share your literary essay with the rest of the students that chose this short story. Take some time to read 2 or 3 other essays. Comment on them. Your comment should be about something you noticed them doing well from our lessons. For example, "You did a really good job explaining your evidence.
In the short story “Ruth” by Laura Silverman, she talks about how people online will/can target others who are different. The anonymous person (troll) finds out that Ruth is jewish and knows that he starts commenting on her twitter posts. After his account becomes suspended not only him but many others target her by posting and messaging her racial slurs.
ReplyDeleteRuth is a normal teenager but everyone sees her differently because of her ethnicity. She loves books and even has a book blog. On her twitter account she posts links to good books,talks politics,and etc. She takes action against the troll by first,blocking him. Then, got his account suspended. Lastly, she made a post about the racial situation and tagged everyone who made rude,snarky comments on her posts. I believe this took Ruth a lot of courage. Giving the story its theme.
The theme is it takes courage to stand up for yourself. Ruth did a fairly good job doing this, she made it public and showed everyone that when people are different they get treated differently. In many situations people would pick violence as their source of revenge while Ruth picked coming together to stop these trolls,
The online trolls hate Ruth becauses she is jewish. This could be interpreted as race & ethnicity, but it clearly means standing up for yourself and to gather courage because at the end of the day she takes action and buts a stop to the hateful/racial slurs.
Laura Silverman does a wonderful job using figurative language through the piece. For example, “my skin crawls just reading it”, is explaining how Ruth feels as she reads the comment from the troll. Another example is, “shut up jew, shut up jew, shut up jew.” This sentence is repetition explaining how those three words keep replaying in her brain.
Ruth has changed a lot throughout the story. Towards the beginning she was faced with a problem, the troll (s). They bombarded her with hateful comments about her ethnicity which made her hurt and made her feel ashamed over something she can't control. And then, towards the end she built up the courage (thanks to her friends) to put a stop to the hurtful,unnecessary comments and stand up for herself.
Ruth took the risk of standing up for herself by making a post about the situation and giving an explanation of why she was inactive. Everyone reacted by not only gathering together to take down this troll but showing her empathy for what she is going through. It all can end, if you take action.
All in all people “shouldn't be treated by the color of their skin but for the content of their character”.- MLK: I have a dream speech
“Ruth” is a short story that was written by Laura Silverman. It is about a girl who stands up for herself and her religion. This story is very interesting because it is talking about a young girl (Ruth) who is being made fun of and doesn't know what to do about it until towards the end of the story.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of the story, Ruth is very confident with her blog and she posts on it almost daily. She does this to promote good books and things similar to that. One day, her friend Daniel sends her a link to a article talking about how “Adoption agencies in Georgia are refusing to let Jewish and Muslim couples adopt children.” Now Ruth is furious about this because a Jew as well. To cover the topic she posts on her blog about the issue. After she posts about it, many people back her up and respond with things like, “Shame on them!” or “#vote-them-out.” One of these comments stick out to Ruth and that is the comment that says “Shut up Jew.” This takes her by surprise and she doesn't know what to do.
Luckily, she has a wonderful friend who decides to respond back to the troll to get them to be quiet. She later is put in another situation where she finally, sort of stands up for herself by talking to her friend about how she feels about others talking and assuming things about her religion. She always seems to rely on her friends in this area of the story which is very different compared to how she acts near the end. For example, In the middle when she overheard people at lunch talking about how they believe “Jews only work in Hollywood” She got angry and only talked to her friend about it, now her friend didn't think it was much of a big deal and let it go easily. Now towards the end of the story she decides to post some books that are about Jews and how they have been heros.
This shows the theme because she learned to finally stand up for herself towards the end of the short story. (the outcomes were good because if this) I personally definitely recommend reading this because it has some good life lessons.
“Ruth” is a short story by Laura Silverman about a Jewish girl. What makes this story unique is that Ruth is a book blogger who gets trolled because of her religion. It’s something that has never happened to her before, and she doesn’t know how to react. Eventually, she ends up replying to the hater. The author uses this to teach us the theme; it takes courage to stand up for yourself but it’s worth it.
ReplyDeleteOne way the author portrays this is through the events in the plot. When Ruth receives a comment from a troll on Twitter, her first instinct is to block, which is what she does. However, it takes very little courage to block someone because it can happen with just a click. Later on, Ruth replies to the troll, which is something that takes a lot of courage. The method of replying turns out to be more effective at stopping the troll than blocking him.
