A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard

Stephanie Coontz is a teacher, historian, author and a scholar activist. She has also very indulged in the world of public debate on families, this mostly due possible because of her extensive skills to study modern families as well as historical patterns. In her book The Way We Never Were, Coontz presents a historical look at the family and how it has changed over time. Her interest in the subject comes for her need to understand how families functioned in the past and present, and what lead to notion and definition of family nowadays.

The writing life is the short story book which has seven chapters. It talks about how to become a good writer and how to create a good writing by passing through the perspective and personal experience of Annie Dillard. In the part of how to become a good writer, she tells her personal experience about what is the things that help she to become a good writer. Also, what is the things a writer should have and what is a person a writer should be. In the part of how to create the good writing, she compares the writing with other handicrafts such as painting, photographing, singing, and wood working (Dillard 3-6). In addition, she gives us about the idea of “Line of Words” that is the major part of creating a good writing.

In “The Victims” by Sharon Olds it describes a divorce through the eyes of the parents’ children. The first section is shown through past tense as the speaker is a child and the last section is shown in present tense with the speaker already being an adult trying to make sense of past events. The word “it” in the first two lines carries a tremendous weight, hinting at the ever so present abuse and mistreatment, but remaining non-specific. The first part generates a negative tone toward the father who is referred to as malicious by the mother who “took it” from him “in silence” until she eventually “kicked him out.” Through the entirety of the poem the children are taught to hate their father. Who taught them? Their mother showed them that their father was a villain and were taught to have no sympathy for him but “to hate you and take it” and so they did so. Although the poem never directly states what the father did to receive the family’s hated, the speaker gives examples as to why he is hated.

The story begins with Daniel Quinn writing about a day in his life, until he comes upon an absurd advertisement in the personals section of the newspaper: TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person. Suspicious, Quinn investigates this advertisement with intentions of exposing fraud. Instead, he discovers Ishmael in Room 105 of a undistinguished office building. Sitting calmly, Ishmael gently nibbled on a slender branch. Appalled, Quinn stumbled towards the chair. Ishmael and Quinn gazed into each other’s eyes, and much to his disgruntlement, the glowing eyes spoke to him. Nodding his head to the unspoken question, Ishmael quietly said, “I am the teacher.” Ishmael explains that Quinn is part of a culture, that results in him being taught certain stories between the relationships of man, the world, and the Gods. These explanations will be made clearer to the pupil by being assisted in recognizing why the stories are misleading. Ishmael’s goal will show the narrator that human history comes from two groups, the Takers and the Leavers. These groups legislate two completely different stories about man, the world, and the Gods. Takers are the humans who developed agriculture and civilization, who still dominate on Earth today. The Leavers, in contradiction, are those who don’t adopt agricultural practices and disregard the benefits of civilization.

Step 1: I could not keep my eyes off of the words in the page. April Henry “Girl Stolen” is a mysterious, kidnapping, and inexplicable book, It explains how a sixteen year old girl escapes herself from a kidnapper that turned out becoming something else.

Why acknowledge history? The solution is because we essentially must to achieve access to the laboratory of human involvement. In the essay “Haunted America”, Patricia Nelson takes a truly various and remarkably gallant stance on United States history. Through the recounting of the White/Modoc war in “Haunted America,” she brings to light the complexity and confusion of the White/Indian conflicts that is often missing in much of the history we read. Her account of the war, with the faults of both Whites and Indians revealed, is an unusual alternative to the stereotypical “Whites were good; Indians were bad” or the reverse stand point that “Indians were good; Whites were bad” conclusions that many historians reach. Limerick argues that a very brutal and bloody era has been simplified and romanticized, reducing the lives and deaths of hundreds to the telling of an uncomplicated story of “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys”.

The Revolution released the potential for America to become very democratic; allowing space for political and social struggles to spread ideas of freedom and challenge the old way of doing things. Ideas of liberty invigorated attacks on both British and domestic American foundations and so did the beliefs of equality in the Declaration of Independence, which caused many in society who were seen as the substandard bunch such as women, slaves and free blacks to question the sanction of their superiors.

Would you stay silent when society punishes you for it's faults? In the book Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, tells of a story of a girl told to remain silent and unseen. She lives in Mississippi of early 1940's. Anne Moody stayed on a plantation with her heart breaking mother, brutal father. and infant brother.

