Blog Review on Chloe’s Post

Link: http://chloesblog24.blogspot.com

In Chloe’s post about Looking For Alaska by John Green, she uses factual information such as text evidence, and connections to common issues such as friendship and smoking. Although I have not read the book, Chloe’s post made me want to. Also, I have read many of her posts before, but this one really stood out to me.

Chloe starts her post by giving a quick summary of the book, but with my understanding, not giving anything away. She also uses helpful adjectives to describe the main character, Miles. As she goes into the 1st and 2nd paragraphs, she starts talking about the symbolism in the book, such as the cigarettes they smoke and the smoking hole they go to, and what things they represent in the book. One of the connections she makes between the cigarettes and death and self-destruction, not only pertains to the book but to life. In a way, I feel that Chloe’s portrayal of the cigarettes symbolizing that is an important message to those who smoke! She also uses thought-provoking quotes that support her symbolism ideas even more.

Chloe’s example of the smoking hole symbolizing friendship also relates back to her conclusion, in which she talks about the same thing, but she connects it outside of the story but to how it made the readers feel. I think this was a really unique craft move, because usually in a conclusion, a writer makes a connection to the world. But instead, Chloe decided to infer about how the readers related to the realness of the book. Also, I found this post of Chloe’s to be different than some of the others I’ve read of hers, for two reasons. The first is that she talked a lot about symbolism, whereas in other posts like her post about the book The Help, she talks more about central issues. Because of this, it was interesting to read Chloe’s writing on another author’s craft choice. Secondly, the structure of Chloe’s story was interesting to me, because she formatted her body paragraphs about the examples of symbolism separately instead of together.

Overall, I found Chloe’s post about Looking For Alaska to be very informative, but also unique and stylistic. Her post has a really even balance of fact and opinion. Because of this I would now be fascinated to read the book, and see if I agree with her statements.

Non-Fiction Critical Analysis

In the article "The Impact of Divorce on Young Children and Adolescents" by Carl E. Pickhardt the author wants the reader to know the mostly negative effects on children and adolescents after divorce, and the difference between a kid’s behavior and a young adult’s behavior. The author says at the beginning of the article that he is responding to a question sent in by someone on his blog, which helps show that this is not a random issue Pickhardt just decided to write about, there are other people who are experiencing this problem and even asking for help. At the end of the article, the author also includes links to two books he has wrote on the same and similar topics.This helps prove that he is not an unprofessional trying to voice an opinion, but he is experienced in this field and knows a lot about it. The article mainly touches on how most of the effects of divorce are negative, and kids and teens respond to it differently.

Pickhardt mentions multiple times negative effects divorce has on sons and daughters of all ages. For example, in the article, Pickhardt lists, “Witnessing loss of love between parents, having parents break their marriage commitment, adjusting to going back and forth between two different households, and the daily absence of one parent while living with the other, all create a challenging new family circumstance in which to live.” This long yet informative quote shows many different ways in which young people of divorce are affected and faced with many struggles because of divorce. The first part of the quote in which Pickhardt mentions seeing parents lose their love for one another seems to be one of the worst ones, because if pre-divorce a child has been living under the illusion that their parents love each other and practically have a sacred bond (marriage), to see that illusion shatter and the bond break can be horrifying and even scarring. Another example is, “Convincing a young child of the permanence of divorce can be hard when his intense longing fantasizes that somehow, some way, mom and dad will be living back together again someday.” This quote is just completely heartbreaking. This is because if a child always has that little piece of hope in their mind that thinks there’s a chance of his or her parents getting back together, it is very hard to destroy that piece of hope, so a child will just be practically tortured for the rest of their life if it doesn’t happen and they’re just waiting for it to.

Pickhardt also spends a lot of time describing the differences between how children react versus how teens react. It seems, from the way he describes it, that children are much more needing and dependent, sometimes more hopeful for the future. Teens, on the other hand, become much more independent and/or rebellious; they can sometimes feel that their parents have broken his or her trust. For example, Pickhardt states, “...divorce tends to intensify the child’s dependence and...it often elicits a more regressive response in the child…”. He also mentions that, “The dependent child’s short term reaction to divorce can be an anxious one...There can be separation anxieties, crying at bed times, breaking toilet training, bed-wetting, clinging, whining, tantrums, and temporary loss of self-established self-care skills, all of which can compel parental attention.”. Finally, Pickhardt declares, “The child wants to feel more connected in a family situation where a major disconnection has occurred.” This last quote is very important and probably a good explanation for a child’s feelings and actions post-divorce. This is because if a “disconnection has occurred” then a child is going to try to do anything they can for themselves along with their parents to feel at least a bit connected again. This feeling is brought on by the trauma and significant change that divorce causes. For the adolescent, however, “divorce tends to...accelerate the adolescent’s independence; it often elicits a more...aggressive response in the adolescent.”. Pickhardt also says, "The more independent-minded adolescent tends to deal more aggressively to divorce, often reacting in a mad, rebellious way, more resolved to disregard family discipline and take care of himself since parents have failed to keep commitments to family that were originally made.". Finally, Pickhardt claims, "He [an adolescent] feels increasingly autonomous in a family .". This last quote is very significant because it shows a) the difference between how dependent children are versus how independent adolescents, and b) the massive change (usually) even between an adolescent pre-divorce and post-divorce.

         In my opinion, I believe that even though yes, divorce should not be banned because that would be unreasonable for the parents and in general, I do feel that their are ways around divorce having to be so painful. To me, sometimes it seems that parents themselves are not trying hard enough to help their kids cope better with the situation at hand, and that maybe if the parents did in fact help them, they wouldn't have the behavioral issues that they end up with post-divorce.