MSU Working Hard Is Well Paying Job After Sometime Discussion Replies

I need your response to 5 discussion posts:

Read “Selling Manure” by Bonnie Jo Campbell (27-29) and “How I Lost the Junior Miss Pageant” by Cindy Bosley (31-34) and answer the following questions.:

Campbell

1. What is the main idea of Campbell’s essay? And, how is it something beyond the obvious?
2. Explain how detailed description works in the essay. For instance, how do the details about the barn, the dogs, and the heat figure into her main idea?
3. How does Campbell create public resonance (or the “so what”)? Point to a particular passage in which Campbell makes her own experience relevant to others.

Bosley

1. Complete the following sentence: The main idea of Bosley’s essay is that ___________.
2. How does Bosley make her essay matter to someone who doesn’t care about pageants?
3. Describe Bosley’s writer’s voice. For example, would you say it is angry, comedic, intense, dark, professional, or light? Come up with your own descriptive term (or terms) and explain how three sentences from the essay support your description.

Here the discussions:

1.

Campbell

1. The main idea of Campbell’s essay is to not be so judgmental in looking at other people’s professions. Campbell influences others to take pride in their professions, everyone’s job is important and someone has to do them so why not take pride in it.

2. The detailed description gives a more vivid idea of the conditions the narrator was working through. She used the barn, heat, and the dogs to describe the sense of sight and heat. As she continued to work in the heat she enjoyed progress that she made and she took pride into what she was working on.

3. Campbell creates public resonance by having the narrator initially embarrassed doing her job. As time went on the narrator became prouder of her profession. The narrator states that the job was liberating after a period of time because even though the job was embarrassing at first she still had a product that other people needed.

Bosley

1. The main idea of Bosley’s essay is that you should be who you want to be, you don’t have to live up to anyone’s standards.

2. Bosley makes her essay matter to someone who doesn’t care about pageants by comparing it to society. In society everyone is judging you and everyone is held to a standard but in reality everyone should be themselves and shouldn’t have to be held to any standard.

3. Initially Bosley’s writer voice is more on the judgmental side but towards the end she becomes more aggressive. For example, Bosley states “It’s a contest no one should want to win. Our mothers should not have such dreams for us. Our mothers should not have such loneliness.” She is describing the pain that goes behind the scenes of pageants and which could also be compared to society as in how everyone is held to a standard.

2.

“Selling Manure” by Bonnie Jo Campbell

1) In Campbell’s essay, “Selling Manure”, the less than obvious main idea is the value of hard work, especially hard work in a less desirable job. This can be proven by her initial reluctance to perform these tasks before easing in and deciding that she enjoys this work, saying she feels “revived”.

2) The barn animals serve a much greater purpose than just keeping the narrator company. These animals may have been part of what helped the narrator ease into this hard work. At the same time, the unusual heat drives the narrator to work even harder. These details not only add to the picture, but also add to the narrative in how the narrator learned the value of hard work.

3) The perfect example of public resonance in this essay is the section of the essay in which the narrator delivers the manure to customers (paragraphs 6-9). Initially, the narrator describes feeling nervous about the whole ordeal, citing that they were delivering in more affluent neighborhoods. Anyone would feel somewhat embarrassed or nervous if they found themselves in a more higher-class setting than what their used to, but then, like the narrator in this essay, would gradually feel more comfortable, and maybe feel successful, just like the narrator did.

“How I Lost the Junior Miss Pageant” by Cindy Bosley

1) You should never feel pressured to be beautiful, and your parents most definitely should not pressure you to be beautiful.

2) She takes note of all the downsides of beauty pageants, including the coaching, and the strict guidelines she humorously lists at the end.

3) I would say that this essay has a somewhat comedic voice. In lines such as “mother’s never-subtle hints that if I’d just lose 20 pounds boys would like me and I might even win a beauty contest”, “performed, not in swimsuits, but in short-shorts and white T shirts, Hooters-style”, and the entire list of women’s flaws that lose points in a beauty contest, the Narrator adds humor to a serious story about realizing the limitations of living in a poor class community and having a desperately lonely mother.

3

Campbell

1. The main idea of Campbell’s essay is that sometimes one may need a change in routine or schedule to revitalize the way they work or live their lives. It also includes the idea that just because something may not be the prettiest or most brilliant thing to do, it shouldn’t stop someone from doing it or feeling like they have any less worth because of it. It is not super obvious because of the fact that it is, well, disguised by crap. She wants you to see what is shining out from underneath the dirtiness of her story. Campbell wants her readers to understand that no one should shame someone for what they do, especially if it is what they enjoy doing.
2. The small details in the essay all point to the picture that in every job or thing done in life, there is always a small, beautiful part of it that most people typically overlook. These are things that one may not notice if there for a different reason. Seeing all the little details, like the snake, the dogs, and the donkeys enjoying their day at the farm all helped her to feel like she was bigger than something college related, and that there is more to life than school work.
3. Campbell is able to answer the “so what?’ question by relating her experience with scooping manure to the everyday lives of all people. A place this is seen most apparent is in the last few paragraphs of the passage.

