Winter's Bone Essay Introducation

For this week’s blog post, we are to write an introductory paragraph followed by a thesis statement

for our final essay on the book Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell.

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Is it possible to find hope when one is completely surrounded by conflict? The problems with living

in a small town is that innocent victims are surrounded by drug use. There are many different

problems when living in a small town, and one of these problems is living in a state of depression.

The entire community is often negatively affected by other people’s choices and is often trapped into

a cycle of abuse. The problem of living in a small town, often leads to depression and drug use which

then negatively affects the entire community. The lives of those living in small town America are

often affected negatively by other people’s choices.

Works Cited:

Woodrell, Daniel. Winter's Bone. New York, Boston, London: Back Bay Books, 2007. Print

Summary and Response to a Critical Article

For this week’s blog post in English 102, I chose an article that I had planned to use for my Essay #3. I summarized the article " Straight Dope" in response to how it relates to Winter's Bone and why it would be a good article to support my Essay #3.

The article “Straight Dope” written by Nick King, refers to the phenomenon of drug use in small town America. In the article he speaks of Nick Reding’s story “The Death and Life of an American Small Town” and how this particular article climbed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. The article, “The Death and Life of an American Small Town” also won the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for 2009. Nick King grew up in the small town of Southeast Missouri and wrote about how the town that he grew up in was considered to be the meth capital of the world. Nick King mentions in the article “Straight Dope” that the DEA statistics states that Missouri leads the nation in the amount of meth labs discovered in the United States every year since 2003. Throughout the article he reflects over his youth and how he was exposed to meth and also how he used meth at the age of 15 and had become an addict by the age of 17. Nick King explains the importance of exposing the truth about drug use in rural areas and how many people do not understand the point he is trying to make which is that drug use happens more often in rural areas than in urban areas. Nick King also speaks of the sensationalism of meth use and how some meth users are just normal people and how others may at times die from using it but not often from his experience. He talks about meth use and how it is kept private for the user. He speaks of how the public doesn’t recognize when meth users are using. The important town members love to expose the meth users as much as they could which put fear in the meth users so they kept their meth use very private. Nick King also mentions that they use many other drugs along with meth use and that many of these drug users were at the top of the class. They were family-oriented and attended Sunday church services. The meth creators were proud of what they were doing because it was a business. In the town they had entertainment, but they still chose to do meth. They relied on drugs to have fun. They thought drug use was happening all over the country and not just in small town America. Nick King mentions a friend that he had who was a meth cook by the name of Hawk Bodean. Hawk Bodean was smart, nice, honest and sold drugs as a hobby. He also ate well, lifted weights and was involved with the drug trade. He could also become violent if crossed. Nick King and his friends respected the police even though there were some dirty cops who also used drugs. They didn’t like that they were dirty cops, but appreciated that they weren’t going to get busted by them. They also had a respect for Jesus, even though they were acid users. Nick King mentions his friend Matt and how he was a heavy acid user, but always went back to God. He was unstable in his relationships and had good reason for this. When he was young he attended a Baptist church where they abused him for memorizing Bible verses. In the school a tragedy occurred where a student’s throat was slashed by another student. This is what helped change Matt. Nick King didn’t realize how messed up his town was until he moved away to go to college. He attended Mid-Western University where the students there were locals from New York and L.A. His classmates thought him and his friend completely out of control meth users. The journalists who worked on the drug use in rural America thought the same about them. Nick King mentions that Redding does an exceptional job of looking through other people’s eyes. They both have found unstable people and speak about their lives and their situations and how they have made a difference.  He mentions that journalists can’t completely explain the way that it really is because they haven’t lived through it.

 The article “Straight Dope” relates to Winter’s Bone in many different ways. One of the ways that they relate to each other is by the comparison of meth use in small town America and how it affects the people that use it. In both the article and the story tragedies occur because of drug use. Guilt occurs in the article “Straight Dope” and in the story Winter’s Bone. In the story Winter’s Bone the dad Jessup is guilty because he lost the family home due to his irresponsibility. In the story “Straight Dope” they proved that they were guilty by attending church often, after using meth.  In both stories they wanted to make a better life for themselves. In Winter’s Bone Ree wanted to make a better life by saving her family’s home. In the article “Straight Dope” Nick King wanted to make a better life for himself by attending college. In both stories Nick King and Ree were around the same age, so they were both young. The article “Straight Dope” will be a good article to use in my essay about Winter’s Bone because both the article and the essay are about small town America and the negative effects of meth use. I will be able to connect sadness in both of the stories and the feeling of helplessness.

Works Cited:

King, Nick. "Straight Dope." American Conservative 2011: 24-7. Alt-PressWatch; Alt-PressWatch. Web. 25 Oct. 2012 .

" Spoiler Alert " Response to Winter's Bone

For this week, I chose to do a video response to Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell:

Keeping It Above Water

Mid-Term Check In:

Dear Ms. Cline,

I am trying my hardest to keep my head above water. I totally thought English 102 was going to be hard considering it was online as opposed to having you in-person. Come to find out it is more convenient for me, but I also have to keep up with all the assignment you ask us to do weekly.

My biggest challenge this semester is keeping up with all the assigned work. It looks like you assign a lot during each week, but when looking at it; it’s mostly material to help us get through the assignments posted for that week. I have a heavy workload this semester and I trying my hardest to balance work life with school life. I have to admit that the readings you assign are not always easy to understand in one read.

The reading in class has affected me greatly. I have not always been a strong reader to begin with. Most of the stories you assigned I had to read more than once. Sometimes I would have to come in during office hours and make sure I got the story right. These two reading might have been hard to understand but in the end they are good stories.

I would say a literary analysis is different from another types of work I have done because in a literary analysis it’s all about understanding different techniques that make a literary work so effective. Not only do we have to identify it in the stories, but we also have to write an essay explaining what we identified, which is somewhat like what we did in English 101 but not as in depth as it is now?

My goal for the rest of the semester is to get my work submitted earlier as possible as opposed to last minute and hopefully I will accomplish this soon. The things I hope to improve are my writing for the most part. I am not the best writer and I know I can do a lot better but I struggle a lot and if it wasn’t for the learning centers English tutoring I wouldn’t have been as successful as I am now.

 

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This is what my sunday night consist of :-( haha!

 

Tentative Thesis Paragraph

For this week's blog post , My assignment was to wite and introductory paragraph for my upcomming

essay, inclusing a thesis statement.

Inequality

The essay “A Modest Proposal” written by Jonathan Swift in 1729 was written to help change the

path of the poor Irish so that they could be independent of their parents and could become good

public citizens. Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal” to show how Irish society was controlled

and weighed down by the British Government and British society.  He used satire throughout his

essay to help society understand and become aware of the challenges of the poor Irish.  Jonathan

Swift uses many different appeals to prove his point.  In Jonathan Swift essay “A Modest Proposal”

proved to me that it was necessary for him to write about the challenges of the poor Irish so that

their problems could therefore be addressed and solved.



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