Lori Gottlieb Stick Figure Analysis

The majority of teenagers, want to fit in somewhere. Gaining a sense of belonging is what we all, for the most part, desire. "That was the worst part about having cancer, sometimes, the physical evidence of disease separates you from other people." As Hazel was boarding the flight, she felt everyone discretely judging her like she wasn't "one of them." From Hazel's perspective, she felt it was near impossible for her to ever be "normal." This separated her from everyone else around her and provoked her to lose her sense of belonging. This brings me to another outsider protagonist, Beatrice (Tris) Prior, from Veronica Roth's novel, Divergent. Beatrice and Hazel are in many ways similar, in context to the aspect of "fitting in." Tris lives in a futuristic dystopian world, in which society is split up into 5 different factions. These five factions are; Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the farmers), Candor (the honest), Erudite (the intelligent) and Dauntless (the fearless). At the young age of sixteen, each member of society must take an Aptitude Test to help determine which faction they truly belong to . The faction you choose becomes your ne home, your nre family. This though is represented by a slogan very significant to Tris’ society.

In An Argument for Being a Poser, Liz Armstrong describes the crucial dilemma every young person faces about their identity, and to which subgenre do they belong to. Armstrong argues that such question can be both totally ridiculous, and actually very important; which leads to beginning of the process of discovering “who you are.” Furthermore, she describes the fictional subculture that you chose for your escape; within your chosen subgenre you don’t have to pretend to be different, and people understand you. In other words, your chosen subgenre is your place of escape, it is the place where acceptance and freedom is present. Besides, the fact of looking for a hidey-hole, she informs us with a life changing situation at the age of 16 years old. She describes the experience as being life changing, the kids she came across were simultaneously were role-playing and professing as being someone which they weren’t part of. Consequently, Armstrong used that moment to adapt to new change, which she describes as “not dressing up or being normal again.” She describes herself looking like a punk one day with a spiked collar, a crushed-velvet mini skirt the another day. Thus, for that reason she couldn’t fit in with honor students, nor the art kids. She couldn’t fit in with the honor student because for them she was too weird, but for the art kids she couldn’t draw. For this reason, she went from being a straight-A student to a what she describes a poser. Furthermore, Armstrong argues

The phrase “Why fit in when you’re born to stand out?” (Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl) is false in the context of how Stargirl acts. Throughout the novel, Stargirl acts differently from her classmates, which has negative effect on her classmates. During the novel Stargirl cheers for the opposing team- encouraging others to do so as well- and acts in a manner that other students see as desirable. The way that her actions affect the Mica High students is discouraging and competition and causing students to abandon their self-identity, respectively.

The story “Way too cool” by Brenda Woods is an outlandish story because the main character Aston James changes twice. Before the change he was a teenage norm, trying to comprehend where he belongs and who he really is. The change occurs when he realizes that not being yourself is not cool but foolish. However in the end he changes back to Mr. Cool due to peer pressure and to maintain his stature. Through this last change the author helps me understand that peer pressure negatively affects one’s decision-making skills and self-esteem. This story also gives me an insight into why students give up or even commit suicide due to their peers.

As I transitioned from elementary school to middle school, I have always heard about everyone trying to fit in. For me, I too have experienced trying to fit in. While others tried to fit in by buying the trendiest clothes, listening to the latest music or playing the newest games, I thought I could fit in by just going along with everything people said. However, because of this, in the long run, I began to lose myself.

Stick Figure by Lori Gottlieb is a first person account of a young girl and her battle with anorexia nervosa. The book is composed of diary entries from when Lori was a young girl, at age eleven. By seeing her personal thoughts and stories from the time when she was battling this disorder gives us a very close look at what drove her obsession with being thin: mainly her mother and peers, who were also obsessed with looking “perfect”. In Stick Figure, we follow Lori all the way from the first time she begins to think she should diet through her eventual hospitalization for the eating disorder. There are many tell-tale signs of the disorder viewed along the way, which are

With passionate diction, Leonid Fridman integrates parallelism, compare and contrast, irony, along with rhetorical questions to stress the importance in accepting nerds and geeks in America; instead of shaming and stereotyping them.

