Summary, paraphrase, and quote

Summary:
Bidding Farewell to Arms by Roman Skaskiw is an essay about the time he spent in the army. He could not decide whether he wanted to stay in the army, or to resign. He spent most of his time as a name on a list, until he spent 545 days in Afghanistan. After leaving, he spent a year finding himself and his friends. He spent time with family and got a job. After a year he resigned from the army.

Paraphrase:
Decisions shape our lives in many ways. We make simple choices everyday that we often do not even think about. We brush our hair and teeth, go to bed, and decide what we want to do for the day. When faced with a hard question, we have to decide what is best for us. Roman Skaskiw discussed his choices with the army in a narrative titled "Bidding Farewell to Arms". He challenges himself to find what life can be like without the army, and after a year of trying to decide whether or not he wanted to continue to serve, he resigned from the army but kept all his memories with him.

Quote:
Roman Skaskiw made the decision to resign from the army after a year of waiting. He wanted to make it clear life was more important to him, and he wanted to live it to the fullest. He writes, "I would also say that greater than the adventure of fighting our government's wars is the adventure of pursuing your own happiness in the world." (Page 121, paragraph 18). This quote is important to the text because it shows that his decision is his own, and he wants to make himself happy where as being in the army did not cause him happiness anymore.

Understanding Writing Analyses

What we now understand about analyzing writing:
You need to follow certain steps, in order.
You need to know what questions to ask.
You need to know what the point of the analysis is.
How to identify patterns in data and info.
You need to know how to connect to readers.
You need to look at text and see how it supports your claim.
You need to know how authors establish authority .
You need to know what emotions the text appeals to.
You need to know that analysis has to be instructional and informational.

How "Stay Sweet As You Are" fits the criteria:

The author uses a clear point to establish the topic sentence. He claimed that advertisements aimed at women encourage them to like beauty products that reinforce a male's role in their life.  He identified patterns in his data by analyzing the advertisements. He specifically picked apart ads that used men to reinforce the product. In the soap ad he proved that the soap was showing that women who want to get married need to have clear skin and even if they have wit and grace men wont be attracted to them. He looked at the text in the ads and explained how this supported his claim. He also knew what the emotions in the advertisements were and showed that they were trying to shame women into buying the products. He also is informative in his analysis by sticking to his claim, and using three different ads to prove his point. The essay "Stay Sweet as You Are" definitely fits the criteria to be an analysis essay.

Page 175, Mad Men: Stillbirth of the American Dream

1. Heather Havrilesky's main insight about Mad Men is that it represents the current desire for more than we have in America. It represents the difference between the American Dream and reality for most people in America. Paragraph four page 171 she writes "Somehow Mad Men captures this ultra-mediated, post modern moment, underscoring the disconnect between the American dream and reality by distilling our deep-seated frustrations as a nation into painfully palpable vignettes."
2. Havrilesky establishes her authority by connecting with readers. She starts by addressing the audience clearly as Americans, and then goes on about how we are striving for more things. She insists that stories from when we were younger make an importance to expand our dreams.
3.She appeals to readers emotions by bringing up what it is like to be an American and grow up in a country like this. On page 170 she wrote "It's a sickness that's infused in our blood, a dissatisfaction with the ordinary that's instilled in us from childhood." She also connected through talking about stories the general public knows. On page 170 it is said "Having been told repeated stories about the fairest in the land, the most powerful, the richest, the most heroic, (Snow White, Pokemon, Ronald McDonald, Lady Gaga), eventually we buy into these creation myths and concede their overwhelming importance in the universe."
4. I did not know anything about Mad Men before reading this passage. I still do not want to watch it because I don't find shows like that interesting. I think that when I am older I will probably enjoy it, but for right now shows like Mad Men are too heavy for me.

Page 138 and Page 141

Large Decisions during the week	How it affected me/How I decided	Small Decisions during the week	How it affected me/How I decided
When to show up to class	I decided I would show up for classes a little bit early because it could help in case I had any questions about the homework or struggled with anything. This has affected my grades by keeping me prepared and helping to keep my grades where they are.	What to buy for meals	I know that when I eat certain things my skin with break out or I won’t feel full. I buy things that keep me full and energized and then I am prepared for classes and focused throughout the day.

