How would you make a family tree for Across Five Aprils?Our class just finished reading Across Five Aprils. We have to make a family tree for...

The book does not include a family tree as such; that is something you will have to put together yourself.  I am assuming that your assignment is to make a family tree for the Creighton family, and to do this you would have to start with a list including the names of each member of the family, and organize them by generation.

At the top of your family tree, you would have Matthew and Ellen Creighton.  Matthew and Ellen each have at least one sibling, who can be put on the same line with them, since they belong to the same generation.  Matthew's sibling gave birth to Eb Carron, who would be on the second line of the tree with the Creighton children, the next generation.  In like manner, Ellen's sister had a son, Wilse Graham.  Wilse would belong on the same line as Eb Carron and the Creighton children as well.

Matthew and Ellen Creighton have a total of nine children, four of whom are dead and buried on Walnut Hill at the beginning of the story.  All of these children, living and dead, would appear on the same line as Eb and Wilse on the family tree.  Although their birth order is not specifically stated, it appears that either John or Mary is the oldest Creighton child.  Mary, a beautiful young lady, was killed two years back in a tragic accident.  John, the eldest son, is married to Nancy, whose name would be placed next to his on the family tree.  Below them would be their two children, a boy and a girl, the only ones belonging to the next generation in the family.

Bill Creighton would probably come next after John and Mary, followed by Tom, who, like his cousin Eb, is eighteen when the story begins.  Following Tom would be Jenny, who is born four years after Tom, and when she marries Shadrach Yale, his name would be added next to hers.  Following Jenny, I believe, are three little boys, all of whom died of polio the year Jethro was born.  One of the boys' names is Nate, the others, I don't think, are given.  Finally, there is Jethro himself, the youngest of the Creighton children, who is nine when the story begins.

How long did Shakespeare live?

I do not mean to be contradictory, but there are many modern scholars (S. Greenblatt, R.A. Cohen, etc.) who believe that Shakespeare was really more middle-aged, as he would have been if he were a playwright of today. Because it is based on an AVERAGE, the measurement for determining Elizabethan (or Jacobean) lifespans is a little skewed when it comes to determining whether 52 years was "old." The evidence actually suggests that 52 was not old for men of this period of time.

Yes, the AVERAGE age has been calculated to be in the mid-30's, but, remember that an average is taken from the entire pool of the population, which included a high level of mortality at an early age. The *average* was relatively short due to disease, dangerous times, etc. Consider that most children did not survive to adulthood; many young men were killed in dangerous occupations; the plague(s) would wipe out huge portions of the population.

But, the longer men and women survived these "unnatural" causes of death, the longer they lived -- those who survived would live to ages comparable to modern life-spans.

Shakespeare survived many plagues, he survived the rough streets of Southwark, he survived his long "commutes" to Stratford. And there is no conclusive evidence that he could not have easily survived another 20 years. He was considered middle-aged by even his contemporaries.

If you need some concrete references, let me know.

I want to know about literary devices of "The Kitten" by Richard Wright.

The scene where Richard kills the kitten serves mostly to introduce the conflict between characters, Richard and his father. Trying to sleep so he can rest up for his job as a night porter, his father yells to the boys to kill the noisy kitten. This, of course, is not taken to be literally but Richard's act of defiance is precisely in this act of failing or being unwilling to interpret his father's words. He kills the kitten.

The situation is really amoral, neither good nor bad in itself because on the one hand Richard followed his father's command, but on the other hand he killed. The scene illustrates the conflict between characters in power and Richard himself, a tension that will follow him throughout the narrative. The death of the kitten also symbolizes the realm of the unspoken and the failure to look for deeper meaning.

How can the plot and structure of the story be analyzed in terms of the main character?This question defintely confused me. I haven't the slightest...

The main character would be Mrs. Hale.  We see everything through her eyes.  At the beginning of the story, she is dragged from her kitchen, and we are informed of how frustrating it is to her to leave things unfinished.  This "unfinished" theme becomes part of the evidence that proves that Minnie killed her husband.  We see through Mrs. Hale's eyes how her kitchen is messy, how her stitches are crooked in her quilting, and how the bird cage is empty. 

Along with Mrs. Hale is the sheriff's wife, Mrs. Peters.  Although Mrs. Peters wants to follow the law, like her husband does, she also feels what Mrs. Hale feels about what Minnie's husband has done to her over the years of their marriage.  The story is built around Mrs. Hale's observations and how she convinces Mrs. Peters that they should keep the evidence to themselves. They even do away with the evidence so that the men can't prove Minnie killed her husband. 

Without Mrs. Hale, we never would have noticed things like uneven stitching or messy kitchens or empty birdcages.  The men would never have noticed them as evidence, either.  However, Mrs Hale provides us with such insight so that we can find the killer as easily as she did.  Yet, with her compassion for Minnie, and who she's become in her misery, we agree with the women's decision to keep the information from the men and let Minnie walk free.

Why does Lord of the Flies begin with making friends and end in death and violence?What do you think are the main reasons for this change and what...

In the second link it explains how thoughts were changed after WWII.  Before the violence of the war, most believed in the goodness of people and the world.  However, after the war, Golding had a completely different viewpoint.  The destruction and violence brought on by the war gave us a new concept:

"The prevailing concept of man and society included two basic viewpoints: man was essentially good and society was inherently evil."

This explains your question quite well.  In the beginning, the boys all got to know one another and after establishing some rules and a leader, things were going pretty well.  In the beginning, each boy showed good traits.  Ralph led to the best interest of everyone, Piggy was helpful with his scientific knowledge, and Simon was always willing to help out wherever he could. Yet, they all fell victim to the evils of mankind.  Jack and Roger represented the evil (in different ways). Their tribe evolved into a violent machine. It ended up killing Simon and Piggy.  It would have killed Ralph had they had enough time.  So Golding is showing that although man (each boy individually) has the capacity to be good, society (their tribe) was inherently evil. We see this today in mobs of people.  Individually, people are good.  However, once a big group gets together with a common goal, violence can occur and things can go horribly wrong.

What do you think makes one liquid more dense than another?I'm trying to find a liquid that I havent yet identified (color green) with a density of...

Density is defined as mass per unit volume (D=m/v). The standard against which liquid densities are compared is of course water, with a density of about 1 g/ml.  Something more dense than water has more of its molecules (mass) packed into a given space (volume); something less dense is just the opposite, having a lesser number of molecules in a given space.  Since by experiment, you've got an unknown liquid with a density 1.0028 g/ml, round the number to 1.003 and compare with known values in your textbook.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, what "trick" does Atticus teach Scout about getting along with people?

Atticus taught her that you never really know a person until you "climb into their skin" and walk around in it.  In other words, you've got to climb into their shoes and see things from their perspective.  By teaching her how to understand the views of others, Atticus is preparing her to understand life in a unique and mature way.

This is particularly important considering the drama that will begin to unfold in the town as Tom Robinson's trial takes place.  People who Scout thought were good will go "stark-raving mad" when the trial begins, because it involves race at the core of the subject matter. 

Sterotypically, the South has always had race problems.  While it is true that a lot of documented racial persecution and strife has taken place in the Southern United States, it is also true that all areas experience some sort of racial tubulance from time to time.  This is important to note as one reads the story, so as to avoid forming a negative opinion of the South as a whole.  Atticus even tries to explain that the people are genuinely good, but when race becomes an issue, their perspective changes nearly 100%.