Another instance where the author shows the theme through plot is when Ruth overhears students at her school talking about Jewish people. They say that all Jewish people are rich and work in Hollywood, which Ruth knows isn’t true. Instead of speaking up, which is what she wants to do, she sits in silence. Some people think that because of this the theme is equality, but it’s still courage because her lack of courage is what is noticeable, and later she regrets not standing up for herself.
The characters in the story also emphasize the theme. Ruth’s friend, Kaitlyn, helps her come up with a response to the troll. By showing her support for Ruth, she is making herself vulnerable to the troll. Kaitlyn ultimately decides it is more important to help her friend than protect herself from a troll. It takes a lot of courage for her to do this because by doing so she could possibly become the troll’s next target.
On the negative side, the troll also has courage. However, the only reason he has courage is because he is hiding behind a screen. By being anonymous, he has the freedom to troll people and face minimal consequences, such as his account being taken down. Online, it takes only a small bit of courage to say something hateful, but in real life it is a lot harder.
The final way the author shows the theme is by using figurative language. When Ruth is standing up for herself against the troll it is an example of personification because it is like Jewish people making the decision to stand up against anti-Semitism. Both of these decisions require a lot of strength and courage because you are dealing with somebody who doesn’t support you or your faith.
Another key point of figurative language is when Ruth’s followers are helping her fight back against the troll. She says that she has many followers, which could be a hyperbole because she wants to feel like there are a lot of people on her side. In reality, not all of her followers might be supporting her; some are just wanting to contribute to the conflict between Ruth and the troll. Ruth has a lot of confidence that her followers will support her, but she never stopped to think about the probability that they would possibly side with the troll.
In conclusion, Ruth needs to use a lot of courage to fight for her faith. She makes decisions based on what she thinks is right, instead of being persuaded by others. The plot, characters, and figurative language in the story all reveal the theme of how it takes courage to stick up for yourself. “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor; never the tormented.” - Elie Wiesel
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ReplyDelete“Ruth” is a short story by Laura Silverman that takes place near Atlanta. This story is about a Jewish girl named Ruth who is almost eighteen years old. She is a book blogger that recommends books for people online. Usually her readers are very supportive of her and they enjoy her books, but one day she blogs about Jewish books and someone comments, “Shut up Jew” to her. Ruth knows this isn’t right and has to figure out how to cope with this. The author uses Ruth to teach us that even though it may be difficult, we should always stand up for what we believe in.
At first, when Ruth gets the comment, “Shut up Jew” from a bully called troll, she panics and thinks about how she has had offensive comments in the past, but never one targeting her religion. Ruth decides to block the troll bully and not worry about it any more because that is the easy thing to do. Then, she talks to her friend Kaitlyn, and Kaitlyn persuades her to post something against the troll. She says, “Shut up Troll” to the mean person online. The author included the part of the story where Ruth realizes she should fight back to show us that we should always stand up for what we believe in even if it is challenging. As a result, the readers can see that if Ruth can stand up for what she believes, then others can stand up for what they believe.
Later on in the story, the same troll comments again and says, “Can’t get rid of me that easily, k*ke”. Ruth panics because the troll is attacking Jews again. She decides to tell all of her other followers how she really feels. She writes a note to her readers. In the note she says, “Instead, I will fight back by promoting the heck out of some incredible Jewish books.” Laura Silverman includes this in her story to say that Ruth will, “...fight back…”. Therefore, Silverman wants to show that Ruth is standing up for her Jewish beliefs in a positive way to set an example for the reader.
In addition, the characters in this story play a very important part in the theme of the story. Ruth’s friend Kaitlyn is very supportive and helpful to Ruth when Ruth is trying to decide what to do about the rude comment the troll sent her. Kaitlyn actually says, “That’s disgusting, Ruth! We have to do something about it!” and, “Can’t let them get away with it.” It is important to realize that Silverman made Kaitlyn say these things to show that Kaitlyn really cares about Ruth and wants to help her do what’s right. Kaitlyn eventually writes the tweet saying, “Shut up troll” for Ruth and gives it to Ruth to post. Ruth knew the troll’s mean tweet was wrong, but she probably wouldn’t have done anything about it if Kaitlyn hadn’t helped her a little.