“This experience has made me reflect on the idea of work in general. Any job is an important job, whether it is selling manure or selling insurance. People should take pride in what they do, and not assume that a low-paying job or a dirty job makes them second class citizens. And even the smelliest job has its rewards”(Campbell 28).

She relates what she learned to the lives of every working person, the idea that no matter what one may do for a living or how they do it, it is worth the while. Even if it’s the most crude task out there, the job is helping someone. With this, readers are able to connect and reflect on their jobs, as well as other’s jobs, and think about them a little differently than before.

Bosley

1. The main idea of Bosley’s essay is that no one should pretend to be what they’re not for a chance at glory. No one needs to wear a mask to hide what they truly are and where they came from. And no one should ever wish that for anyone else either, as truth be told, it is unattainable and will only lead to disappointment.
2. Bosley includes several examples of other things that have happened in her life to include a wider range of people that can connect with her story. Almost everyone has tried to be someone that is not themselves in life for many varying reasons. Bosley included how she came from poverty, how it is impossible it is for one living in their town to get into college, and overall, how lonely it can get pretending to be a person that’s not true to who one is. While the overall story is about her experience with the pageant, the deeper meaning is able to connect with every possible reader.
3. I would say that her voice is humorous with a tinge of a deeper, more dejected tone.

“I’d lost the contest in my growingly cynical evaluation of Miss America as I’d gotten older– ‘chubby thighs touching, minus five points,’ ‘big hair, minus three points,’ ‘too small nipples, minus two,’ ‘flabby arms, minus 5,’ and subtract and subtract and subtract. It’s a contest no one should want to win. Our mothers should not have such dreams for us”(Bosley 34).

In these three sentences, Bosley includes an earlier humorous part of her article, the deduction of points from the supermodels on TV that she used to do as a child. While it was more lighthearted then, Bosley began to turn it around on herself, brining in the darker more forlorn side of her writing style. What once was an amusing activity for her now is making her feel bad about herself. That reflects the idea that she includes the elements of comedy throughout her writing, but also uses those same elements to act as a channel into the more gloomy parts of her life.

4.

Campbell

1. The main idea is that even jobs that are not the most favorable can still bring rewards and fulfillment to ones self worth and identity. It goes much deeper then just shoveling manure it’s taking pride in what you do and recognizing every job serves a purpose and you can help in that purpose.

2. The barn, the dogs, and the heat all figure into the main idea because they all serve a purpose in the story. For example Campbell detailed how the dogs provided her great company, she also detailed that due to the heat her mother was providing her ice tea that she greatly appreciated. These detailed descriptions give us a better understand of how the writer feels and also a better visual understanding of what the writer is expressing.

3. Campbell creates public resonance by making it a point to share that in a sense we all are selling manure, weather we sell build, move or spin a line of bull over the phone. This allows her to drive the point home that we all can relate to the job she is doing and it also allows her to express the freedom of knowing that what she is doing isn’t any different then what others are doing in a different line of work.

Bosley

1. The main idea of Bosley’s essay is that our dreams should be our own.

2. Bosley makes her essay matter to someone who doesn’t care about pageants because the essay can apply to any pressure or demands one feels from society, family and even them personally. This is something everyone can relate to even if they have not been in a beauty pageant.

3. Bosley tone is personal I feel, she uses lot’s of intimate details about her personal life and feelings. She allows the reader to know things that some people would not be comfortable sharing. For example she shared how she felt her mom thought of her appearances ” she already knew I wasn’t tall enough or pretty enough.” Another example of this is “I would always be too chubby and too backward.” Another reference given was this sentence ” After my mothers never subtle hints that if I’d lose 20 pounds boys would like me and I might even win a beauty contest.” These statements are so personal and so invasive to the writer and the fact she is willing to share these intimate opinions and thoughts leave me to think the tone is very much personal.

5.

Campbell:

The main idea of “Selling Manure” by Bonnie Jo Campbell is to take pride in what you do. This idea is obvious in Campbell’s passage because even though selling manure isn’t the most glamorous job, the author is happy and takes pride in their business and what they do for others. The detailed description in the passage explain how dirty the job is, but also how enjoying it was. Campbell found company in the barn with the horses and dogs and it was easy to let her mind wandering and rejoin the living. Campbell creates public resonance when she says that any job is important. No matter how gross the job is many people benefit from the service, so the people doing that job are just as important to society as someone working in an clean office.

Bosley:

The main idea of Cindy Bosley’s “How I Lost the Junior Miss Pageant” is that you should be yourself. Instead of degrading yourself and trying to conform to societies standards you should love yourself for who you are. Bosley makes her essay matter to everyone with the bigger picture. The message is about self-love rather then the pageant. It’s about a girl comparing herself to others, and people being judged based on appearances. Bosley’s voice in the beginning of the passage in hypercritical. She sits and watches the pageants only to judge the contestants, and add or subtract points for their appearance, such as “…an extra point for being tan, a loss of points for sucking up…” Her nitpicking continues as she explains her mother’s wish is for her to win a pageant even though she “…wasn’t tall enough or pretty enough…” and through the end when she lost “…in borrowed shoes and an out-of-date dress.”