Amy And The Orphans Summary

In the video “Inclusion, belonging, and the disability revolution” (TEDTalks, 2014), speaker Jennie Fenton opens with describing situations where people with disabilities are segregated and excluded from their communities, sent to live together away from society, or even treated as lesser humans. She then proceeds to introduce her family, including her six-year-old daughter that was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Jennie admits to previously having negative or frightened thoughts about having a child with a disability, but with her “seven realizations,” she learned that her daughter was merely on a different path than others, but that no one should ever feel broken or not a whole person (TEDTalks, 2014). After she explains that there are roughly one billion people with a disability throughout the world, Jennie states that she believes in possibility over disability. If a person’s

In her essay “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs presents her audience with an honest inside view of her life and perspective as a cripple, a word she openly uses to define herself. She brings her world to us by discussing a wide variety of things including language, family, and humor, and how these all relate to her life. Through various stories and insights, she allows her readers to gain an understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities. She examines the public’s view of the disabled, as well as the views they have of themselves, and compares them to her own. She makes it clear that she is not to be defined solely by her disability. In discussing honestly her views, as well as

In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.

Stella Young’s TedTalk “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much” discusses the various ways in which those living with a disability are often viewed differently for doing the same mundane things those living without a disability do. In her speech, Young claims that people are lied to about disability. She tells a story about how she was teaching and a student raised his hand asking when she was going to begin her inspirational speech since the only interaction with a person with a disability prior to her class revolved around a person giving an inspirational speech. Young then goes on to state that the world is deceived by “Inspiration Porn” and which leads to the idea that those living with a disability are “objects of inspiration”. She jokes that no matter how long she sat at the bottom of the stairs having positive thoughts that would not get her to the top of the stairs. Young concludes her speech by saying she wants to live in a world where disability is considered the norm and not the exception.

The moment she got trampled under the stomps and shoves of others, one could identify what she’d been feeling like previously - a witness to her own inconvenience. This incident not only exemplifies but also symbolizes the burden she feels having been born handicapped, unable to provide assistance or gain to the world. These feelings Adahs has for her life are later rebutted by her longstanding dreams of attending medical school and improving science. By achieving her academic potential, she finally recognized herself as an important asset to the world- no longer being seen as handicapped, physically or mentally.

People with disabilities are not completely gone. They are still there and have a mind of their own. They feel emotions and sometimes have a more complex mind than others. Two authors help enlighten this idea that disabled people are much more than helpless bodies. Both Christy Brown and Jean-Dominique Bauby perfectly illustrate their lives and what it is like to be disabled, and they prove by their stories that they think and feel, and can even develop enough to share what they feel with the world. My Left Foot is about the journey of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy. His entire life he was labeled as a loss cause by doctor after doctor, but his mom never gave up hope. Slowly, he started showing signs of development by random movements responding to certain situations. In the end he ends up being able to communicate with his left foot. The next story, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is about an individual who suffered a stroke at the age of 43, leaving him paralyzed, only able to blink his left eye as communication. He develops his own alphabet inspired by the French language in order to exchange conversations with others. His thoughts in the story jump from the present, him currently disabled, and the past, when he was not. Both memoirs, with very different stories, show the lives of two individuals that are not like others. One who had their disability since birth, and the other who obtained one after a tragic event. In My Left Foot by Christy Brown and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, both authors use characterization to show readers the struggles of disabled people and help them understand that just because they can’t use motions such as hand gestures to express how they feel, doesn’t mean that they don’t think and feel.

The book, Mean Little deaf Queer, a memoir, by Terry Galloway, is a powerful autobiography that gives insights about her life. Not only has she coped with a disability, but she also had to deal with being queer and overcoming the many obstacles of accepting this reality. Terry Galloway, grew up viewing herself as an outsider because of the responses she received from other individuals as her body transformed. She proclaimed herself as a child freak from the moment her body began to change, and when her hearing was diminishing and her hallucinations became a frequent occurrence, she would address her fury and discontent with her hearing aids and thick round glasses. Nevertheless, the moment she feigned her own drowning at a summer camp for crippled children, she knew she had discovered a new passion. Her hardships were overlooked and renovated into a love for theater and speech that would not only defy her reality, but that would surpass her expectations.

Growing up with multiple sclerosis for close to twenty years by the time she wrote the book, Nancy looks at the world the same way a child learning to walk does. She has enough reasons to believe she is uniquely privileged as a person with a disability. In as much as she misses activities like hiking, dancing and cycling, she thinks she is safer being unable to carry them out. This is in

In the article “The Life of a Disabled Child, From Taunts to Hate Crimes” in The New York Times Margaret Carlson uses pathos, logos, ethos, and kairos to appeal to her readers about the pain that disabled children and their families feel because the segregation of disabled people is still occurring. Carlson uses these rhetorical strategies to help the reader better connect to the article.

The difficulties faced today in society by those with serious intellectual disabilities are very large hurdles faced by many in today 's world. These disabilities along with the pressure to remain independent question how we deal with those intellectually challenged individuals. The film, I Am Sam details the struggle of Sam Dawson- a man living with mild intellectual disabilities- and his fight to maintain custody of his young daughter. This film details many different important psychological principles that are taught and studied in modern psychology. These principles are brought up and make us question the validity and extent of principles that are held sacred in the psychological world today.

Michael’s Story: “I get into so much trouble just by walking”: Narrative Knowing and Life at the Intersections of Learning Disability, Race, and Class

Disabilities within the characters of “The Life You Save May be Your Own” by Flanner O’Connor

Disability narrative is a significant type of writing that presents life experiences and point of views of people with disabilities, either in first- or third-person. Autobiographies are an effective method of communication for disabled people to express their opposing viewpoints to the ethical and logical views of the disabled in the society (Couser). Georgina Kleege, an English professor at the University of California Berkeley and has written many personal essays, books, and literature of this type of writing to expand her thoughts of disability representation to her readers. One of her essays titled, “Blind Rage: An Open Letter to Helen Keller,” published in 1998, Kleege writes about her experiences with her disability - blindness. She

Life itself is already extremely challenging. Cultural differences and misunderstandings about disabilities are both two things that can make life even more challenging. The character Angela from Finding Her Way and the character Kylie from Kylie’s Project each have to deal with one of these aforementioned challenges. Both of the readings in which these characters are from show how both characters cope with their situations and how their experiences demonstrate different ways in which people cope with those types of challenges.

Lucy Grealy tells a story about not fitting in, unbearable pain that takes up residence in one’s head as loneliness and confusion, questioning what things mean, being scared and lost in your family, enduring intense physical pain, and most importantly, figuring out who you are. Lucy had no idea she might die, even though the survival rate for Ewing’s sarcoma was only five percent. She does not present her parents as overly afraid for her life, either. Her autobiography is not a story about the fear of death, but about such courage and anguish. Lucy shows how she falls under the spell of her disability, allowing it to control her life and dictate her future to a greater extent than it would otherwise. Having a disability means that