When Lynda Barry was young, she lived in a poor home where her parents were often fighting. Her brother and herself were used to sleeping in the living room, due to family sleeping over, watching television until the late hours of the night. They were not acknowledged by their parents for a large portion of their childhood.
One morning, in a panic, she woke up and went to school alone in the early hours of the morning. Everything was dark and quiet and deserted, as if the whole world was still. Approaching her school, that anxious feeling began to ease.
Lynda comments that if her world was perfect, she would have been missed at home and she would have been noticed, instead of being invisible.
At her school, the young Lynda feels at home and feels important as she is noticed by the janitor, the secretary and by her teacher.
For the next few hours, she would be in a warm and stable place; a place where she was relied on and wasn't invisible. She was asked to do small yet important chores for her teacher, and she felt supported by her teachers.
At school, Lynda had found a happy place in an environment where she was noticed and where she learned to draw, creating pictures of perfect houses with perfect families. She escaped from her home life through her art.
The public schools had to cut some programs. Before and after school programs are not there to watch children when the parents are unable to; they are left to fend for themselves while their parents neglect and leave them alone in the dark world.
The public school system had provided a home away from home for the children whose lives were hard. But with this sanctuary being taken away from children in need of it, they are left alone, in a world where they are not being taken care of. In a world where no one would notice if they disappeared.
You do cover the main points in the Barry essay, but this feels rather chappy and strung together. Perhaps it's the formatting in the blog...it looks like you hit return after every sentence, so they stand alone in form ,kind of dangling.
ReplyDeleteA couple of things to be aware of. Always consider your audience. You can't just jump into the summary without telling your audience what you;re doing, Something like, "Lynda Barry, in her narrative essay "The Sanctuary of School, writes about her childhood." And, you should be more formal than referring to Lynda.....It's Ms. Barry, or just Barry.