I need help understanding the structure and interpretation of Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender - January (Ianuarye).

The genre of the poem is a pastoral complaint. It is pastoral because it shows a glimpse of a shepherd's life in the open pasture land. It reveals a very romanticized vision of his life as he tends his sheep. It is romanticized, including his love "complainte," because the character, Colin Cloute, cares for sheep, plays his pipe, and calls upon a Greek Muse and Greek gods. for aide in unrequited love

Ye gods of loue, that pitie louers payne,  [...]
And Pan thou shepheards God, that once didst loue,  [...]
Both pype and Muse, shall sore the while abye. ....

It is a "complainte" because he is unhappy in love and is complaining to the gods, through the inspiration of a Muse, about his broken heart and unrequited love. One thing that makes this poem hard to understand is that Spenser, a contemporary of Shakespeare and Marlowe, opts to write in Middle English as Chaucer did. Thus we have sentences like these:

when Winters wastful spight [spite] was almost spent,  [...]
hat now vnnethes [scarcely] their feete could them vphold.

"January" is structured in sestet stanzas of six lines each. The rhyme scheme is ababcc. Though each stanza has a new set of rhymes, each stanza follows a sestet ababcc rhyme scheme. Examples of some stanzaic rhymes are (1) call, spent, befall, ypent, folde, uphold and (2) lost, bowre, frost, flowre, raine, remaine.

The central character is Colin Cloute, and he loves Rosalinde. But, alas and alack, she loves him not. Thus it is that one cold winter day, just past the worst of winter, "when Winters wastful spight was almost spent," Colin let his sheep out, after their being "long ypent," and sat with his pipe and complained to the Gods of Rosalinde's winter-cold heart. In the end, Colin breaks his pipe, a symbol of and metaphor for his broken heart, leaves it there, and takes his sheep home under the mantle of darkness:

So broke his oaten pype, and downe dyd lye.
[...]
Arose, and homeward drove his sonned sheepe,
Whose hanging heads did seeme his carefull [woeful] case to weepe.

Colin's story graces "January" because of Rosalinde's cold-heartedness. Her love toward Colin is as frozen as the winter month. Nonetheless, there is a glint of hope for Colin because the winter cold is turning; this is why he brought his sheep out to graze. Since this is true, perhaps Rosalinde's heart may also melt over time. The woodcut that graced Spenser's Shepheardes Calender series shows Colin under a barren tree with his broken pipe at his feet and his sheep--a symbol of hopeful love-- facing him but behind him.

What are some of the words Dickens uses to create the mood of the paragraphs 79-83 in Stave 4? What is this mood?

The Phantom, the Ghost "whose province was the Future" allows Scrooge to see his room plundered by the rag pickers; there on the bare, uncurtained bed his body lies "gereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for."  Then, it as though Scrooge hears a message which tells him that the dead man would be untouched by "dreadful Death" if he had been kind and generous, for he would be long remembered by those he loved.  These loved ones would "sow the world with life immortal."

Words such as the "loved, revered, and honoured head" suggest that even though dead, the man would not be remembered as "odious."  Instead, people would remember that "the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heat brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's."  In other words, the man would live in the hearts of those whom he loved and those who love him.  The mood of these words is one of warmth, a warmth that offers consolation.

As Scrooge looks again at the image of his corpse, he perceives a cat scratching and rats gnawing.  The miser realizes that his body will be ravaged by scavenger animals if no one cares for him.  Shuddering at this thought, Scrooge asks the Spirit to remove him from such a "fearful place."  He tells the Phantom that he will leave, but not forgot its lessons.

Does any punishment exist that is suitable for Keller's crime?

Joe Keller exacts the ultimate punishment on himself, he commits suicide.  He is driven by his own guilt over the loss of not only his son, Larry, but the other pilots that died.  Therefore, Joe, who is consumed with guilt and shame, commits a horrible act, shooting himself. 

