What were the goals of reconstruction following the Civil War?Were these goals acomplished?

The goal, of President Lincoln and his supporters, was to rejoin all of the states to the Union and to help rebuild the "South".  Lincoln was going to grant amnesty to all that rejoined the Union without fear of punishment.  He was committed to following through with the Emancipation of the Slaves, and to make sure of their future in the United States of America.  Were these goals met?  It depends on which history book you read.  If you read a book published before 1960 then no the goals were not reached.  According to William Dunning’s late nineteenth-century theory:

"the failure of Reconstruction could be blamed on carpetbaggers, (Northerners who came south) scalawags (southern Republicans who supported the Union), and freed slaves."

However, if you were enrolled in school following 1965 your history books might follow the ideology of John Franklin, who believed the Reconstruction was more successful.

"Franklin’s perspective on Reconstruction was almost point-for-point the exact opposite of Dunning’s. While Franklin acknowledged that Radical Republican governments were often corrupt, he mostly defended the actions taken by freed blacks, southern white Republicans, and what he termed “so-called carpetbaggers.” "

The sort of people are Portia, Antonio, Bassanio, Shylock, Jessica at the beginning of the play? What caused the changes?

Of the five characters you mentioned, I would say all of them but Portia are dynamic.  It would be difficult to prove that Portia undergoes any significant changes.  At the beginning of Merchant, Portia is independent, wealthy, and clever.  She remains the same at the end of the play.  The other four characters change in the following ways:

-Antonio begins the play as a melancholy, wealthy merchant.  He is arrogant, insulting, but blindly loyal to his friend (Bassanio). Shakespeare never explains Antonio's depression from the beginning of the play, but it seems that Antonio ends the play still in a somber mood. After his near-death experience, thought, I believe that Antonio has been humbled and would be more careful about whom he chooses to do business.  The extent of Antonio's change depends upon the play director's interpretation of Antonio's courtroom scene.  By reading the play, I think that Shakespeared intended for Antonio to come across as a clever businessman who "resentences" Shylock not to show mercy or sympathy, but rather because his sentence benefits Antonio.  In that sense, Antonio is not a very different character at the end of the play.  But, if one sees Antonio's new sentence for Shylock as being merciful and almost an apology on Antonio's part, then he/she could argue that Antonio has become less prejudice because he realizes what his insults toward Shylock have done.

-Bassanio matures quite a bit throughout the play.  He begins as a fun-loving, likeable, free-spending young man.  But, because of what he puts his close friend Antonio through, he develops into a more responsible and thoughtful husband and friend.

-Jessica begins the play as a rather rebellious, wild daughter. As the reality of what she has done to her father and in turn what he has done to others, she is not quite so resentful toward him at the play's end. While she still loves Lorenzo, her speeches, especially in Act 5, demonstrate that she thinks somewhat like her father and might feel some regret for leaving him in the manner that she did.

-Shylock undergoes the most change.  At the beginning of the play, he is a cutthroat businessman. After his humiliating defeat during the trial, he leaves the Duke's Palace, a humbled, sick old man.  His change is the result of his insistence on exacting the letter of the law and then having the letter of the law thrown at him.

What did the family have to do in order for Gabriel to be allowed a second year of Nurturing in "The Giver"?

In order for Gabriel to be allowed a second year of Nurturing, "each family member, including Lily, had been required to sign a pledge that they would not become attached to (him), and that they would relinquish him without protest or appeal when he was assigned to his own family unit at next year's Ceremony". 

As a result of Father's "plea", Gabriel "had been labeled "Uncertain" and given the additional year".  Gabriel was small for his age, and had trouble sleeping through the night.  Ordinarily, a child who could not adjust in this manner would be "labeled inadequate and released from the community". 

Father, as one of the Nurturers at the Center, had taken a special interest in the little boy.  He had been bringing Gabriel home with him at night to see if he could help the child adjust more quickly, and had gone before the committee to petition on his behalf.  Surprisingly, Father's request had been considered and granted; Gabriel had been allowed a second year of Nurturing.  During this time he would continue to be nurtured at the Center during the day, and would spend his nights with Jonas's family.  It was hoped that with this arrangement, Jonas and his family could give Gabriel the special help he needed to gain weight and learn to sleep soundly enough at night to enable him to be placed in his own family unit (Chapter 6).

