Based on the prescribed theory studied, evaluate whether adult learning is “part” of HRD or an academic discipline on its own. Why do you, as an HRD student, need to have knowledge of adult learning?

"Adult learning" is a general term that could entail many specific educational models such as adult "continuing education" programs offered by universities and community colleges, as well as trade or technical schools.
In the context of Human Resources Development, adult learning could be seen as a subcategory within the field of HRD. Contemporary human resources development encapsulates various subfields such as education and training of employees.
Since today's economy and job market requires education attainment as a parameter or qualification for employment, it would be easy to assume that adult learning should be part of human resources development.
Adult learning is already a subfield within the broader education field and therefore it arguably does not need to be a discipline of its own. However, adult learning, along with the psychology subfields that analyze learning mechanisms of adults, should be studied by HRD students.
It is important for HRD students to understand the various levels of education that employees attain and that employers or organizations seek. Learning this subfield will also allow HRD students to evaluate the skills of the employees.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ983774.pdf

What are the character traits of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet? Provide textual evidence.

In Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Romeo goes on an emotional journey from a shallow, irresponsible, love-struck teenager to a more mature, deeply passionate, and compassionate young man.
Romeo is ordinarily level-headed, thoughtful, and relatively mature (for a teenager), as evidenced in his attempt to reason with Tybalt to avoid fighting him.

ROMEO: Tybalt, the reason that I have to love theeDoth much excuse the appertaining rageTo such a greeting. Villain am I none.Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.
TYBALT: Boy, this shall not excuse the injuriesThat thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.
ROMEO: I do protest I never injur'd thee,But love thee better than thou canst deviseTill thou shalt know the reason of my love;And so good Capulet, which name I tenderAs dearly as mine own, be satisfied. [3.1.61–71]

To mediate between the two hotheads, Tybalt and Mercutio, Romeo says the following:

ROMEO: Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
MERCUTIO: Come, sir, your passado!
They fight.
ROMEO: . . . Gentlemen, for shame! forbear this outrage!Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hathForbid this bandying in Verona streets.Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio! [3.1.82–88]

Romeo also takes responsibility for Mercutio's death after his ill-advised and ill-timed intervention in Mercutio's sword-fight with Tybalt.

ROMEO: This gentleman, the Prince's near ally,My very friend, hath got this mortal hurtIn my behalf . . . [3.1.109–111]

Tomeo is deeply concerned about Juliet after his banishment, and when she learns that he killed Tybalt, he says,

ROMEO: Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?Doth not she think me an old murderer,Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joyWith blood remov'd but little from her own?Where is she? and how doth she? and what saysMy conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love? [3.3.97–102]

Romeo is changeable, sometimes from moment to moment. At the start of the play, Romeo is lovesick for Rosaline.

ROMEO: The all-seeing sunNe'er saw her match since first the world begun. [1.2 96–97]

That is, right up until the moment he falls in love with Juliet at first sight:

ROMEO: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. [1.5.46–55]

Interestingly, Romeo's language takes on greater maturity after he meets Juliet.
Talking about Rosaline, Romeo's language is far more artificial and superficial than when he talks about Juliet, from expressions of utter rejection and over-the-top despair at his unrequited love for Rosaline...

ROMEO: Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast . . .Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs . . .Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers’ tears.What is it else? A madness most discreet,A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.Farewell, my coz. . . .She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,To merit bliss by making me despair.She hath forsworn to love, and in that vowDo I live dead that live to tell it now. [1.1 186-194, 223-226]

...To a more mature, more passionate—and more poetic—love for Juliet...

ROMEO: But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,Who is already sick and pale with griefThat thou her maid art far more fair than she . . .Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,Having some business, do entreat her eyesTo twinkle in their spheres till they return . . .The brightness of her cheek would shame those starsAs daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heavenWould through the airy region stream so brightThat birds would sing and think it were not night . . .With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;For stony limits cannot hold love out,And what love can do, that dares love attempt. [2.2.2-6, 15–22, 70–72]

Romeo is impetuous. His impetuous and sometimes rash behavior is evident throughout the play, from the time he first trespasses on Capulet property to see Juliet to when he marries Juliet just one day after their first meeting. As he tells Friar Laurence,

ROMEO: Then plainly know my heart's dear love is setOn the fair daughter of rich Capulet;As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,And all combin'd, save what thou must combineBy holy marriage. When, and where, and howWe met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,That thou consent to marry us to-day. [2.3.58–65]

Later, Romeo pulls his dagger and contemplates suicide when the Nurse tells him that Juliet is distraught because he killed Tybalt.

ROMEO: As if that name,Shot from the deadly level of a gun,Did murder her; as that name's cursed handMurdered her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,In what vile part of this anatomyDoth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sackThe hateful mansion.Draws his dagger. [3.3.107–113]

He drinks a vial of poison when he mistakenly believes that Juliet is dead:

ROMEO: . . . Here's to my love! Drinks. O true apothecary!Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [5.3.199–120]

Yet after fatally wounding Paris at Juliet's tomb, and even in the depths of his own grief in believing that Juliet is dead, Romeo compassionately fulfills Paris's dying wish.

