Analysis Of Waiting For Superman

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The documentary Waiting for Superman(2010) directed by Davis Guggenheim and the picture book The story of Ruby Bridges(1995) written by Robert Coles and illustrated by George Ford presents the idea of the American School system. The documentary scrutinizes the failures of the public education system in America by following several students as they strive to be accepted into a charter school, while the picture book shows the determination of a young girl as she thrives to receive proper education despite the racial inequality that she is facing. The readers are positioned to react in a positive manner. Despite the fact that both texts share the main idea of the school system in America, the ideas revolving around the main idea are presented…show more content…
The technical convention of close-up shots is used to show the importance of education through the facial expressions which show desperation, anger and joy of the families of children applying for charter schools. During the final scenes of the documentary, we learn that some children were accepted and some were not. This makes the reader sympathize with the children who were not accepted. The symbolic convention of body language is used to show the importance of education through Ruby’s actions in the isolated classroom. On the seventh page of the book, Ruby is focused on doing her work in an isolated classroom; Ruby seemed to ignore the fact that she was isolated and fully immersed herself in her textbooks. This makes the reader react with admiration due to the fact that she values education highly to the extent that she does not care about not having friends. Based on these two texts, we can see that the documentary represents education as the only key to a better future, while in the picture book, education is treated as a step to encourage racial equality and a new change to the racially segregated society of America in the 60s. From this, we can see that both texts convey the idea of education in different

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