Group Work: Yujie, Lintao, Sammi

Activity 1: For a long time, my stepson Jonathan was unhappy to have me as part of his family, for he resents 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 will require effort from both of us. It was not enough that I was friendly. Jonathan also wanted us to be friends. Although I’m not happy with the two of us being strangers, I am willing to 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 will use special tools for excavating bottles, including a set of brushes. She did not want to break the bottles as she removed them from the ground. After finding a new bottle, Anne Marie will adds it to her display case and hang it on the wall as an artistic piece (Mangelsdorf, 2013, p. 411).

 

Individual Work:

In her speech, Emmy Gonzalez utilizes pauses to help put an emphasis on the contents of her speech. Sometimes, not speaking is a more powerful way to convey something since it lets the audience sit with it. In addition to that, she uses repetition to make her point as well as having emotions in the way that she delivers it. That although she has notes in front of her, it’s clear that she’s speaking from the heart about these issues since she has lived through what happened to her. This makes her a lot more credible as well since she’s a survivor, and one that wants something to change.

Her use of silence for each minute that the shooter is active brings a solemness to it and the realization that it never should have happened. She recounts at the end what happened after the shooting finally stopped, telling us that he walked free for an hour before he was finally arrested. In addition to that, she personally calls out the names of those who she were dead and knew, using anecdotes in their lives.