What is the summary for Chapter 24 of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?This chapter is titled "Valentine Heart".

A few days after Valentine's Day, Junior's Dad's best friend Eugene is shot in the face in a fight over a bottle of wine.  His death comes right on the heels of the passing of Junior's Grandmother.  To deal with their grief, Junior's Dad goes on a drinking binge, and his Mom goes to church.  To Junior, everything on the reservation seems to be about "booze and God, booze and God", and he feels helpless and stupid, and angry, especially at God.

Gordy shows Junior a book written by Euripides, from the play Medea.  Junior is especially impressed by a line that says, "What greater grief than the loss of one's native land?"  Junior realizes that this is what has happened to the Indians.  They have LOST EVERYTHING...(their) native land...languages...songs and dances...each other".  Junior reads on that Medea was so distraught that she "murdered her own kids", and he understands how she could have felt that way.

After missing fifteen or twenty days of school, Junior returns to Reardan, where his social studies teacher mocks him for all his absences.  Junior is too broken to fight back, but his classmates are furious for him.  Beginning with Gordy, they stand up one by one, drop their textbooks on the floor, and walk out in protest.  Despite the fact that they leave him behind in the classroom, Junior is buoyed by their support.  Before, he had believed that the world was divided by race, or by culture, but now he knows there are only "two tribes...the people who are assholes and the people who are not".

Junior begins to make lists, looking for "the little pieces of joy in (his) life".  This becomes his "grieving ceremony" (Chapter 24).

What are the similarities between "The Cast Of the Amontillado", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Masque of the Red Death"?

All three stories deal with untimely death, premature burial, and the grotesque. In Cask A man tricks a rival into a crypt and seals him alive within the walls.

The Tell-Tale Heart shows a man killing an older man (he is bothered by the man's eye) and confessing when he still hears the man's heartbeat under the floorboards.

Masque is a bit different, but there are still some threads to draw from; a prince has gathered all his loyal subjects to his castle to party and wait out the death that is sweeping the countryside. The death still comes, however, and all inside die horribly, entombed within the stone walls forever.

So, in the end, people die unnaturally in all three works.

How does Thomas Paine use religion to argue against King George to appeal to the colonist?

In "Common Sense," Thomas Paine argues against monarchy, as an unnatural position that man has presumed to acquire but is not granted by God.  The exalting of one man over others is not a God given right, it is not supported by scripture so he says it cannot be defended by scripture.

According to Thomas Paine, mankind is equal through the process of creation, a process that is of God.

"But there is another and great distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS."

Paine argues that the creation of kings comes from a heathen origin, it is a tool of the Devil to place ordinary men in positions to be revered as idols on earth when there is only one King, God who resides in heaven.  It is a dangerous practice and considered a flaw or a sin of the early Jewish people to have an earthly king revered and equated with God Almighty.

Monarchy, therefore, argues Paine, is an institution that needs to be abolished as a means of restoring the natural order of existence so determined by God which includes freedom.

Freedom is a God given right, it is government's job to protect that freedom, to secure it, not to diminish it, redefine it or otherwise alter it.  Paine passionately argues that it is necessary for the colonists to separate from England and govern themselves, to rid themselves of a monarch.  God, he says put a great distance between what some believe is the mother country and the colonies, this is proof that England should not interfere with this promised land that God provided.

" Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the one over the other, was never the design of Heaven."  

In To Kill a Mockingbird, how does Atticus explain Boo Radley to Jem and Scout? What do Jem and Scout learn from what he has said?Please leave...

Atticus' most famous quote is "You really never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."  Atticus told her this in chapter 3 referring to her teacher, but Scout applies it to Boo in the final chapter as she's on his porch.

When the kids get caught trying to give Boo a letter (with the fishing pole) Atticus says about that and their play that they keep putting on for the neighborhood, "You stop this nonsense right now, every one of you."  From that point on, the kids don't enact the play any more.  The only thing they do is try to sneak a peak in Boo's back window, but they don't pester him again. 

In chapter 11 Atticus tells them, "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."  This is applying at the time to Mrs. Dubose.  However, it also applies to Boo and how he stepped out and saved them, even though he doesn't leave the house.  He did it for them. That was true courage.