Large Decisions during the month	How it affected me/How I decided	Small Decisions during the month	How it affected me/How I decided
Travel team softball	It affected whether or not I would keep my job. I decided not to play because I wanted to focus on school.	When to get my nails done	I decide around when I have free time. I also choose the design depending on the month and what I find interesting

Large Decisions during the year	How it affected me/How I decided	Small Decisions during the year	How it affected me/How I decided
Where to attend college	I decided based on where I wanted to go and what my major was. I really wanted to go somewhere far away from Washington	When to go to softball practice	I wanted to be on time but also have time to finish my homework. I decided to show up at a time that worked for me and the practice time

Page 141

Traveling: Kayak vs. Expedia

Expedia had better pictures of the travel destinations. They both were ordered by price, but I preferred Expedia because I was able to pick and choose where I was going and from where I was departing. Kayak auto filled a lot of information and made it harder to choose where to go. The pictures were not very satisfying and the prices were more expensive than Expedia had. Expedia was a more advanced website, with lots of customer reviews and helpful hints on where to stay. They definitely had more options on the site and made sure their website was easy to navigate. I would add more color to the Kayak website. Besides being less interesting it also opened more browsers instead of staying on the one browser I was on. I would add more choices for the costumer and make sure the price was in numerical order because the prices were more all over the place. The hotels on Expedia definitely caught my eye a lot more than Kayaks so I would add in better pictures. Expedia also had helpful information like when you can cancel tickets and how many people were looking at the hotel. It also told you how many tickets were left without even clicking on the show more tab. Kayak shows you very little information even when opening the show more tab. Overall Expedia had a better layout and had more information than Kayak did.  

Taking stock of your writing

1.      What was your main point (thesis)?  “The Moral of the Story”?

My main point was to show that books can change a person, and how this book changed me.

2.      Who was your audience?  What did you assume about them?  What “audience needs” did you have to consider in writing the paper?  How did you tailor your writing to them?

My audience was my peers so I wrote for a group of people who could easily understand the situation.

3.      What feedback or reactions did you get at various times while composing this paper, and how was this helpful?  What other kinds of input or support did you get from classmates, teacher, tutors, others?  Were you able to make use of it?  How, or why not? 

My teacher was helpful and made sure that I was writing properly up to the point of writing the paper. She used in class assignments to help us fill in missing spots in our paper and to help guide how narratives are written. My peers helped me correct my mistakes and they pointed out placer where I could use some work. It was helpful to see where I needed more or less writing and explanation.

4.      What did you find interesting about the process you went through in writing this paper, and what did you learn from it?

I found how easily it was to write about myself versus another person, and that I knew myself a lot better than I thought I did.

5.      What questions do you have for me about the paper?  (What part(s) of the paper would you like me to focus on?  What do you see as the paper’s strengths, and what areas are you unsure of?)

I'm unsure my paper flows very well. I think an important part of my paper are the first and last paragraphs. I think that it could use some adjusting to flow and work better together. I also think I could've told more of the story within the paper. 

Narrative Rough Draft

Fourth grade is not a big deal to most kids. I was very wrapped up in my own life and couldn’t care less about what we were reading in class. I never thought it would lead me to my favorite book. Although I loved reading, I hated sitting still in a classroom full of sweaty kids for 20 minutes at the end of class just to figure out whether or not the story my teacher was reading was worth my time. I usually got through these moments by tugging on my friend’s hair and pulling it into a braid. Sometimes though, my teacher would pick an amazing chapter book, ones I would never consider reading, and she would work her way through it chapter by chapter. Most of the time, these books were clever life lessons I quickly picked up on and disregarded because who really wants to read books like that. But one day, all of those lessons changed. I found getting read aloud to painful and annoying. I wanted to open a book and finish it in a day, not drag it out over months of reading one chapter a day. The day my teacher pulled out Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen.

            The walls were a buttery yellow, with several paintings on them. Vines and leaves on one wall and students art hung in frames around the room. Book shelves covered the base of the walls, and the windows were always open. Outside there were trees and birds were constantly singing. The desks were in rows of three, with special self-managers located next to the teacher’s desk. Computers were on one side of the room, old and beige with loud keys that stuck when pressed too hard. Cubbies were next to the sink, and to the right there was a Japanese box turtle named Tortel. 30 kids were in the room, and at the front they sat on couches and wooden chairs for storytelling and reading. We played with each other’s hair and tried to stay quiet while the old sassy teacher read Touching Spirit Bear.

