TOW # 4 "The Other Wes Moore" (IRB)

Author Wes Moore tells the story The Other Wes Moore, an exciting true story of two different men with the same name. Although growing up in the same neighborhood with vandalism, drugs and death the two men ended up leading entirely different lives. The first half of this book tells the adolescent lives of both of the boys, which evidently have many similarities. Wes Moore is a youth advocate, army combat veteran, social entrepreneur, and host of Beyond Belief on the Oprah Winfrey Network. When writing this story Moore is targeting all readers interested in hearing about his strange adventure. However, it may also be that Moore is trying to reach children who are currently in the same situation he and the other Wes Moore were in, trying to prove to them that there is more than just one path they can take. While this book is supposed to emphasize how the two Wes’s lives became astronomically different, their childhood’s, contain many of the same misfortunes. For instance, both never really had a father growing up. The author’s father died when Wes was four-years-old, and the other Wes Moore had a living father, but he was never in his son’s life growing up. This is just one example of how Wes Moore uses juxtaposition throughout the entire book to compare the two Wes’s. Interestingly the author uses juxtaposition chronologically, comparing the progression of the two Wes’s lives during the same age. The use of juxtaposition in this book is to prove to the reader how easily it would have been for the author’s life story to become like his same-named counterpart’s. How easy it would have been to give up on a better life, but still, he did not. Wes Moore’s interesting use of point of view drastically affects the book. Moore writes this story in both first person and third person omniscient. When writing about his childhood he writes in the first person because it is his story, but when changing sections of the book and telling the other Wes’s story he writes as an observer with insight into the other Wes’s mind. This allows the reader to understand the two Wes’s equally and without bias. Due to the fact that I have not finished the book yet I cannot say if the author fully achieves his purpose.

TOW # 3 Visual Text

This political cartoon is a quick and witty example of how the NFL is treating the numerous unanticipated cases of domestic abuse by players within the league. Steve Benson, the illustrator of this cartoon, is a Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist for The Arizona Republic. Benson is targeting an audience of NFL fans and non-fans alike. In addition, Benson may also be trying to reach particular people within the NFL, like Roger Goodell, to show them how people are perceiving the NFL as ones who support child and wife abusers. This particular drawing shows Adrian Peterson, running back for the Minnesota Vikings, who was charged with child-abuse of his 4-year-old son with a tree branch, as well as, Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, welcoming him back to the game. This cartoon is in response to Peterson being taken off of suspension and granted permission to play in Sunday night’s game. When looking at both Goodell and Peterson their faces seem almost zombie like. Benson uses this to label them “monsters”. By doing so Benson is persuading the reader of his purpose to condemn the NFL’s monstrous actions allowing charged abusers back into the game, also, Benson is hyperbolizing Peterson’s evil actions towards his son. “It’s not like ya killed the kid!” is what Benson has Goodell saying to Peterson; this serves the same purpose as the zombie faces. However, Benson may also be addressing the fact that the man charged with killing Peterson’s other son has been released from jail. The stick being held by Peterson in the drawing is somewhat alluding to the actual stick that Peterson used to beat his son. Again, trying to exaggerate the indifference the National Football League is showing by allowing Peterson to play. Although I find the actions of both Peterson and the NFL horrible I do not believe Benson proves his purpose as well as he could have. I think he could have appealed to pathos, the audience’s emotions more in order to convince them.  

Source:  http://www.usnews.com/cartoons 

Tow #2 "How to Say Nothing in 500 words"

Paul Roberts, author of multiple helpful writing textbooks including Understanding English writes, How To Say Nothing In 500 Words, an excerpt from the previously mentioned textbook. In this passage he writes with the purpose to help students break away from the obvious ways of writing an essay, and to make their writings more intriguing to a teacher “who is up to his ears reading the same tedious tales”(59).  He is directing his purpose to students in college but the article can be helpful to any high school student taking an English class as well. Roberts explains the many ways a student can avoid poor writing techniques such as, padded words and beating around the bush. Roberts writes, “He is, he realizes, young and inexperienced, and he half suspects that he is dopey and fuzzy-minded beyond the average. Probably only too true. But it doesn’t help to announce your incompetence six times in every paragraph” (62-63). The author’s use of the third person omniscient point of view helps to achieve his purpose. By writing as if he knows what his subject is thinking about, it allows himself to connect more with his audience. For me, Roberts was able to pick apart why I write the way I do sometimes, all I needed was someone to tell me. This provided Roberts with ethos, making him seem trustworthy as a source. Roberts also uses metaphors to help persuade the reader. “The writer builds with words, and no builder uses a raw material more slippery and elusive and treacherous” (64). Comparing a writer’s words to a builder and his tools provides a vivid image for the reader. When I read this sentence I picture a builder and how his job is to take separate supplies and use all of them to create one cohesive object. This comparison allows the reader to understand that a writer must pull from all different tools of writing to make their work interesting and different and not “obvious”. I believe Roberts proves his purpose effectively. His use of examples and rhetorical strategies allowed me to learn a lot about my writing, and how I can make it better.  