PARIS: . . . If thou be merciful,Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.Dies.
ROMEO: In faith, I will. . . .I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave. [5.3 72–83]

Read the passage that begins "Yes, Miss Louisa—they always remind me of stutterings" and ends "'Merrylegs;' she whispered the awful fact; 'is his performing dog'" (book 1, chapter 9). How does Dickens make the extract a moving one?

Dickens makes this passage a moving one by focusing on Sissy Jupe as an emotional being. In the Gradgrind world of utilitarianism and rationality that she has entered, Sissy thinks primarily with her heart and her imagination, and though the school has already taught her that this is very, very wrong, she fails at aligning herself with its way of thinking. By the time we are done with this passage, we, as readers with hearts, are on her side.
In this passage, she is speaking with Louisa about the problems in school that make her "low spirited." She has already revealed her empathy with the starving, and now she tells Lousia that she gave the wrong answer when she was asked at school to provide the percentage if "only" five hundred people of a hundred thousand died at sea. She replies with the answer, "nothing." She is thinking with her heart, not her head, because by "nothing" she means that cold percentages mean nothing at all to the heart-broken relatives of the people who were killed. In making statements like that, Sissy is unwittingly showing the hard-heartedness of Gradgrind's "greatest good for the greatest number" utilitarian philosophy. She is pointing out the weakness of utilitarianism, which is that it cuts the human sympathy and imagination out of life. Sissy, part of the magical and imaginative world of the circus, places putting herself into the skin and heart of people who are suffering ahead of treating them as statistics.
Louisa goes on in this passage to coax out of Sissy the story of her father, who has deserted her. This kind of personal, emotion-based conversation that veers away from facts and figures is forbidden, but Sissy nevertheless moves us by speaking of her love and compassion for her father. She tells Louisa he was a clown, though she has been taught by Gradgrind that being a clown is a useless thing, and that though he made people laugh he was also a sad, despairing man. She raises our sympathy too in revealing he was treated cruelly:

But they wouldn’t laugh sometimes, and then father cried. Lately, they very often wouldn’t laugh, and he used to come home despairing. Father’s not like most. Those who didn’t know him as well as I do, and didn’t love him as dearly as I do, might believe he was not quite right. Sometimes they played tricks upon him; but they never knew how he felt them, and shrunk up, when he was alone with me. He was far, far timider than they thought!

We also are moved to find out that Sissy lost her mother as a baby, and that Sissy would comfort her father at night by reading him the kind of romantic fiction that Gradgrind abhors as useless, such as the Arabian Nights:

he used to forget all his troubles in wondering whether the Sultan would let the lady go on with the story, or would have her head cut off before it was finished.

We are moved by Sissy's innocent love for and loyalty to her father.
In sum, Dickens uses sentiment, or the reliance on feelings, to move us as readers. He does this by showing Sissy putting compassion for individuals ahead of facts and figures and by revealing her courage and caring in struggling bravely through a hard existence without a mother and with a depressed, despairing father. Dickens knows that details convey emotions, and so he gives us the details of Sissy's life. Rather than telling us that utilitarianism is a harsh, dehumanizing philosophy, he shows us through Sissy's caring, kind heart what is missing when life is reduced to statistics, which Sissy rightly calls "stutterings." In fact, they mean nothing against lived human experience, relationships, imagination, and love.

I have to do an essay on Antigone, the two subjects I am considering is the strong feminist character of Antigone or the relationship between Antigone and the male members of her family. I am having a difficult time coming up with a thesis statement for either of these subjects. Any help would be appreciated!

Antigone, as portrayed in the eponymous play by Sophocles, is certainly a strong and independent-minded female character. She refuses to compromise her belief that her brother should have a proper burial, even though she faces death as punishment for her actions. While she is a strong woman, the word "feminist" is often used as a specific term that refers to much more recent women’s liberation movements, so she probably can’t be called a feminist, per se. Her character could, however, be examined through the lens of contemporary feminist writing and criticism.
Some contemporary feminist media critics, such as Anita Sarkeesian, look closely at portrayals of female characters in video games, movies, plays, and TV shows. They ask questions such as the following:
Are the women in this media portrayed as passive objects to whom things happen, or do they take action to influence their surroundings and affect the outcome of their situation?
Are they idealized? That is, are they presented as having traits that cater to a male concept of perfection, or do they come across as real people?
How do these women relate to male characters? (This would pertain to your idea of looking at how Antigone relates to her male family members.) Are they portrayed as having a role that merely props up male characters, or can they stand alone as characters in their own right, with their own histories, strengths, and flaws?
Asking these questions and others like them—you may want to look up Anita Sarkeesian, Roxane Gay, and other feminist media critics—will likely help you with structuring your thesis statement. One example of a rough thesis might be “Although Antigone is a tragic character, she is not a passive figure but rather acts to change the outcome of her life—and death.”
There are also extensive character and plot analyses on this site. Reading through these may jog your mind in terms of the character and her relationships, or might send you in another direction entirely!

