Empoword

Part One: Description, Narration, and Reflection 128 about. It smelled horrible. He woke up and was ashamed. He looked up at me from my bed with a thousand pounds pulling down on his puffy eyelids and asked me for a cigarette. He was strung out. Half of our spoons went missing. It smelled like booze, heroin and filth. I was ashamed. One day in 9th grade I came home from school to find my brother lifting blood stains out of the carpet with hydrogen peroxide. He said some guys came over and beat dad up. He owed them money or stole from them or something. I wanted to call my mom. I was scared. I told my dad he had to leave. He pleaded to stay for another thirty minutes. I would be at work by then. While I was at work my friends escorted him out. He said he was going to his friend the pastor’s house. I didn’t hear from him for a couple years after that. We learn a lot from our parents. Sometimes the best lessons are those on what not to do. My two-year-old daughter calls me Papa, Daddy, Dad or Derek. Whatever she calls me it has a positive meaning. When we are driving she says from her car-seat, “Daddy’s hand”, “I want daddy’s hand please” and I reach back and put it on her lap. One day my daughter woke me up and said, “Oh hi Daddy! I wanna go forest. I wanna go hike!” She was smiling. We practiced the alphabet before breakfast then went for a walk in the woods: mama, papa and baby. I’m a good dad. Teacher Takeaways “ One of the most notable features of this essay is the timeline: by jumping back and forth in chronology between parallel but distinct experiences, the author opens up the diegetic gap and demonstrates a profound impact through simple narration. I also like this author’s use of repetition and parallel structure. However, the author’s description could take a cue from ‘Comatose Dreams’ to develop more complex, surprising descriptors. While the essay makes use of sensory language, I want more dramatic or unanticipated imagery.” – Professor Dawson