I find it eerily nostalgic looking back on
September 11. Today is the 10th year 'anniversary', if you will, of the
tragedy. Its strange how the flow of time can turn a memory of coming home from
school, turn on the TV and find that every channel is flooded with the same
clip and newswoman, to ten years later, and bam, now I am writing about an
article concerning that very event.
Firstly, the
author of the article uses imagery to stress the "Hope and Loss"
that we felt that day. By comparing the two towers coming down to "a cloud of what looked like Pompeian ash", it
gave the reader an idea of the severity of that September morning. It
wasn't just the coming down of two buildings, it was being compared to the
volcanic erupting that happened so abruptly that historians
and archaeologists were able to find families, instantly and
completely consumed in ashes and lava while in daily life. Thus, using this
example, the author was able to bring the reader back in time, to let them know
the amount of shock and grief America was under that very day.
The contrasting diction
contrasts all the different emotions being felt then and now. The author uses
phases such as "There was as much hope as
grief, as much love as anger" and "surge of compassion and hope that
accompanied the shock and mourning of that September day" to show the
range of reactions. No only that but the words let the
readers subconsciously know that with there terrible day in our past
there will be a better tomorrow, again reiterating the theme of
hope.
"Hope
and Loss" also has a very profound sincerity, a sense of timelessness
to it. In it, the article details "We
tried, almost immediately, to understand how the morning of 9/11 would change
our future. A decade later, we’re still trying to understand, looking back and
looking ahead. It is not enough simply to remember and grieve. ",
by referring to the past, present and future, the author does a
compelling job of hitting the emotional mark of September 11. To the average
citizen, the modern America was the international powerhouse, the big guy, the
one not to mess with then, suddenly, someone did just the opposite. Suddenly,
America wasn't the invincible, it wasn't even the powerhouse, someone took
America off its pedestal and gave its citizens a reality check; America wasn't
intangible. In those sentences, the author completely captured the essence of
what we all felt; the sense of loss, of 'what do we do from this?' because
America wasn't just about winning, it was about winning against all the odds. By
saying "It is not enough simply remember and grieve." the author
captured the ultimate spirit of humanity; the ability to fall, grieve then rise
above it all to do something even better than before.
This is a very touching subject to write about. You could've gone into more detail about how this person compared the towers coming down to Pompei, maybe adding some details about the aftermath of the ancient volcano eruption. It would add more depth to the paragraph. Again, you could've gone farther in your third paragraph, included more analysis. However, your last paragraph is really good!!
ReplyDeleteI really like the beginning of this close reading-- it made me want to read more. Overall this was very good, but I think you could have gone into some more detail about the diction in the 3rd paragraph. Also, this isn't really an issue, but the frequent use of the word "America" in your last paragraph could possibly be corrected, because it might be a bit much.
ReplyDeleteYour writing does a good job in capturing the audience's attention. I think that you should have stated DIDLS in your introduction paragraph instead of jumping right into analyzing the techniques the author uses in each paragraph. Nice work on using textual evidence though, I've noticed that to be one of your strong points on close reading prompts!
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