Tow #28 "Children of Rage: A Story of Abuse"

Beth wiggles around on the sofa with the energy of a six and a half year old girl who is forced to talk to an adult. She holds her head in her hands, rubs her nose, and pushes her brown locks of hair out of her eyes. Her sparkling blue eyes wander around the room as the interviewer questions her.
When the adult asks about the knife missing from the kitchen, Beth answers, "a big sharp one."
"What were you going to do with the knife Beth?"
"Kill John and Mommy and Daddy."

Representing one of the most traumatized cases of neglect and abuse, the adorable young girl, Beth stars in the TV documentary "Children of Rage: A Story of Abuse". The documentary introduces her as a child who has gone through much trauma at a young age, primarily because of the child sexual abuse and neglect she had to endure by her biological father. Because Beth was left so traumatized from this during the first five years of her life, the time crucial to learning affection and love, she was left with the inability to develop bonds with anyone and described as "without a conscience... capable of hurting or even killing someone without any remorse. Her adoptive family found her and her younger brother in this state and have to deal with severe complications to say the least. Beth regularly injures her younger brother and family pets and openly states that she wants to kill her family. Her family is forced to lock her in her room at night to protect themselves.

In contrast to other documentaries, this documentary is mainly organized as one lengthy interview conducted between the psychologist and Beth before treatment and then after treatment when Beth is moved to a house for kids like her. By interviewing the subject instead of taking pictures of home environment and narrating voice overs of her life, the documentary is able to allow the audience see Beth for themselves. The camera is focused on Beth the whole entire time, never the psychologist, sometimes even zooming into her face when she is answering a question, making it feel like Beth is staring directly at the audience. This perspective really gives the audience the full disturbing effect as the fetching little girl missing her two front teeth, looks deadpan into the camera and nonchalantly describes her plans to murder her family, lacking complete concern or remorse over her actions.

The message of the documentary finally becomes clear when the psychologist interviews Beth for the last time, years later after treatment at a facility for traumatized children like herself. As he asks Beth who she hurt the most, Beth replies "My parents. My brother. Me. It hurt me the most because when I hurt other people I hurt my good self"and dissolves into tears when asks how she feels about it. This appeals to the pathos of the viewers as the documentary captures the transformation that has occurred within Beth, who has turned into a caring and conscientious child. Beth represents the beacon of hope that other traumatized children similar to her, can find a better life through treatment, dedication and love.

Today Beth Thomas is a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse.

Tow #27 TOW Reflection

In the beginning of the year I'll admit that I didn't find the weekly TOWs very beneficial to me. However, I've come to realize that doing TOW posts throughout the year has been really valuable to me in the long run. I can see improvement in not only my analytical skills but the arrangement and composition of my writing as a whole.

 In the beginning of the year I feel like I was more summarizing the author's purpose rather than analyzing how the author presented his/her purpose or the effectiveness of the rhetorical devices on the readers. In addition, as the year progressed, it gradually became easier for me to pinpoint the author's purpose and the rhetorical devices/strategies used to achieve the purpose as well as integrate better transitions throughout my writing. The articles that I chose to write about also changed from being from a narrow area to broader spectrum. This ultimately helped me a lot because by the end of the year, during in-class timed essays and the mock, I was able to recall multiple specific examples to use for the prompts. The practice I got from quickly skimming the articles I chose every week also benefitted me during the actual AP test. I was able to save a lot of time by efficiently skimming through each of the passages to catch the main purposes.

One thing that I could probably still work on is writing about the most effective rhetorical strategies. Sometimes I still find myself picking the easiest or the most obvious devices used in the writing but I know that the ones I see first in the article may not necessarily prove the author's purpose the best.

Overall, the TOWs were a great source of practice for me to hone my analytical skills and prepare for the in-class essays and AP exam. 

Tow #26 "Revenge, My Lovely"

Reading goals: Skim through article quickly and understand main purpose

Writing goals: Efficiently identify author's argument

In this weeks issue of NYTimes, the author, Jo Nesbø analyzes the human's natural thirst for revenge. He states that revenge has always been portrayed as being a "barbaric, shortsighted and pointless instinct" that we are taught by society to resist. But Nesbø argues that in reality, it is actually perfectly logical behavior and shows that we have the capability for abstract thought. In the article Nesbø uses analogies and rhetorical questions to prove this point.

Nesbø introduces the concept of revenge to his audience by using an analogy to an antelope. He states that if an antelope's calves are attacked, she will fight back to protect her young, but only to a certain point - until the calf has died and it would be pointless to keep on attacking the aggressor. Nesbø  then compares the human response to the same situation. While antelopes would not consider pursuing the aggressor after they consider it futile, humans Nesbø writes, would exact revenge in hopes preventing a future attack on their offspring in the future. By using an analogy, Nesbø is able to distinguish between an animals shortsighted instinct and a human's revenge- their capacity to think about the abstract future.

In addition to the animal- human comparison, Nesbø also uses rhetorical questions throughout his article in order to suggest a new idea to the reader. The placement of rhetorical questions at the end of paragraphs offer transition to the next paragraph as they are introduced to a new perspective on the issue. Questions like "... is it the case that we go along with a legal system we don't think meets our emotional need for retribution?" also allow the author to directly address the readers. 

Nesbø effectively justifies the human nature to seek revenge through the use of simple analogies and and rhetorical questions.