Personal Narrative: My Personal Experience At Homeless

Reading Response Book: Lemonade Mouth Genre: Chapter Book Text: Literary I am about a quarter of a way through a book called “Lemonade Mouth” which is written by Mark Peter Hughes and was published in 2007. The book is about five kids who formed a band to overcome their struggles in high school. I myself have never been to high school and this book gives me a little idea on what high school could be like.

It did not take that long for me to thoroughly understand the passage as I was surrounded with resources (dictionary and internet). After I find the meaning of the words, I put their meaning in parentheses beside the respective words and highlighted both the word and the meaning. This makes it easier for me to detect all of the unfamiliar words and understand them directly when I skim through the text for the second time. Sometimes, I tried to understand the words by referring to the sentence before and after the word, or maybe the sentence before and after the sentence containing the word I am unacquainted with. This way, I was able to understand the word and sharpen my critical reading skills without being dependent on other sources.

“They’re back, Matt,” Doctor Sarah Leslie, CDC’s Chief Medical Examiner spoke through the phone. Retired, Detective Matthew Benson clinched the phone tighter, there was only one reason she would make that claim, a dead body. “How many?” “Two,” she said, “but we both know more will follow.” “Unfortunately,” he agreed.

Audience: People ignorant about the struggles of homelessness and would rather make homeless people “disappear” than help them Message/Goal of this piece: Addressing the issue of homelessness and raising awareness to this program as an alternative to making it a crime to be living in poverty. It shows that chromic homelessness can be solved Behaviors/ Aspects of society being satirized: The treatment and attitude towards homelessness and homeless people e.g. banning, arresting, and giving them fines. This piece shows the ridiculousness of the anti-homeless argument and that they are lazy moochers undeserving of help. People who would rather spend to criminalize homelessness than use the same time/money/resources to help fix this problem Background

Previously, in Dr. Boyce’s literacy class, we rigorously studied and learned how to apply reading strategies to specific texts. Thus, the text ‘Stupid Lady From Denver’ by Chris Tovani (2004) struck me as especially familiar. Everything that was stated in the article brought back memory after memory of all the various reading strategies we covered last semester. Tovani (2004) states that “Good readers separate themselves from struggling readers when they recognize that they are confused and do something to repair meaning”, which rings especially true to my memory as well (p. 5). She encouraged us to seek out challenging portions of the text that confused us, use our marks to label what was unknown, and then use the strategies such as ReQuest,

“What did he look like?” Again she paused this time it seemed she didn’t want to answer. “He was skinny and all of his clothes worn, torn ,and old. He had a short grayish black beard and had a very raspy voice. I think he may have been you know ...homeless from the looks of it,” and with the she hurried away to the opposite end of the boat.

The ticket will be my opportunity. I’m homeless. My father left me with my mother by the age of ten. I ran away because I hate the alcohol breath of my mother. Nowadays I sleep under the Deer Lake bridge I couldn’t recall the last time i slept on a good bed and i lick my dry lips for moisture.

It all started on a Saturday in the spring of 2016, April 30th. My best friend Hollie and I were walking down main-street in Sarasota, Florida when we saw this woman walking around begging for money from everybody she ran into—or should I say, “chased down.” This woman wasn’t polite. She was pushy as ever. It was hilarious.

You would n    ever know by looking at me or talking to me that my family and I have been homeless before. For the kids that have been homeless before it doesn't make you any less worthy, or intelligent than anyone else. There  are  many things you can do not only to help yourself with the feelings of being embarrassed or ashamed but you can also help others like you, be apart of organizations, and volunteer your time to others that have been in our situation of being homeless so they can feel better and know it ’s okay.

Homeless not Hopeless In November 2012 I had hit lost my job and was unable to pay my bills. I didn’t have any family or friends that was able to help me out I was later evicted from my apartment. Having nowhere else to go I ended up staying at The Salvation Army homeless shelter in Texarkana. I didn’t know at that time I met a man that would forever change my life; Michael.

I grab hold of the cold hard back door knob, I twist to the left, and then to the right, a rush of guilt runs through my body and down to my toes. I think about my mom in her bed, what would she think of me right now, locked out, and sneaking in this late. I’m not everything they think I am. I think for a minute, I think of all the things that I was proud of in my life, all the things that I have done just to have it wasted by some dumb night. I stand there dizzy, I look to the ground and softly fall on the rough edges of our rug, look down my eyes crossed and looking in both directions.

Some people wonder why homeless people have no jobs, cars, or homes. Here are a few reasons why homeless people are homeless. As we see in every Country, City, and State there are homeless people everywhere.

Mom, The past few days on this journey in the wilderness, I have made an encounter with a sufficient amount of impacting people. Meeting compassionate, considerate, and loving individuals who have a great desire for what I am here for. Staying in a temporary trailer has become my living environment provided by Wayne Westerberg, who has provided me as his son. He also found me a job at McDonald's which was not in my plans, but I have traveled a sufficient distance to stop a while . I couldn't keep it away from my coworkers that I was on foot during this journey.

Poverty Empowered Me to be Successful Poverty empowered me to want more in my life. The struggles of my childhood gave me the determination to succeed. When I was just three years old, my parents split up, leaving my mother to take care of my older sister and me on her own. To put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, my mother had to work two jobs and have an abusive boyfriend because he said he would take care of us. My mother became addicted to drugs and after three years she made the change in her life to get off of drugs and be a better mother.

Many if not all of us can relate to the statement that we’ve all had useless clutter in our lives, both physical and mental. We may not realize it but it can be a constant battle to get rid of these useless thoughts, possessions, memories and for some, people. It can be as simple as having to look at yourself in the window as you walk past it just to make sure you look good or it could be as drastic as constantly checking your phone for notifications and changing your life to keep up with the ‘social norms’. I didn’t realise that I had so much unnecessary things, people and thoughts in my life until I looked back on it and actively changed it.