Daniel also helps Ruth do the right thing by proofreading Ruth’s letter to her readers before she posts it. Right before Ruth posts the letter, he texts her, “Post it already!” to encourage her to do the right thing. Ruth does post it, but she might not have even thought to do that if Daniel wasn’t helping her. The author included the help of Ruth’s friends to not only show that Ruth is sticking up for what she believes in, but so are her friends. Laura SIlverman also included the help of Ruth’s friends to say that if Ruth’s friends stand up for what they believe in, then so can others.
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteAlso, Laura Silverman purposely makes Ruth Jewish when she writes the story. It is important to realize that the mean comments against Jews are unacceptable because they hurt Jewish people. If Ruth wasn’t Jewish she would probably be less likely to stand up for Jewish people. This is an example of someone standing up for what they believe in.
Silverman used figurative language to bring this lesson to life throughout the short story. One of the major elements that she used to illustrate Ruth’s feelings was repetition. For example, when Ruth is trying to start writing her letter to her readers. The text says, “There it is, the quote I circled, then highlighted, then starred.” The quote it is referring to says, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, nover the tormented.” First, Silverman gets the reader’s attention by using the word, “then” twice, then she says the quote that is very important to the overall theme of the story. The quote shows that if you don’t stand up for yourself, you are only helping the bully get stronger which is the lesson of the whole story.
The next time Silverman uses repetition is when Ruth is just about to start writing her letter to her readers. It says, “Because when I read a book with horrible representation, whether it’s ableist or racist of fatphobic, I tweet and blog about it, making sure everyone I can reach hears me.” Although it could be argued that the theme here is everyone is equal, right after this quote Ruth says, “I stand up for what’s right. So why have I not been doing that for myself?” Ruth wants to make sure to stand up for Jewish people, because it’s her religion. Ruth’s main point isn’t to make everyone equal in this context. She just wants to stand up for what’s right. She realizes that she should stand up for what she thinks is right, even if it is hard, right after Silverman gets out attention be using the word, “or” twice. Everything starts to click for Ruth and she actually says the message of the story. After the repeated words, the author makes huge points that are very important to the theme of the story.
In conclusion, Ruth goes through the whole story trying to figure out what to do about the bully who keeps commenting mean things, but near the end she realizes that she needs to do whatever she can to stand up for herself and Jewish people even if it’s not easy. In the story Ruth even thinks, “I stand up for what’s right.” The author is showing Ruth doing these things, because she wants the readers to realize that they should stand up for themselves and what they believe in even if it is challenging.
One of the story plot was when ruth was in her bedroom and she was going through her twitter texts and then she sees the last one and it says shut up jew. She thinks about it and then talks about how she feels after that she decides to go to bed. Another of the story's plot is in a cafè the next morning with one of her friends and after they get there coffee ruth tells her friend about the message she got last night from the troll. Her response that they should do something about it is Ruth hands her friend her phone, then Ruth gives her friend the troll name and soon she unblockes the troll. Then they send him a response that says shut up troll; when they did that they also send it to all of Ruth’s twitter followers and that they should report him. After the text she got a lot of responses that said that they had blocked him, but later the same troll sent her a message that said “ can’t get rid of me that easily ''. At the same time the troll reposted it with 430,000 other people and they all sent her pictures of people in concentration camps and that is when Ruth decided to get off of twitter for a while. ``Shut up jew my stomach drops, throat tightens. The words stureme down shut up jew, shut up jew, shut up jew”. The author used this sentence to show discrimination and that is how ruth reacts to these three words. That is how Ruth reacts to those three words. The troll was trying to discriminate her with words. Later on she thinks about those three words again. shut up jew shut up jew shut up jew ruth kept repeating those words because none of her followers ever questioned her religion and now this person just sent starts saying stuff about ruth’s religion.
ReplyDeleteThis troll is trying to make Ruth feel discriminated against. That is why tih keeps repeating these words, no one has talked bad about her religion like that or treated her badly. Worst thing is ti;s because of her religion and that;s the only reason why they are doing it. One of Ruth's friends thought that the message was mean and she did some thing about it. To repeat discrimination is every whare and is still happening today the theme fro this story from whit I found.