On page 205, in chapter 18, Louise comments about the David and Ray episode to Will: “All that over a jacket!” However, the symbolism of the red AIM (American Indian Movement) jacket makes it much more than just a jacket. Describe two things that it symbolizes or represents.

The AIM jacket symbolizes David’s attachment to other AIM activists and his participation at the Wounded Knee occupation. The jacket was one of David Plume’s proudest possessions. When David first comes to Will’s studio, the jacket is one thing that clinches his identification.

I had never met David, but I knew the jacket. It was an ordinary club jacket, red nylon with knit cuffs and waistband. Across the back in large white letters was the word AIM . . .That jacket was famous. People who didn’t know David, like me, knew the jacket.

David is enormously attached to the jacket because it was a gift from the legendary AIM founder and leader, Dennis Banks (Ojibwe). He tells Will this when he asks him to help copy and enlarge a photograph in which he appears with Banks and several other AIM members at Wounded Knee.
When David later turns up at a bar, wearing the jacket and "bragging” about his time at Wounded Knee, Ray mocks AIM, and David calls him a coward. They get into a fight that is far from fair, as four men gang up on David. After they beat him, Ray takes the jacket and not only puts it on but also rips it. Afterward, David gets a rifle and starts shooting at Ray, but he misses. Ray dies, but this is from cutting himself on a broken bottle.
https://books.google.com/books?id=xzdmDwAAQBAJ&dq=aim+jacket+medicine+river&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Analyze how the point of view contributes to "The Tell-Tale Heart's" overall meaning. Come up with a thesis statement, and back up your argument with specific observations about the text. Incorporate at least three quotations, and document them.

In "The Tell-Tale Heart," Poe uses a first-person narrator, as he often does in his Gothic tales, to highlight the psychological processes and the breakdown of the protagonist/narrator. The narrator begins by addressing the reader directly:

True! — Nervous — Very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease has sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them.

He admits that he has a "disease" and is "dreadfully nervous," but he feels that this gives him an advantage. He goes on to explain how he "heard all things" and asks the reader to "observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story." This statement, ironically, highlights his insanity precisely because he seems so oddly insistent on his sanity. He recognizes that the reader might find him insane and thus unreliable. He is immediately defensive about how "calm" he is.
The story goes on as the narrator tells his account of a murder. He plans his crime very diligently, even admitting to being "kinder to the old man . . . during the whole week before I killed him." The narrative style continues to read as frantic and excitable as the narrator tries to convince the reader he is no "madman." However, the syntax and tone indicate just the opposite.
After the murder, the narrator hides the body of the old man and cleans the crime scene. He is very proud of his work and feels invincible ("for what had I to fear?"). He even seems joyful about the prospect of the police coming to investigate the room, because he thinks he has outsmarted everyone. However, it's here that his extraordinary hearing comes back to haunt him: the narrator thinks he hears the old man's heartbeat beneath the floorboards, where the body is buried. He relies how he speaks to the police "with a heightened voice" as his frenzy builds. The repetition of the word "Louder!" and its accompanying exclamation show the panic inside the narrator's mind as he is tortured by this supposed heartbeat. He is compelled to reveal the murder by lifting the floorboard to unearth the mysterious sound.
The narrative perspective allows Poe to illustrate to the reader how the narrator talks himself into his own delusions and how his extrasensory "gifts" are a double-edged sword that lead to self-incrimination. The first-person narrative exposes the internal monologue of the character so that we can understand his madness and the irony of the final scene.

What responsibilities do individuals in wealthier nations have toward people in poor countries? How has reading about Paul Farmer’s work in Mountains Beyond Mountains impacted ideas about responsibility or obligations toward people who are poorer than you are?

As he describes his humanitarian work in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Paul Farmer emphasizes the importance of attending to the people who contribute to the creation of wealth through their labor but reap relatively little benefit. One element of responsibility lies in the over-developed countries’ quest for resources to support their industrial growth; the human and environmental costs of the globalized economy weigh most heavily on those who are already disadvantaged.
While imbalances may seem to be most extreme between countries, inequality is also pronounced within a given country. As a physician and an anthropologist, Farmer is committed to reducing the size of that gap. Such efforts require looking at a society and economy as interlocking systems. Understanding health as the ability to acquire basic necessities and not just the absence of disease is part of such a systemic worldview.
Numerous nonprofit organizations are dedicated to encouraging individuals to make contributions relative to their own status, such as through service or contributions of time, even when they cannot make a financial contribution. Farmer established Partners in Health, for example, as a nonprofit that could both coordinate with state-level and international organizations and operate more efficiently on independent projects.