In my view, Joe Keller has suffered, even before he commits suicide, because he knows that he is a fraud.  He has set up Steve Deever to take the blame for his crime, and lives with this knowledge day in day out.  When Ann Deever comes for a visit, Joe's sense of guilt is heightened.  He starts talking about Steve, telling Ann that he wants her father to know that he will have a job waiting for him when he gets out of prison. 

Keller, by the time he decides to take his life, has been punished with the reaction of his outraged, and disturbed wife, the anger of George Deever, and most of all, the loss of Chris's love and respect. 

Joe Keller has received the ultimate punishment, he lost everything that mattered in life, then he surrenders his life.

What connections between education and freedom does Douglass make in his narrative?

In Chapter Six, Douglass is staying with the Aulds.  Sophia Auld, initially a kind woman, starts to teach him how to read.  Mr. Auld stops the lessons as soon as he realizes what is going on.  He says that teaching a slave to read would spoil the slave (he doesn't use those exact words...).

Douglass realizes that since Mr. Auld doesn't want him to learn to read, he determines to do so.  He finds school copy-books and secretly traces the words inside it.  He finds poor white boys and bribes them with bread in order to teach him how to read.  He finds a copy of The Columbian Orator and begins to read it.  The book contains a famous speech between a master and a slave, in which the master lists the reasons that slavery is justified and the slave refutes each and every one.  The speech moves Douglass emotionally.

After he has learned to read, Douglass realizes that the slaveholders do not teach their slaves to read because it is only then that the slave can realize just how unfair their lot is.  He starts reading abolitionist newspapers.  Douglass experiences an existential crisis because he realizes that while learning to read has set his mind free, he is still a slave, and that he wishes that he were uneducated again, because he believes his plight is worse off than an uneducated slave.

In The Kite Runner, what lessons did Amir learn about life and humanity by the end of the book?

Amir learns through experience that life is, as playwright Thornton Wilder once wrote, "a terrible, wonderful thing." For instance, Amir suffers as he watches his father die of cancer, but his life is deeply enriched by his marriage and Soraya's abiding love for him. Throughout his life, Amir has observed human behavior, including his own. He has witnessed courage and cowardice, as well as selfishness and sacrifice. In returning to Afghanistan, he experienced the tyranny of corrupt power as exercised by the Taliban and the desperation of the powerless under their rule.

Amir's most profound insight, however, concerns the basic nature of human beings, including himself. Amir learns that people are flawed creatures--even Baba, whom Amir had always viewed as being beyond reproach. In discovering that Hassan, too, was Baba's son, Amir gains an understanding of his father as a man, not an icon. This knowledge makes it easier for Amir to accept himself, including his own flaws. 

The most affirming truth that Amir realizes, the one that enables him to achieve self-respect, is that human beings can be redeemed through courage, integrity, endurance, sacrifice, and wisdom. In returning to Afghanistan to save Sohrab, Amir saves himself.

Could I have a summary of the play "Riders To The Sea"?

The following links will guide you through the characters and summary very easily.  In a nutshell, the play is about a mother who has lost all of the men in her life.  She lost her husband, her father-in-law, 4 of her 6 sons, and the last two end up drowning as well in the course of the play.  She has lost them all to the sea, and tries to keep the youngest from leaving her, knowing she will have to fend for herself and her two daughters.  He goes anyway and ends up being knocked into the sea by his pony.  The daughters are the ones who find the drowned brothers and help to tell the story from outside the mother's point of view.

In "The Lady of Shalott", what does the Lady spend her time doing?

The lady spends her time weaving a tapestry.  She cannot look directly out the window, so instead she looks at the reflection of the items outside in a mirror.  Eventually she sees Sir Lancelot, and falls in love with him, but he does not know who she is. When she realizes that she cannot look out the window, she decides to put herself in a boat and float to her death.

On a side note, if you like this poem, you should read Meg Cabot's novel, Avalon High.