Anna Beth Stevens Uncontrollable Cry

When Jeannette begins school in Welch, an African American girl Dinitia Hewitt and her friends harassed and beat up Jeannette for being scrawny and filthy. She is constantly made fun of because it is apparent that she lives in poverty. The other children do not accept other that aren’t like them and Jeannette is no exception. Her worn clothes and grimy hair are like a neon sign shouting about her life in poverty which makes Jeannette an easy target to bullies. Jeannette tries very hard to stand up for herself, however, the bullying only stops once other realize that living in poverty and being different was not Jeannette’s

Laura Snow was a junior in high school. She was a nice girl with glowing eyes. She also loved this boy in high school named Peter Grange. He went out with her for a while, but in pity. Her parents were divorced, and she lived with her mother in the town of Modesta. Although everyone liked her, she hated herself. She thought of herself as "a 160-pound lump with a bust that looked like twin watermelons and a rear that looked like twin

When a reader opens their textbook to Alexie’s story, they immediately perceive the sections that are broken up by grade levels. Having Alexie use this method helps the reader understand how each grade level affected him as a person. Each grade level specifies a problematic situation Alexie encountered. For example, in the ninth grade, Alexie passed out “after a basketball game in an overheated gym” (Alexie 323). Alexie was diagnosed with diabetes. However, when the Chicano teacher ran up to Alexie, he stated, “What’s the boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian Kids. They start drinking real young” (Alexie 323). Alexie’s ethnicity made the teacher assume that he was drunk. Making this type assumption conveyed an act of direct racism. For each grade level, Alexie ends his story with an opinion-based sentence. For the ninth grade, Alexie expresses, “Sharing dark skin doesn’t necessarily make two men brothers” (Alexie 323).

Although the daughter’s shame in her mother is evident, she is also prideful of her as well. The strong love that the mother and daughter share is pervasive throughout the story. The story is being told by the daughter after she is all grown up. The fact that Jones uses such vivid detail on the mother’s preparation for her daughters first day of school shows that the daughter loved her mom and all that she did for her. The daughter recalls that her mother spent a lot of time preparing her when she says, “My mother has uncharacteristically spent nearly an hour on my hair that morning, plaiting and replaiting so that now my scalp tingles.” (Jones) She also remembers that her “pale green slip and underwear are new, the underwear having come three to a plastic package with a little girl on the front who appears to be dancing.” (Jones) The daughter having remembered details like these illustrate that she has an immense love and takes pride

Amanda Calkins is someone that very few people would consider a role model. A twenty one year old girl in culinary school who doesn’t have much to her name other than a beat up yellow volkswagen beetle, a cat named Dinah, and her weekly pack of marlboro red cigarettes that she carries around in her black leather purse. She is always running late, constantly swearing, and has the most unpredictable temper. Her skin is white as the snow, and her edgy black shaggy hair frames her face giving off a very mysterious look. Tattoos and piercings cover her rawboned and angular body, and her baggy clothes make her look all skin and bones. She is a very independent woman who doesn’t let the thoughts of anyone else interfere with her life and has

“When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy.” This beginning to the novel “Ellen Foster” by Kaye Gibbons, prepares readers to enter the world of one of the most influential and appealing young woman protagonists in modern fiction. Ellen Foster, the main character of the book by Gibbons, is, in my view, the most fascinating and remarkable character in the story. Readers are introduced to the narrator Ellen, a determined, yet mature and individualistic eleven-year-old, who lives in the South during the 1970s. She lives with an alcoholic father and a sick mother. Ellen must go through many hardships and face much trauma, when she foreshadows her mother’s death and the long journey in front of her by saying that a storm is coming- “I can smell the storm and see the air thick with the rain coming.” (p.7). Young Ellen must go through much more than the average child her age, but she knows that she will get her happy ending. After dealing with her abusive father and depressed mother, Ellen deserves to go to a happy family, one that will accept her with smiles on their faces and joy in their eyes. Even if it means jumping from foster home to foster home, from a cruel grandmother to a condescending aunt and cousin, Ellen will find the people that will love her, even if it means first having to go to those who don’t.

Morning brought the peace of a warm sunny day to the small town of Tributary; such a contrast to the violent events of the day before, still there was a sense of mourning in the air. The town folk spent much of the day recovering lost property. Everyone felt fortunate to have found their missing belongings. Everyone except Corvida Bratleigh! Rather than being thankful her playhouse was undamaged by the tornado, Corvida was angry that her playhouse was in Nikki Fernandez’s garden! The playhouse was hers, not Nikki’s and she was going to make sure that Nikki did not step one foot in her lovely little house.

