Making Someone Cry By Rickey Smiley

Everyone has had an embarrassing moment in their life at one point or another; slipping on ice in public or forgetting a coworkers name at the company picnic. Making a fool of yourself is bound to happen, especially in a setting outside of what you are accustomed to. Some people do not like reliving these moments while others have a gift for turning their embarrassment into a great story. Kellie Schmitt’s essay “The Old Man Isn’t There Anymore” is a perfect example of laughing at oneself. Throughout a cluster of Chinese do’s and do not’s, Schmitt tells the reader of one specific event and its comical conclusion. The essay is fun to read and relate to. Laughing with the author is made easy while she gracefully shares her missteps while she and her husband adapt to living in China. Learning new customs for an inevitable occasion most Americans probably are not privy too makes the essay most interesting.

The piece is classified as Aboriginal Australian literature. It was published in the 1960’s. The purpose of the text is to give hope in a new beginning after the events involving the racial tension between the Aboriginals and the white settlers. The poem is directed to the Aboriginal people of Australia who suffered from these events

Throughout the course of the book, A Long Way Home, Saroo Brierley, the author, encounters a series of traumatic experiences that lead to bittersweet moments. Unlike a normal child’s infancy, Saroo was physically and mentally consuming. Through his experience, we are able to get a glimpse of the many struggles and hardships young children live in India daily. His petrifying experiences of living on the streets, Liluah, and Nava Jeevan finally lead to his safe haven of being taken by the Brierley’s.

Me talk pretty one day is an essay written by David Sedaris in 2005. It tells the story of the authors to return to school at the age of forty-one and about his experience with learning French in Paris with a very strict teacher. The theme of the essay is David Sedaris attitude towards learning a new language. Although he seems to have an attitude towards learning French he moves all the way to France with only one month of French lessons as his previous experience with the language which gives the essay some humor. The language in the essay is very informal which is supported by him talking about own experience. He uses a lot of imagery and tends to exaggerate his experiences. For example, it's everyone into the language pool, sink, or

The book Black Hearts is written by Jim Frederick and tells the story of all the controversial accounts one infantry unit ran into while on deployment in Baghdad, Iraq. The book is a documentation, captured accounts and events written down to tell the crazy story these soldiers went through. The specific unit Frederick writes about and what Black Hearts is about is 2nd brigade of the 101st airborne infantry division. “Black Hearts” was the unofficial insignia of 2nd brigade. Frederick covers one platoon in particularly and their ethical dilemmas they encounter while on deployment. 1st platoon, Bravo Company, 1-502nd Regiment is the unit the book covers. Many things on deployment unfold poorly for this platoon such as having little

In 1955, Flannery O’ Connor published the short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” which became her best-known short story. Although many appreciated her work it received much criticism for its peculiar character, The Misfit. His callous violent behavior made people uncomfortable with her work describing it as consistently distorted and manipulative. The Misfit’s unsentimental and cruel behavior characterizes true psychological disturbance similar to that of Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer. Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” Is an accurate representation of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). Through The Misfits recollection of his past, his trauma, and his lack of guilt he depicts a severe case of ASPD.

Jamie Fader’s book Falling Back which was published in 2013, is based on ethnographic research over three years, from 2004 to 2007, of black and latino males on the edge of adulthood and that were incarcerated at the Mountain Ridge Academy reform school located in a rural area: “within a dense forest in western Pennsylvania, is Mountian Ridge Academy … ninety-acre campus contains eight dormitories, each of which houses thirty-two young men between ages 14 to 18” (p.1). The criminal thinking approach was intended to help young people identify the patterns that had led them to delinquency and replace it with corrective and prosocial thoughts. These young boys had been involved in drug offenses and violence within their suburban communities and were now in the process of behavioral change in order to help them reflect and be able to make better decisions which would lead them to a better life.

“Shooting Dad,” by Sarah Vowell, is about two completely different groups, with contrasting views, that can learn to get along with one another. The reader learns through unsubtle clues that Vowell is a Democrat and her father is a Republican. These collective groups offer completely different viewpoints on many topics, therefore Vowell has a hard time getting along with her father. Vowell is not a strong supporter of guns; however her father has magazine subscriptions devoted to gun ownership, owns many guns, and belongs to an association for gun enthusiasts. Each group had their own areas devoted toward their favorite candidates and used the kitchen and living room for neutral zones. Vowell and her father both share the trait of a messy work area, but in their own way. Her father’s work area, in the shop, consisted of a “museum of death,” that displayed antler from deer that he had previously shot and metal shavings from ammunition covering the surface of the floor. Vowell spent her free time in the music room, which had musical instruments and staff paper covering her available surfaces. Vowell decided her opinion on all firearms when she was six years old. After shooting it once, she knew that guns were not made for her use. She disliked the gun so much that she whispered to it the gun as if it were a possession of Satan as soon as it went off. Years later her father completed a replica of the Big Horn Gun. It was a cannon that was used by white merchants