            My teacher had silvery grey hair and a pair of unrimmed glasses. She was pleasantly plump and wore loose t-shirts and slacks with black crocs. She had a small tattoo on her ankle as well. My closest friends wore shorts with t-shirts and we all had bangs. Other children wore jeans and a sweatshirt with the schools name on it. Everyone was tired, and barely kept their eyes open as we sat around on the cold floor. We circled her as she started the book, and I found myself falling deeper and deeper in love with it. This book was so different from anything I had ever read. The words flowed off my teacher’s lips like she had memorized them. I was so focused on the book I often found myself pulling too hard on a friend’s hair. We all looked attentively towards the teacher who read to us the book of her choice. When she got excited she would jump while reading or her eyes would expand and I was lost in it all. My friend’s never really understood my connection to the book and why I enjoyed it so much.   

            The book, Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen, focuses on a boy named Cole. Cole is an abused teenage boy, who finds himself in a lot of trouble with the law. With the possibility of being tried as an adult he quickly looks for an alternative choice to become part of the community again. Thinking he doesn’t have another chance at life, his parole officer helps Cole join a group called circle justice. Cole is shortly after asked to spend a year on a remote island in Alaska. Throughout the book I followed Cole in every choice he made, thinking on how people would react if I did the same thing. I told myself this book was it. This was as good as books were ever going to get. I connected with Cole in a much different way than I first expected. This book was shaping me into the person I wanted to become. I spent the next year reading it as much as possible, after getting my own copy for Christmas.

            I wondered for a very long time why I connected to Cole. I had never lived on my own in the woods. I had never tried to fight a bear. I didn’t break laws and beat people up. I was a generally good kid when it came to the law and school. What I realized was I connected to his anger. Cole had never been good enough for anyone. I saw this as an in to his life. I had felt growing up pressure from my own parents and my teachers. I was expected to do well in all aspects of school, because I was good at it. I wasn’t able to release my anger like Cole was. I also found myself connect to his home life. While my parents aren’t physically abusive I find myself in the same frustrating situations Cole is in. This was a lot for fourth grade me to handle, but I understood why this book was important.

            This book has helped me understand not to judge people and to show compassion toward others that we may not know. In some ways the book has helped me relate to others who have read it, and even others who have not. We can compare books and share our feelings on why the book impacted us. This particular book was important at the time because it showed how kids affect other people lives at any age. It also showed us family values and why it is important not to let your own family change your values. I am my own person and the book showed my younger self that I could be whoever I chose to be and change no matter how old I was. My life would not be the same without this book. It is possible I never would have learned to accept myself as I am and change my attitude towards my life. I needed to see that every day is precious and we must live life as well as we can even with challenges. Understanding how to be compassionate has helped me in many ways. When my friends talk to me about a certain situation in their life I can help them figure out a helpful solution. I learned what it meant to be willing to do anything to help someone and this book even helped me decide what I wanted to do when I grew up, which was becoming a teacher. 

           

I realize now that this book was my first real outlet for my life. I tried to busy myself with books for years after this. Even now reading this book brings back memories of finding my true self. I remember the feeling I got from this book and how comfortable with myself I became. I remember finding myself living a happier life after reading this book. I was connecting to people better. I found a way to see positives in my life. This book is something I turn to for comfort. It might not be the most thrilling experience, and getting a book read aloud to you is excruciatingly painful but it definitely helped me grow. 

Five Characteristics in My Essay

1. What happened? Who was involved?
When I was in elementary school, my fourth grade teacher introduced my to my favorite book, Touching Spirit Bear. Everyone in our class was on the fence about this book, but I was intrigued by the thought of a Spirit Bear. My teacher read this book out loud every day after recess and I slowly fell in love with it.

2. When and Where did it happen?
It happened when I was in fourth grade, and it was in my classroom at Breidablik Elementary School. The  room itself was rather large for a classroom, books lined the walls. We were all sitting in a small section at the front of the room in old couches and on the floor. We did each others hair mindlessly while looking to the teacher who knew what the book held beneath its cover.

3. What makes the story come alive?
The connection to the children, and being read to. We can all relate to being young and the feeling of a new book. Most of us can remember a time of being read aloud to and what it feels like to be in that moment lost in someones words. The feelings in the room of tired children and an over excited teacher.

4. Who's telling the story?
I am telling the story, but it is a younger version of myself. It will be a first person narrative.

5. Why does the story matter?
This story matters because it introduced me to my favorite book and that has changed who I am today. This book reminds me that no matter what situation I am in I can pull through and change myself into a better human and a better friend. The point is, that books can come out of nowhere and show you who you want to be and how to get there.