"Shooting Dad" Dialogue

What is the significance to the title?

This story written by Sarah Vowell is about a young girl who grew up in a divided house. You could see the Democratic sign in one window and the Republican sign in the other window. The title to this story has a few different meanings that I found throughout reading it.
The first one is that her dad is a gunsmith who made and only cared about guns. He spent most of his time in the garage making rifle barrels and you could see he passion for guns throughout the house. For example you could see the mounted antlers on the wall from the deer he shot and the metal shavings were all over waiting for an accident to happen by someone else in the house. He would make blue prints of all his inventions he was trying to create and it was scattered everywhere. At first he only had his daughter Amy involved and loving guns but you notice a huge change in Sarah towards the end of the story.
The second thing is that his biggest “tool of death” was the nineteenth century cannon he was making. He was dedicated to this tool because he made it from scratch and it took him two years. It was a small replica of the cannon called the Big Horn Gun in front of Bozeman’s Pioneer Museum. There was history behind the original cannon and her dad takes it to heart and wants to carry on the importance. The story also involves Sarah’s great-great-grandfather John Vowell who fought under pro-slavery. The cannon is a map of all his obsessions-firearms, certainly, but also American history and family history, subjects he’s never bothered separating from each other.
The last thing has to do what happens after her father dies and what to do with the ashes. He wants his wife and two daughters to carry the cannon up to the top of the Gravellies and looking off at Sphinx Mountain and put him into brown paper bags. His remark is, “I can take me last hunting trip on opening day.” They will plunge the remains into the cannon, light the fuse and not cover their ears and watch their father shot out of the cannon into the earth.
The overall importance about the title has to do with a man who loves guns and chooses that as his profession. There were different meanings to the title and one important thing is his love for family. He wanted to get his daughters involved with what he loved but at first only got one of them involved. Sarah was into art but deep down her and her father were exactly the same and both shared a passion for the same thing ART.

Chapter 47 Summary

In this chapter we are learning about constructing reasonable arguments which is when your goal is not simply to win or to have the last word. Your aim is to explain your understanding of the truth about a subject or to propose the best solution available fro solving a problem. The audience should be viewed as jurors who will make up their minds after reading or listening to you. For example in scholarly debates you will be addressing readers who share your interest in a discipline such as literature or psychology. With the introduction you are going to have the sentences leading up to the thesis establish your credibility with readers by showing that you are knowledgeable and fair-minded. A tip that was mentioned in this chapter was to test a thesis while drafting and revising is to imagine a counterargument to your argument. The next part would be to make sure and have back up for your thesis and to sum up the main points of the argument so you will have a rough outline to your essay. After you come up with the main part of the argument you will need to list evidence to support the thesis. For example some things to include are, using facts and statistics, examples and illustrations, and citing expert opinion. When it is time to deal with the counter opposing arguments there is no best place in an essay to deal with their views. It is best to do it at the beginning of the essay where after your thesis is written you might have a paragraph that takes up the most important counterargument. Making sure that you explain the arguments of others accurately and fairly in you essay.
It is hard for me to understand this section because I always have to have the last word in an argument so I don’t know if I could write an essay on a topic to where there would be a debate on the issue. I have written some things on abortion which is a strong subject for me and I think I could write for days on that topic and not want to hear the counterarguments. Debates are also not my favorite thing to do, I remember in high school trying to do everything possible not to have to participate in them. People are allowed to have their opinions on anything in this world but do be prepared for those who disagree and want you to know their side. I hope to experience writing arguments sometime in the future to be able to use this chapter as a reference to help me get through the essay.

Coming Home Again Dialogue

What’s the importance of food in this essay?