The Other Wes Moore (Introduction)

Wes Moore, in his book The Other Wes Moore, tells his chilling story about meeting with another man, with the same name, from the same city, but with a tragically different life. After finding out about "the other Wes Moore" in a newspaper where he was being charged with robbery and murder, the author followed his trial and wrote to him in prison. This led to several years of correspondence between the two men, and eventually this book. This book was recommended for me by my mother, and I am very excited to begin reading it.

The Good Short Life - Dudley Clendinen TOW #1

Dudley Clendinen, reporter and editor for The St. Petersburg Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Baltimore Sun, and The New York Times, died at 67 on   May 30, 2012. However, it was neither his life nor his jobs that defined him, but his death. Clendinen died from ALS or more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. In his essay he discusses the choice he made to not to get treatment to extend his life and his announcement to end his life before “Lou”, as he commonly called his disease, completely took over. When writing this essay, Clendinen was targeting all Americans, challenging them, to talk openly about dying. His purpose was to show his audience that dying can be just as eventful as living, and discussing it should not be hidden out of fear. Clendinen writes,  “We act as if facing death weren’t one of life’s greatest most absorbing thrills and challenges. Believe me, it is. This is not dull” (64). Hear he uses irony to help achieve his purpose. explains how death is a thrill and a challenge, which is what life is supposed to be. Life is supposed to be exciting but more often then not it is uneventful, because we choose to play things safe, but, ironically, when you know you are dying your dying days can be just as exhilarating.  So why not talk about it? “I don’t worry about fatty foods anymore. I don’t worry about having enough money to grow old. I’m not going to grow old” (66). Clendinen uses syntax to persuade the reader. The use of short sentences exaggerates the seriousness of what he is saying. His dying has allowed him to stop worrying about the superficial things that life forces you to. Allowing death, to give him the greatest lesson life can offer. Dudley Clendinen wants his audience to open a dialogue on dying. Although I found Clendinen’s article very moving, I did not feel like he achieved his purpose in his writing. I felt his writing about how he would kill himself before his disease got bad, distracted me as a reader.

Killing My Body To Save My Mind - Lauren Slater (Analysis)

In Killing my body to save my mind, Dr. Lauren Slater, a Harvard graduate who holds a Ph.D. in psychology, tells her experience of living in Dualism. The idea that the mind is one thing and the body is another. Slater purposely destroys her body by taking an antidepressant called Zyprexa, causing her to gain a huge amount of weight risking diabetes and cancers, in order to restore her happiness. Dr. Slater’s main goal is to show the reader that choosing the health of ones’ mind is more important than the health of ones’ body. Therefore, her primary audience is others suffering from depression that must make the same choice she did. Due to the fact that Slater is recalling her own experiences allows the imagery and figurative language much more effective forms of rhetoric. She writes, “At night, the darkness was intense, all-consuming, like liquid coal I tried to move through” (Slater 256). The author uses this simile to show her reasoning for choosing her mind. It allows the reader to get a sense of how she was feeling, for her, the black thickness her mind was facing, was way worse the thick flesh she wears now. “I can practically feel the sugar in my blood, practically here the crystals clanking. I can see myself living at the cusp of a physical mishap, perhaps even disaster” (Slater 260). This use of imagery helps attain her purpose it suggests to the reader that she understands the dangers she is in but still has no regrets with her decision. Personally, I do not believe she argues her purpose effectively. Though I do believe her writing was vivid and interesting I do not believe her main goal for writing this essay was achieved. 

This image is of former left tackle for the Jaguars, Richard Collier, who was shot 14 times, paralyzed from the waste down and lost his left leg. Although he did not choose to "kill his body", as Slater did, he is still staying positive and finding a new purpose in life. He is using his mind instead of his body to make him happy. 

SOURCE:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/sports/football/13collier.html?pagewanted=all