In Katherine Paterson's Lyddie, which ethnic group is receiving most employment at the Concord Corporation?

More and more Irish immigrants are coming to work at the Concord Corporation. The factory likes being able to hire the Irish because they don't room in the company boarding houses, so the company saves money by employing them. Even very young children from Irish families work at the Concord Corporation; children as young as seven or eight years old work as doffers.

The Irish families live in a very poor part of town called the Acre, where their homes are nothing more than shacks, despite the fact that the immigrants tend to have large families with up to a dozen children. The Irish are looked down upon because of their poverty, their poor dress, their body odor, their language, and their religion. Lyddie thinks of them as "papists"--meaning that they are Catholic rather than Protestant--a derogatory term Lyddie uses even though she herself is not particularly religious.

Lyddie at first has very little patience for training Brigid, her Irish coworker, not only because she doesn't want to decrease her own production at the factory, but also because she harbors prejudices against her ethnicity. She doesn't like the thought of placing her mouth over the hole of the quill where Brigid has put her mouth. In fact, Lyddie does end up getting sick, presumably from Brigid, whose mother is very ill. This shows how the immigrant population was more prone to illness because of the relative squalor in which they lived. When Lyddie visits Brigid's home after Lyddie gets dismissed, she finds the home to be messy and smelly with only beds to sit on. 

The novel reflects the historical reality of the influx of Irish immigrants during the potato famine from 1845 to 1855. The immigrants lived in slum-like areas of cities, especially in the manufacturing towns of the Northeast. Although they faced extreme discrimination at first, they soon assimilated into American society and became valued members in the same way Brigid shows herself to be a valuable friend to Lyddie. Education helped the Irish families rise out of poverty, and in 1960 the great-grandson of an Irish immigrant who had fled the potato famine, John F. Kennedy, became President of the United States.

Zaroff especially welcomes rainford because the general-

Zaroff especially welcomes Rainsford because the general looks forward to the challenge that hunting Rainsford will pose. 

Zaroff is aware of Rainsford's reputation as a hunter. When Rainsford arrives at Zaroff's chateau, Zaroff tells him:

"Perhaps," said General Zaroff, "you were surprised that I recognized your name. You see, I read all books on hunting published in English, French, and Russian. I have but one passion in my life, Mr. Rainsford, and it is the hunt."

He is aware that Rainsford is a talented hunter and will be a challenge for him. To this point, Zaroff has been hunting sailors that become shipwrecked on his island (by his own design). He complains to Rainsford that they do not challenge him.  He is able to kill them too easily, and as a result, he is suffering from boredom.  Being bored by the activity that was once his passion is greatly unsettling.  Hunting Rainsford, who will be difficult to kill because he knows all the strategies and tools of a skilled hunter,  gives him hope that he will restore his passion for the hunt.

In "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, how does she use syntax to create an effect?

Syntax is the study of the rules used to form accepted language. It includes the study and use of clauses, phrases, sentences structure, and the arrangement of words.

In “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid the reader experiences one long run-on sentence mostly spoken by a mother giving her daughter directions on how to live her life. The daughter is only allowed to interject or provide an answer a few times. Kincaid does this to make it clear that the mother is the authority figure in the situation and the daughter is subordinate.Most of the sentence is written in the imperative, explicitly tell the girl what to do and what not to do. The mother covers subjects from personal care, to home care, to growing food. Kincaid also makes use of repetition in the phrases that make up the instructions to her daughter. Again, these repetitions provide points of emphasis. When the daughter does answer a question her comments are over-ridden by the mother. Only at the very end, when the daughter questions if the baker will allow her to squeeze the bread, does the mother answer her with a question of her own. The question that she throws back at her daughter seems to say, “Have you been listening to what I have been saying?”

Kincaid breaks the accepted rules of syntax in the English language with the run-on sentence that gives the piece its lyrical quality that is found in the language of the West Indies.

What main elements of "The Way To Rainy Mountain" by N. Scott Momaday could focus on if I were to make a presentation about it?

My suggestion would be that you do your presentation on the organization of The Way to Rainy Mountain so that your fellow students can better understand it. Of course, organization also has to do with language (which is Momaday's true subject matter here). 

For example, you could begin by discussing the three major parts of the work, how they are important, and how they are in themselves examples of parallelism: "The Setting Out," "The Going On," and "The Closing In." Each of the major parts in The Way to Rainy Mountain is further divided further into twenty-four numbered sections. Each of those sections is further divided into three voices: one about myth, one about history, and one about personal experience.

It is through these voices that Momaday tells the Kiowa story through language. You can connect language with the Kiowa tribe with this quotation:

A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.

If you choose to go further into the story than the organization and its importance to language and the Kiowa tribe, you could talk a lot about Momaday's own grandmother, Aho, who experienced many of the tribal rituals. A dramatic interpretation of one of these rituals might be an interesting way to begin or to end your presentation.

In The Sign Of The Beaver, how did Matt feel about the loss of the rifle?

When a stranger requests to spend the night at the cabin alone with Matt, he is justifiably uneasy. The thought crosses his mind to stay awake to protect the cabin and the family heirloom gun that his father left with him. However, Matt ends up falling asleep.

In the morning he feels horrified to find that his father's gun has disappeared along with the stranger. Matt's horror, coupled with guilt that the gun his father cherished has disappeared under his care, consume him. Not only is the gun irreplaceable and belonged to his ancestor, it was one of Matt's main tools for procuring food and staying safe. Without it, Matt feels vulnerable to the dangerous animals or humans that might appear and to the need to find food to sustain him.

What is the significance of the narrator decorating her room with "fancy" things and attempting to separate her space from her brothers

The story Boys and Girls is about a young girl who refuses to accept that boys have a certain role in life and girls have a very different role. She refuses to do kitchen work and would rather feed the animals and do work around the farm that society deemed "men's work" at the time. She fought against the gender roles society forced on her until she finally gives in and accepts her role in society.

When she changes the room, this signifies that she has given up fighting and accepted the role society thrust upon women of those times. She adds the "fancy" items in her room and wants to be away from her brother, because she has accepted that they are different and she doesn't want to feel like he is watching her in her room anymore. Even her dreams change from being the hero to being the princess who needs to be saved. So the changes to her room signify the fact that she has officially fallen into the role her mother and grandmother wanted for her.

For more information check out the link.

How do Don Pedro, Leonato, and Claudio trick Benedick into loving Beatrice?

In Act II, Scene 3, of Much Ado About Nothing, Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato successfully “trick” Benedick into falling in love with Beatrice. Benedick has “railed so long against marriage,” including marriage to Beatrice. However, his three friends quite easily make him fall for Beatrice by pretending that Beatrice is in love with him. They make sure that Benedick is around to hear their staged conversation, which they pretend to speak in secret.

The men claim that Beatrice pines for Benedick but will never show her affection for him because he is so critical of women and marriage. They insist on keeping the secret because Benedick would “make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse,” further convincing Benedick that this is a clandestine conversation. Don Pedro expresses his admiration for Beatrice, likely inspiring jealousy in Benedick. The men also attempt to explain why Beatrice treats Benedick so harshly:

… she says she will die, if he love her not, and she will die, ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness.

Benedick very quickly decides to fall in love with Beatrice. Of course, there are some hints at an affection between the two. They are very familiar with each other, for Beatrice says to Benedick, “I know you of old.” He also randomly protests against marrying her when no one suggests it to him, indicating that it is somehow on his mind, and he finds her much more beautiful than Hero, the object of Claudio’s love. Therefore, the three men perhaps do not so much as trick Benedick into loving Beatrice as force him to admit his feelings for her.