During this story I became very hungry while reading it and everything sounded delicious. The importance of food in this story reflects family and culture. He talked about how he used to watch his mother cook in the kitchen starting at a very young age and observe the ways she used to do things. This kept the bond of him and his mother together and he enjoyed doing the same things she did. There were times she kicked him out of the kitchen but he would return. Other main importance is that he was able to learn foods from his culture and be able to keep those memories and recipes in his head for the future.
When his mom became sick with cancer of the stomach is was sad because of how much she used to cook and now she couldn’t eat. The last meal she ate was made by him which was an assortment of finger foods. She actually became a little hungry and it had been a long time since she had eaten something he had cooked. She was trying to enjoy a special meal but it was difficult.
This story reminds me of a relative I have who became ill and no longer can enjoy the great foods of our Italian culture. Her daughter actually has now taken over in the kitchen and has learned the same way he did by looking over everything mom did in the kitchen. Family is everything and spending time with them any way you can, will help bring the memories alive even if it has to do with the simple thing like food.

Chapter 46 Summary

In this chapter you are learning about writing texts which are a like a summary or an analysis and actually can be considered to be both. If writing about a written text there is two techniques that can help you with the process. One is annotating the text with your observations and questions and the second one is outlining the text’s key points. Active reading involves writing down questions and thoughts in a notebook so you have them visually. When doing that use a pencil instead of a highlighter because you can make more comments about the text. Another group of guidelines that can be used for active reading is: familiarize yourself with the basic features and structure of the text, note details that surprise puzzle, or intrigue you, and read and reread to discover meaning, and lastly apply critical thinking strategies to visual texts.
Next you want to sketch a brief outline of the text so you can see how the author constructed a text. Pay special attention to the text’s thesis and its topic sentences. A way to outline a visual text is to try and define its purpose and sketch a list of its key elements. To summarize a written text first find the thesis and then divide the whole piece into a few major and perhaps minor ideas. You want to make sure the key points are brief but accurate. Next if you are going to analyze an image you want to examine it as a whole and than reflect on how the individual elements contribute to its overall meaning.
This chapter was a little confusing to me but the main point is to actively read the text and than you analyze the text either written or visually. The guidelines listed in the chapter help me understand the concept better as well as the essay example.

The Day My Life Changed

In this photo you will find a beautiful baby girl named Isabella Lynn Neal who was born on March 7, 2008. On that day my life was changed forever and the view of everything turned on that eight pound 2 ounce baby. She looks so calm and peaceful in this picture with no worries of her life to come. Once she was wheeled out into my room, no one was concerned about me but how their new grand daughter, niece and cousin was doing. There is no handbook or directions for the preparation of having a baby, just what you hear and your motherly instinct that kicks in almost immediately. Becoming a mother is the best thing that can happen to someone and the feeling of carrying a child in your belly is a moment to cherish forever.
About six months into my pregnancy she flipped up head and stayed that way the rest of the time. I can remember the pain of her moving like it was yesterday. The feeling of my stomach turning upside and all around stays in my mind. The doctor scheduled me for a c-section because she wasn’t moving back and we weren’t going to move her either. Thoughts of things going wrong raced through my head the day of my surgery but tried remembering the positive of our new baby coming into the world. Through the support of my husband and family I was able to get by that long and exciting day. Laying on the operating table the only thing going through my mind was seeing her little face. I saw it many times through ultrasounds but not starring at me in my arms. When they took her out from me I could hear her cry and they lifted her up for me to see her and than my tears started rolling down my face. She was wheeled into the nursery with my husband and I had my mom in the operating room with me, which was a good thing. The doctors couldn’t stop my bleeding and were calling in back up doctors. I remember the shots in the shoulder to get my uterus to start contracting and all the whispering between the doctors. The thoughts of not surviving starting kicking in and I started freaking out with the major shakes. My mom was trying to keep me and her calm throughout the complication. About an hour later they had controlled the bleeding and sewed me up. All that time, I was away from Isabella and just had seeing her in my mind. Once I did get to see her I had to wait again because I was shaking so bad and I didn’t want to drop her. There was no preparation again on the recovery process from surgery and it took all the energy out of me.
As the days and months go by since the day she was born she has changed and grown up to be such a smart, beautiful, and energetic little girl. Looking at the image above I do miss those quiet and calm moments but now Isabella is a little person with such a big personality. I learn something new with her everyday and love to share it with all our family members who believe she was a gift from god. The feeling I get from looking at her is joy because I think back to my surgery and do think what if I wasn’t here to be with her and see her grow up.