Another thing that sticks out to me about the text is the once again unique parallelism Lott displays by going back and forth between generations in the instant of a new paragraph. One of the central ideas that I believe is being portrayed is that one way or another, the boys in a family follow in each others footsteps. The way he transitions back and forth from the generations makes this easier to see. ""Jake, don't tell dad," Zeb whispered, and it seemed Swear to God you won't tell ought to be the next words I would hear." (pg. 163). Lott's older brother Brad put him in this situation numerous times as a child, and here Lott's oldest son Zeb is putting his younger brother in the situation. Another example of this is how Brad didn't help Bret when his friend was beating him up on the basketball court. He's not very protective of him. This reminds me of Uncle Lynn, being older than Lott's dad, and how he laughed at him for 5 minutes when his tongue was stuck to the walls of the freezer. He wasn't very protective either. Overall, I believe these common attributes in generations are shared by all family's in one way or another. I never really thought about it until reading this book, though.
One more thing that sticks out to me about this book is the simplicity of the writing. This simplicity isn't bad however. Not only does it make the book an easy read, but in a weird way, it speaks more volumes of how great the book is because of the aspects of family the author presents in such a simple text. No hard metaphors and imagery to understand like in the The Liar's Club. Just simple, good writing, and I love it.
1. The clear argumentive thesis is introduced in the last post. This post (or at least the second paragraph) builds off that thesis
ReplyDelete1b. They are both identified in the first paragraph
2. One quote is used but should be introduced with something like "Lott writes," or one of the other examples on the class page. The support is mostly direct examples from the book. I personally can't think of any more examples off the top of my head but I know there are more in the book.
3. Most of the summaries given are the direct examples I mentioned earlier. These are there solely to help the argument along and the argument wouldn't be as good without them.
4. There aren't many counter-arguments I could see being made except that one could say that these examples are simply coincidence and there isn't enough support given. But even that seems like a long shot to me.
5. There aren't many grammar or spelling issues I can find except that in the last sentence of the first paragraph it should be "seemed 'too' good to be true?" and also the apostrophe comes after the s in The Liars' Club.
6. Opinion really is barely shown when not immediately supported by proof let alone being used as fact.
7. The first and third paragraphs don't follow the thesis posted before but I'm assuming these and the middle paragraph are separate ideas for the 900 word post.
The thesis that you posted earlier is definitely clear and argumentative. It goes along with the second paragraph very nicely. Obviously you are going to expand on that paragraph. While expanding you should probably include more analytical writing. You do a great job of providing facts to support your thesis. Based of the way he has graded and the comments that he makes, I'm sure he'll want you to dive deeper into it. Maybe talk about why you think this happens, how it happens, or how common you think this is.
ReplyDeleteHey Georden.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have two separate ideas for your paper and I can tell that you put a lot of thought in to the bigger meaning behind the book. I like were you are headed especially with in the second paragraph in the trends in his children that seem to follow the foot steps of his own childhood. I think it could really make for a great argumentative thesis. I think you could turn your ideas into an awesome paper. Best of luck!