Most curriculums being taught to students withhold a mass amount of history. Some may do this because they feel some events do not have the same importance as other topics being taught. Such topics for example would be the rape and sexual exploitation of thousands of African American females during the time periods where racism and segregation was the norm. It is important for people to be educated about the horrific events that these women went through without justice. It is also essential because it shows the amazing activism Rosa Parks took part in. Most people are often just taught about Parks’ actions on the bus. At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle L. McGuire shows how Rosa Parks and many other dedicated their lives to receive equality not only for themselves, but for all African Americans in the south. Danielle L. McGuire’s work is an amazing way for people to not only learn more of Rosa Parks story, but to get a better understanding of what all African American woman had to deal with during this time period. The realism of sexual violence and its dominant impact on the African American women was one of the many events that helped ignite the Civil Rights Movement. McGuire wrote At the Dark End of the Street in order to resolve the negligence of this reality.

1. In the book The Moral Underground, How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy by Lisa Dodson the main focus is recounting the lives of people who help out those in the lower classes. People in the lower classes typically struggle day in and day out to make ends meet. Most people in lower income families are families with not many children and are working like any other American. Yet, they are still seen as unmotivated people in society. “Like other Americans in the past, Andrew decided that when you see people being treated unfairly and, worse still, you realize you play a direct role in the unfairness, the right thing to do is act against it.”(pg. 5). This is what many people do; they are seen as “heroes” who break the rules to help those in need because they acknowledge that the system is unfair. Those who need help are treated with little dignity and as criminals as a way to belittle them. Society likes to take away their independence because we see them as different or as a subclass. Some strategies included, “funnel resources such as money, food, medical care, or heat to those critically in need” (pg. 9). In one case mentioned in the book Andrew the fast-food manager, he adds fake hours in which they didn’t work so that way they can have higher pay check because Andrew feels that they don’t make enough to have a living wage (pg. 23). As I’ve learned in class not all the time can people afford or qualify to get on public assistance therefore there are secret

A Stolen Life is the autobiographical memoir of Jaycee Lee Dugard, the author of the book herself. It is a survival story of a typical eleven-year-old girl after being abducted and kept hidden in a shack in the backyard of her kidnappers home. Her captivity happened on June 10, 1991 near her home in Lake Tahoe, California. For eighteen years, Dugard is a captive of the couple Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy. Dugard is not only forced to endure repeated sexual abuse, but also false imprisonment and is not even allowed to speak her own name.

A Stolen Life begins with Jaycee Dugard introducing her family and summarizing her life at home before the abduction. On June 10th, 1991, Jaycee left for school and was never to return home. She was abducted from the side of the road by a man named Phillip. Phillip brought her back to his home and explained what he had done and why. He did not go into much detail and so Jaycee continued to ask questions, but did not receive answers. Phillip took Jaycee to his bathroom where he proceeded to undress her. Jaycee cried and screamed, saying she had wanted to go home, but Phillip ignored it. Phillip then moved her outside to a shed. This is her bedroom. Sometimes Phillip would move Jaycee to the shed beside the one she normally resides in. This one

My first thought when I started reading Imperfect Endings was that it was going to be a depressing story about a selfish woman who planned to end her life, and her loving daughter who was dragged into her mother's complicated life. How wrong I was! It was really about the struggle of a daughter, and the suffering of a mother with their fair share of setbacks. The tension slowly faded when Carter distributed generous intervals of humour in between and at serious points of the memoir. I began to unearth and piece together the messages that were scattered throughout the book. Certain events immediately jumped out at me while others took a bit longer for me to make connection with but I finally got the gist of it. Carter addressed relevant

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard is completely told in her point of view, more specifically the child version of herself. This feature of the story really puts you in her shoes and you understand how a young child thinks and grows up in a hostile, unhealthy household for 18 years, as she did. I believe the overall theme that she is portraying is to never lose help no matter how hopeless things may seem. She was taken for 18 years but still everyday she managed to look that the good and believed one day things would turn around for her and her children.

Nevertheless, she was soon released after a police persecution and the way the girl acted after being released was astonishing to say the least. As she walked out of the locked room she was kept in, she portrayed herself as if she were a zoo animal. Looking straight ahead with tangled hair and dirt all over, as well as a face of exhaustion is what her parents saw of their daughter in over a year. Many would think that she would have acted excited to finally see sunlight as well as her family, but instead she acted as if she was drained of her energy.