Activity 1: For a long time, my stepson, Jonathan, was unhappy to have me as part of his family, for he resented that he didn’t have both biological parents at home. I tried to get to know him better, but he would complain that I invaded his privacy. As a newcomer, I understood that our relationship would require effort from both of us. It is not enough that I was friendly. Jonathan also had to want us to be friends, and I was not happy with the two of us being strangers, but I could wait for him to feel more comfortable around me.
Activity 2: Anne Marie collects antique bottles and loves to turn them into works of art. She will buy bottles if she likes them, but she prefers to find them in the ground. She will find bottles everywhere, but she picks them selectively. However, she has the best luck at construction sites on old farmland, where she spends most of her time. Often, bottles appear on the surface after a good rain, but they disappear very soon. She uses special tools for excavating bottles, including brushes. She doesn’t want to break the bottles, so she removes them from the ground. After finding a new bottle, Anne Marie will add it to her display case and hung it on the wall as an artistic piece (Mangelsdorf, 2013, p. 411).
Emma Gonzalez uses her experience to make her argument on gun violence more effective and persuasive. Rather than explaining in detail the uncruel laws placed for guns and how easy it is for someone to obtain one. She emphasizes her words with a strong tone to portray how frustrated she is. Her choice of using the time 6 minutes and 20 seconds and emphasizing how, during the time, her school had lost 17 students, and many of them were injured, made her audience more drawn to her argument. People in the crowd cried as Emma was talking because her speech made the entire nation realize that guns should be banned. What made her speech even more impressive was how she stood there at the podium for 6 minutes and 20 seconds to show her personal view on the story and how the shooter left behind their gun, blended into the crowd of students, and walked free for an hour before being arrested.
Emma’s speech was powerful because you can tell how organized it was. With an organized speech like hers, she could use the tone in her voice to truly embark on ethos. She wanted her audience to feel the pain she had gone through and send a message to the United States government. Emma did an amazing job adding each student who had passed away during the shooting to honor them during her time on stage.