“Without appearing to, Mrs. Turpin always noticed peoples feet. The well-dressed lady had on red and grey suede shoes to match her dress. Mrs. Turpin had on her good black-patent leather pumps. The ugly girl had on Girl Scout shoes and heavy socks. The old woman had on tennis shoes and white-trashy mother had on what appeared to be bedroom slippers, black straw with gold braid threaded through them exactly what you would have expected her to have on.” (O’Connor

In the text “Exposed Toes” the author, Diane Riva, reflects on her collection of shoes and how each pair has a meaning to her. She describes how each pair of shoe she owns relates to a specific memory or time period in her life. She asserts that shoes can tell stories of our lives and are not just an article of clothing that we wear on our feet. Riva goes through all the shoes she owns and explains their story and how the shoe is a part of her life. For example, she brings up her black sneakers which are worn when we works at a bar. She states, “they are constant recipients of the over-filled glass of alcohol.” From this we learn her profession and get some insight on her memories as a bartender. Riva talks about all of her shoes in this manner

April loves visiting schools and share with students the joy of reading, writing, research. April Henry buys nearly all her clothes on eBay, she can’t parallel park, her maternal great grandfather was in an arson gang and her paternal great grandfather was gunned down by her grandmother’s boyfriend for kissing her. When April was twenty-four years old, a man broke into her apartment when she was in the shower.

April has always been an intelligent girl who flourishes during her teens, but she eventually finds herself disgusted and unable to go on living with the DeRosier’s due to being treated so poorly in their care. This is when she decides to write about them in the Christmas story competition her class was partaking in for the Southern Journal, to get even with them for all the nasty rumors they had spread about her throughout the years she had spent with their family. She chose this way because she knew her social worker was a failure at seeing the issues at hand. Her way to out them on their actions was to write, it was her strongest subject and she knew she could do it and hoped that someone would listen: “All I want for Christmas is for somebody to listen to me and to believe in me” (p.76). From this short story she wrote for the class competition April was finally listened to, someone finally believed in her.

Amanda Wingfield lives in a world somewhere between reality and her own delusions. As necessary, she closes her eyes and ignores the harsh realities of the real world. She was once a southern belle when she was young. She longs to relive this time, this romantic vision of her past that she clings to. That is a better choice than accepting the reality of her current state of poverty and the accepting of abandonment. She lives each day looking through this fallacy of visions from her memories and dreams. She has no way of reconciling her current status and the one she still dreams of. These two worlds never collide and give her the path towards reality. “One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain - your mother received - seventeen! - gentlemen callers!”,

As she rubbed her eyes in exhaustion she remembered the adventures of the day before. When she got home she passed out from the excitement and strain on her heart. She reached down to check her leg and sighed with relief to find a replacement was already attached. She looked over at her nightstand and noticed her spare glass waiting for her to put them on. As she got out of bed all she could think about was how rude she was to Sam. She walked into the kitchen to see her mother preparing breakfast. She looked around and did not see Sam. She didn’t know why she expected to see her but she was upset that he was not here. Her mom turned a saw her disappointment and said “He seem in quite a rush to leave he left his job to help you.” She was startled by her answer and rushed out the door ignoring the cries from her mother. She hurried Sam’s farm almost throwing up because of the strain on her heart. When she reached the farm she found an old man working the fields. She rushed over and asked, “Where is Sam?” The old man replied, “I fired him because...” She didn’t let him finish She rushed to the road the taste of blood in her mouth from running. She saw a man walking on the road looking forlorn. She called out, “Sam!” The man stopped and turned it was Sam he answered her, “Joy?” She ran into his arms and started to cry. Sam confused hugged her back. She thought to herself about how a horrible incident led to her

On a chilly, windy morning on the Oregon Coast, I wake up at six to attend the daily camp counselor meeting. Without a sound, I tip toe my way to the door without waking the five girls sleeping in the cabin. I stop by the Undertow Cafe before the meeting. The fresh smell of a hot cup of chai wakes me up for the hectic afternoon that awaits. In the meeting, we talk about today's events and the activities for the girls. As I walk into the dining center, four hundred middle school girl campers await outside. Looking out into the crowd, I think,“Which girls will sit with me for this meal?” or “Will any of the girls think I’m cool enough to sit with?”,

I remember the first time I ever set eyes on Gracie Adams; she was sitting on her front porch holding on tight to a piece of white paper in her right hand while drying her tears with the other. Her little sparrow legs were sticking out from under her faded blue floral dress and her flaming red hair was tossed and tangled. Maw had sent me on an errand to the grocery store to get some sugar for her morning coffee when I came across Gracie sobbing her heart out. I had a mind to keep on walking but if I had I couldn’t think what the rest of my life would have been like. Gracie and her Mother were new to our street that I did know, simple thing being I had overheard my Aunt Cassie and my own Maw gossiping about them one evening after supper.