“Ruth” is a short story by Laura Silverman That takes place on Ruth's phone and somewhat in her home-town. Ruth is a 17 year old book blogger, who is jewish. Ruth never thought her religion would make her an online target, but it did. Now Ruth is being targeted by an online troller who hates jews. At school two boys in the cafeteria mentioned some hurtful stereotypes about jews. Ruth did not stand up for herself then which later leads Ruth to fight back against the online troller. The author uses this to teach us lessons about how to stand up for ourselves; It takes courage to stand up for yourself.
ReplyDeleteRuth tweeted about the ban of letting jewish, and muslim couples adopt kids. Because there was an up-coming election she tweeted “#VoteThemOut”. This leads to a troller (or online bully) who finds out Ruth is jewish, and bullied her for it. This troller tweeted “Shut Up Jew.” Ruth blocked the troller, however he came back with a new account. He then tweeted “ Can’t get rid of me that easily k*ke” (k*ke is like the N word for jews). The next day at lunch Ruth overheard a couple of boys talking about how “Rich” jews are and that they make all their money in hollywood and keep it for themselves. Also, they should marry jewish girls. This Really got on Ruth’s nerves.
Daniel is an online friend of ruth. Daniel is an important character in the story because he pushes or encourages Ruth to send a huge paragraph on twitter to stand up for herself towards the online trollers. However this is after the two boys in the cafeteria earlier in the day were talking about how “”(boy 1) Jews make all that money in hollywood and keep it for themselves””(boy 2) Must be nice. Maybe I should marry a jewish girl one day””. The boys were being super stereotypical, when Ruth went to say something to her friend, her friend ignored her. This leads to a rush of anger by typing the huge paragraph against the trollers and to show the two boys from school what jews are really like. Nice, kind, thoughtful,and giving. Here you may think the theme of this short story is about being stereotypical however that is not the case the true theme is that it takes courage to stand up for yourself and here's why.
After the incident in the cafeteria, Ruth started feeling like she should stick up for herself. “I should have responded to Kaitlyn in the cafeteria today. I should have made her listen when I told her my parents didn’t work in hollywood, and I should have explained why the idea we all do feels insidious. And I should have asked her to stand up for and with me and confront those guys.” In this text the author used repetition to show the theme more. Ruth realises that she has been standing up for what's right when books show bad representations of things, and asks herself “”Why haven’t I been doing this for myself?””. As I have talked about the theme of this short story is -It takes courage to stand up for yourself-.
In the short story “Ruth” by Laura Silverman talks about how people online will/can target others who are different. Ruth was posting on Twitter and an anonymous person was posting mean stuff because she was Jewish. The theme is standing up for yourself, you need courage and thats exactly what Ruth did. Ruth explained herself publicly and showed how if you are different than someone, someone will treat you different. She stands up for herself against trolls that are saying Jewish and Muslim poeple shouldn’t be able to adopt kids. She made a new post about trolls and tags them all in her post. She started to post about feminist books on her vlogs before all this happened and all the trolls started coming in.
ReplyDeleteWhen she posted about the feminst books she started ti get a lot of comments. She hasn't read them yet so she said, “ I glow up with pride as all these comments pour in.” When she opened the comments she notices they were not nice at all.
One comment said “shut up Jew, Shut up Jew, Shut up Jew.” When she was reading the comments that were good or positive it made her feel bd and hurt inside. The author put the figurative language because it made the short story deep and very meaningful so everyone that read the story could feel how she was feeling.
“My skin crawls just reading it.” The author used this to show how the comments effected her. I believe this phrase means she feels really sad inside and makes her feel bad about who she is.
Certainly it could be said that the theme was racism. While this is a good point, it fails to recount for standing up for yourself. The theme would have been racism if she didn't stand up for herself but she did.
Even thought standing up for yourself is hard, 99% of the time it helps the situation you are in. It also could make you feel better for who you are.
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ReplyDelete“Ruth” by Laura Silverman is a short story that focuses on a Jewish girl named Ruth. Ruth has her own blog that she posts book reviews on. She has a twitter account and decides to post an article that her friend, daniel, sent to her. The article was about Georgia refusing to let Jewish and Muslim couples adopt children. Se tweets the link of the article and says, “Congress is trying to ban Jewish and Muslim couples from adopting babies! #VoteThemOut” A troll sees the post and says, “Shut up Jew” Her stomach drops, throat tightens.” The words stare her down and repeat over and over again in her head throughout the story, until the end when Ruth learns a lesson. I think the lesson of the story is to be courageous and stand up for yourself and others. Ruth was scared at first when the troll started commenting hateful things about Ruth being a Jew on her twitter, but by the end, she stands up for herself and what she believes in.