The poem “No Country for Black Boys” by Joy Priest represents the sorrowful incident which happened on February 26, 2012 for Trayvon Martin in Florida. Trayvon Martin was an innocent African-American young boy who bought iced tea and some skittles. On the way back to his father’s home, he got shot by the neighborhood watch and treated as a victim because of his skin color. Guilt was not defined by what Martin did but by what he said, also it determined something deep-rooted in the young age. No weapon was needed to identify him as a victim. He is a young black boy, so he is already guilty enough to be killed. Black people have the same rights as the other people, however in reality, America’s society discriminates against them compared to other nationalities.

A good man is hard to find is a short story written by, Flannery O’Connor, in which the she describes the story of a family going out for a trip to Florida. The grandmother in the family seems to be apparently the main character in the story and the main one who tries to convince the family that is dangerous to go out when there’s a man named the Misfit who is ready to attack and kill anyone in his way. No one in the family seemed to believe her, and yet; they all decided to travel. In their way to Florida, the family had a road car accident, in which luckily no one seemed to be killed. While waiting for the family’s car to work back again after the accident, there were three men who came along to ‘help’. One of those three men, was the Misfit. The grandmother suddenly recognizes him, and instead for the grandmother to implore mercy for the life of her family members, she decides to do whatever it takes to save her life. In order to save her live, she tries to brain wash the Misfit by trying to make him believe that he is a good man and he wouldn’t dare to kill her. At the end of the story, the Misfit ends up killing the grandmother.

Young adult literature such as The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, emphasizes teenagers using both their actions and their voices to overcome injustices such as racial inequality and police brutality. Racial inequality and police brutality is discussed greatly throughout The Hate U Give, due to the difficulties the protagonist, Starr Carter, endures when her best friend, Khalil, is killed because of him being African American and situated in an unsafe neighborhood. Starr embraces an inner conflict with herself in regards to speaking up and taking action against the presented injustices she constantly faces. The author, Laura M. Robinson, of Girlness and Guyness: Gender Trouble in Young Adult Literature thoroughly explains why adolescents are

In the article, “Cheer up, it’s just the end of the world” by Ira Chernus, the author argues that there are two apocalypse’s that doom our world today but are ignored by politics. He state that a nuclear apocalypse as well another apocalypse know as environmental extinction are still in today problems. He explains that today politics are suppressing the word apocalypse to where it means almost nothing. He also explains that without a visual representation of the apocalypse people won’t take action. He also explains that we are living in an era where we ignore actual world ending threats, because as he explains later we live under a cloud of doom that every danger now has the same lethal hue.

Live your life to its fullest, if I had to mention one thing I learned from Mary Oliver 's beautiful poem, "When Death Comes", that would be it. Specifically not letting time pass you by, or letting things like anxiety or anger control your life. The comparisons to death also help with understanding the magnitude of our mortality, and the importance of not taking each and every day for granted. With many fitting and unique metaphors I found it easy to be engaged with the poem. This leads also to a lot of relevant and surprising imagery, employing a more detailed vantage point for the reader. In "When Death Comes", Mary Oliver uses persona, metaphor, and imagery to speak not only of death, but more specifically living life to its fullest before death.

Rebecca Stead is fame as an American writer of fiction for children and teens. The achievement of her novels is not doubtful. She was born on January 16, 1968 and raised in New York City. Vassar College was the institution where she acquired her bachelor’s degree in 1989. Moreover, she has started to write since she was a child but she altered her career to become a lawyer. However, Stead started to become of writing subsequent to the birth of her two children. Her inspiration of writing children’s novel was from her son and her collections of story stories on her laptop. One day, her 4-year-old son by chance pushed her laptop out off the dining-room table and destroyed her piece of writing. Stead was very angry with her son and she went to the bookstore to find books which can inspire her to write. From that moment, her motivation and loving in writing began to boost up, and her debut novel was First Light which won The New York Best Times. Due to her great spirit in writing, she won The American Newbery Medal in 2010, Winner of the Boston Globe –Horn Book Award for Fiction, IRA Children’s Book Award for Young Adult Fiction, A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner and A National Parenting Publications Gold Award for her second novel, When You Reach Me, followed by achieving Guardian Prize in 2013 as the first winner for her third novel, Liar & Spy.

When you start to read the first words of a book by Jeff Zentner, you immediately become entranced by it. Especially with his second novel Goodbye Days, page after page you want to know more of what’s to come and it’s not an easy book to put down.