“America Needs Its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman proposes a relevant issue that the intellectually gifted students are being ostracized in today’s society. Fridman argues that nerds and geeks need to stop being ashamed of themselves. He develops these arguments by using the rhetorical strategy of parallelism, making comparisons, utilizing diction and irony. Fridman uses parallelism through his sentence structure and in the progression of the essay.

The Breakfast Club consists of a principle, Richard Vernon, and 5 teenagers who spend a Saturday together because they have detention. The students are diverse and come from different social groups: Claire “the Princess”, Allison “a quiet Outcast”, John “a Rebel”, Brian “the Nerd”, and Andrew “the Jock”. The “mean” principle orders the students to write a 1000 word essay on “Who You Think You Are?” Instead the teens, fall asleep, talk to each other, and roam the halls.

Pigtails, thick glasses, high waisted pants, and headgear. What do those words remind you of? Americas culture has stereotyped nerds and geeks like this. Many people, especially in the past, have felt ashamed and ostracized to be who they were. The word “nerd and geek” used to be a derogatory name according to Leonid Fridman the author of “America Needs Its Nerds”. However, in modern day these words are not as harmful or insulting as they were in the past. Many students are ashamed of their intelligence because society has not accepted “nerds” and “geeks”. While Fridman is correct in certain aspects of his essay, some statements he makes are overexaggerated.

Expressing yourself is not as easy to do in society because it causes us to pretend to be something we are not. “Nerds”, “geeks”, “loser”, and “you are not cool”. As these words are spoken we try to hide secrets about ourselves causing us to be embarrassed to embrace our knowledge. Friedman the author of the article, America Needs Its Nerds establishes the idea to stop losing sight of how important knowledge is instead of putting physical strength superior in our society.

The book I read was Stick figure written by Lori Gottlieb. The character Lori is from los Angeles California, where everyone is always looking their best, Lori did not feel the pressure to look like the other girls until her encounter with her older cousin Katie on her trip to Washington Dc. Katie explained to Lori on how to eat like “a girl”. Lori, being in awe of how beautiful and thin Katie was, decided to take to Katie's advice. Lori then developed Anorexia nervosa during the trip. However, before Kate and Loris encounter Lori was a smart, independent curious child and most people including teachers did not like that. Lori remains smart and independent throughout the story, however, readers see how Loris life went downhill.

I am reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and I am on page 100. This book is about a girl named Melinda and her struggles with high school. It talks about events that high schoolers can relate to. Melinda is struggling with grades and finding a group to join as a freshman. Her middle school friend group split up and left her alone. She is trying to find her place and learn who she is. In this journal, I will be connecting Melinda’s struggle to fit in at with my high school experience so far.

Be yourself they said, it's all that matter’s they said.If being myself is all that matters then why do I hide as much of myself as possible.If fitting in with everyone is the “cool” thing but having to be someone i'm not,then why be “cool” why not go my own way and become hot or warm or something besides what I am not.Why be cool?Why be popular?Why fit in?...On paper, this is a lot easier said than done but when it comes down to decision time we choose the same path as everyone else.Let’s say you were to be put in a room full of strangers and they all stand to the left side why not stand on the right side?Where you belong,where the strangers have no information on,where all the people who don’t have a true self stay away from...the right side.The

It was eight fifty-five when I entered the lobby of Drexel Plaza to go to my class: Introduction to Math Analysis 101. I walked to classroom fifteen not expecting anything. I never expect anything anyway in an easy math class required for all nursing students. It may have also been because I am a confirmed nerd. In the school setting, people are divided into groups or categories. Students are characterized by a specific characteristic that defines them into a subgroup of school identity and status. There is the nerd group, the geek squad, the jocks, the dramatics, the clown, the teacher’s pet and the list goes on. Throughout school, I tried my best to not fall into any category. I was well-rounded and did not focus on one specific activity. I just wanted to be a boring, random student that was invisible. Little did I know, however, that I would be placed into a group with one single event.