Close Reading #3

Poorest Poor

http://news.yahoo.com/poorest-poor-us-hits-record-1-15-people-040233161.html

When you look at the people we interact with everyday its hard to believe that many are suffering from poverty. Poverty discriminates against no one and shows no mercy. Now with poverty and a new high, you never know who it could affect next: your neighbor, your best friend, even you. This article written by Hope Yen and Laura Wides-Munoz shows us the extreme realities of poverty through affective detials, language, and Imagery.

Details- Did you know that "1 in every 15 people" are affected by poverty?  This shocking fact adds detail to the article that really tugs at the heart strings. This allows people to visualize that in our normal high school classes of 30, two people are being affected and struggling. Not only does the article talk about the common racial and class groups that are affected by poverty, they go into detail talking about specific families and people. This seemingly small detail makes the article come alive and feel very real to its readers.

Language- The vioce of this article is serious and somber. This helps relay the devastation taking place in our very own towns and cities.  The article almost presents a tone of despair rather than hope that the situation will imporve. For example, "extreme-poverty neighborhoods emerge in more places" and
"the plummeting housing market wiped out home values and dried up construction jobs." I believe the authors used this language in order to finally relay that this is a serious problem and wont be resolved on its own.

Imagery- The imagery is strong in this article, draw on the reader's sentiment. With emotionally evoking words like "crash" and "cry" "crisis" and "powerless." With out this thought provoking imagery the article would lose much of  its effectiveness .

~Dana