TOW #2 - U.S. Admits Airstrike in Syria, Meant to Hit ISIS, Killed Syrian Troops.

The United States airstrikes in Syria, that were intended to target ISIS militants, accidentally killed Syrian troops on Saturday, Sept. 17. Before Russia could intervene the airstrikes had already “killed 62 Syrian troops, wounded 100 more and opened the way for an Islamic State offensive” (Barnard and Mazzetti). The unintentional results of the airstrike have created tensions between the United States and Syria, as Syria insists that the United States purposefully attacked its troops in hopes of helping the Islamic State to advance. This misfire did in fact help the Islamic State militants, who took advantage of the U.S. mistake and seized Syria’s army base. Even though the U.S. military stopped its attack immediately after discovering that the attacks were targeting Syrian troops, dozens of casualties had already occurred. Russia and Syria continue to place heavy blame on the U.S. for its inability to separate Syria’s rebel groups, which the country supports, and members of the Islamic State. Mark Mazzetti, a correspondent for The New York Times, and Anne Barnard, who covers the Middle East region for The New York Times, addressed this airstrike and its implications in “U.S. Admits Airstrike in Syria, Meant to Hit ISIS, Killed Syrian Troops.”

Their audience includes any person who is interested in the Islamic State’s global impact. Mazzetti and Barnard utilize a rhetorical mode, the cause- and- effect format, to narrate how the U.S. mistake affects Syria’s citizens and the overall U.S.-Syria relationship. In this article, Mazzetti and Barnard attempt to inform the readers that although the U.S. was trying to attack the Islamic State, the U.S. unintentionally helped the Islamic State to take control of an army base which is important to the Syrian troops’. The authors also convey that this mistake has created tension between Syria and the U.S., as Syria continues to struggle in its battle against the Islamic State. I believe that the authors achieved their purpose because throughout the article, they inform the readers that even though the U.S. acknowledged their mistake, there has been increasing tension between the two countries.  

TOW #1 - The Glass Castle

In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author shares the effects of growing up with struggling parents. In the beginning of this book, the author is a young three-year-old girl who views her parents as inspirational and caring, even after going to the hospital for burns that were caused by cooking hot dogs while being left alone. When brought to the hospital, the nurses knew she was living with a dangerous family but Walls still looked up to her parents and their life together. After leaving the hospital, Walls’s family started moving to many different places in the United States. Walls’s father would say he was trying to move his family to a safer place but Walls’s mother would say it was because they could not afford the bills that were going after the family. Walls’s father would always tell her family all of “the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle” (Walls 25). In the beginning of this memoir, Walls’s describes her father as a dreamer. He moves the family around in very poor, inferior locations as he searches for “gold” so he can build his family the perfect house.  Jeannette Walls is a journalist for many successful magazines such as USA Today, and a New York Times Bestseller for this memoir, The Glass Castle. Jeannette Walls wrote this memoir to express to her audience that it is possible to overcome difficult times. In Walls’s childhood she faced many obstacles but she overcame them to experience a better life. Walls’s audience is to any person that faced a difficult childhood. Walls experienced the challenge of a difficult childhood and she wanted to be able to share how she overcame that difficult time to her audience. Walls includes many rhetorical devices in her memoir such as similes, personification and imagery. In the part of this book that I read, I believe that Walls’s achieved her purpose for writing this book because she descriptively shares her story of her past to help any person that may going through difficult times with family.

Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2005. Print.