After Ruth reads the negative comment, it haunts her. The words “Shut up Jew” keep replaying in her head. Later on in the story, She decides to shut down her account. She remembers a book called Night by Elie Wiesel that she had read not too long ago. there was a quote that stuck with her ever since she read the book. “ neutrality how's the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the Tormentor, never the tormented.” Ruth starts thinking deeply about her decision to shut down her Twitter account. Was it the right choice?
Earlier in the story when Daniel sends an article to Ruth, the author uses personification. The author has Ruth say “ my skin crawls just reading it.” This connects to the theme of the story because her posting the article is when it all started, when the troll started attacking her online. Ruth's post about the article is the post that the troll wrote the horrifying comment to Ruth. Later on in the story, Ruth learns her lesson and is no longer afraid of the troll. This may be interpreted as “racism affects people” rather than “have courage and stand up for yourself and others” but the team isn't about racism the biggest lesson Ruth learns is to stand up for herself.
At the beginning of “Ruth”, when she reads the hate comment, the author uses imagery by having Ruth think, “ my stomach drops, throat tightens. The words stare me down.” Disconnect to the same because it shows how Ruth felt about comment when she first read it. it shows the big change from beginning to end.
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteThere are multiple events that happened throughout the story that connects to the theme. For example, when Ruth gets attacked she was terrified and decided to block the troll, but he came back and brought friends, so Ruth decided to shut down her account entirely. She then looked through a book called “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Define quote that she highlighted, circled, and starred. She finally realizes that she can't back down and let the trolls win. Ruth thinks “... I can't let them stay out there alone, saying these hateful and false things, without someone countering them. Because if they're the only voice out there, then they are right by default.” Ruth reactivates the account and tweets to her fans telling them what had happened and why she shut down her account. In the tweet, she also stands up for herself and all Jewish people. Ruth also includes the quote from “Night”
The author uses the characters to prove the seem too. For instance, Ruth, the author doesn't only write the dialogue between Ruth and the other characters, she also writes Ruth's thoughts. Ruth's thoughts let us understand how she feels. Some more examples are; Ruth blocking the troll out of fear in the words “Shut up Jew” replaying in her head. When the troll comes back she looks at their account and sees pictures of concentration camps, which freaks her out even more. Ruth gets overwhelmed with all the fear and shuts down her account, which she later realizes was a mistake the quote from “Night” and her friend Daniel give her courage inspires her to reactivate her account and post a tweet standing up for herself and other Jews. all of those examples connect to the theme because they show her journey to figuring out that silence is not going to help her and she needs to fight back because like Ruth said in the short story “ if they're the only boys out there than there are right by default”
At the end of the story, Ruth starts thinking more about her decision to shut down her Twitter account. She reads the quote from “night” the quote and her friend Daniel inspires her to stand up for herself and other Jews. Ruth changed quite a bit between the beginning and the end free. She goes from being scared to feeling powerful and hopeful.
Ruth is a short story by Laura Silverman. It takes place in our modern world on Ruth's cell phone on twitter. There is a quote that stood out to me “ Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented” because of the harassment for the internet trolls.
ReplyDeleteRuth smiles, glad to see Ruth spread the word Ruth puts her phone down when one message pings in it reads “Shut up Jew” this tweet bugged her over and over again getting into her head. Her stomach drops, throat tightens the word stared Ruth down. This is where she starts to stand up for herself. Later on in the story Ruth says I should have 4 times meaning she regrets something.
Later on Ruth mentions that she stands up for what’s right so why have I not been doing that for myself. This proves that she can stand up to harassment by herself with the help of a few of her friends and her feelings. She then has an author come into the situation about the internet trolls and the author helped her through those problems and helped her stand up for what’s right.
Ruth can help you stand up for yourself because it kinda puts you in that situation of what do I do vs. what I don’t do .In the story you had to look deep for the theme because it did not just jump out at you. Although the theme could be argued that its standing up for yourself I found the theme standing up to harassment because of her actions in the story.