Lingua inglese 3
Module
Worksheet week 6 True stories
It happened on Saturday morning, May 16, 2009. My sister, Ashley had just arrived back at our mother and stepfather’s house in Manhattan, Kansas, after finishing her freshman year at Kansas State University. We were exchanging texts as I ran errands and browsed garage sales around my Kansas City neighborhood. I was walking and I assumed Ashley was lounging out at home. We were talking about our dad, who had died from a heart attack nine years ago that very day. We texted about how much had changed since he passed and about the family reunion.
The last thing Ash typed was “Are you still coming tomorrow?” I replied “Yeah, I’ll be there,” then headed to my apartment to take a nap. We sent about eight texts total between us, all over a couple of hours. It never occurred to me to ask if she was driving.
I got a call 45 minutes later. I thought it would be Ashley waking me up. But it was my stepdad on the line. All he said was: “Ash has been in a car accident. We don’t know how serious it is, but she’s being life-flighted to a hospital in Topeka”. I just froze. My stepdad never calls me. Usually if there’s something going on, my mom will be the one to get in touch. I knew right away something was very wrong.
It was an hour’s drive for me to Topeka, and I cried the whole way, afraid of what I was about to find out. As soon as I got there my parents and I were put into a special room for families only; not the normal waiting area. My chest tightened even more.
When they took us up to see Ash, she was in an isolated room. And then I saw here. It was horrific. Her head had been shaved, and she was hooked up to all these tubes. Her face was discolored and completely swollen.
My immediate reaction when I saw her in hospital was – nothing. I was numb. You walk into her room and see this person – your sister – looking like that. She wasn’t recognizable. If they hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known that it was Ash in that bed.
Losing Ashley
Ashley had been driving as we exchanged our last few texts – her boyfriend was sick and she was on her way to pick him up from the doctor. My cousin – a firefighter with the Manhattan Kansas Fire Department – was one of the first people to reach her, and he recognized her right away. After she was taken away in the ambulance, he talked to some people who had been driving behind her and were able to shed light on the accident. It took place on a two-lane road – like a divided highway. Ash was going south, and apparently, something distracted her attention. She swerved into the median. Then she overcorrected and flipped, going across the highway and landing in a northbound ditch.
She suffered sever brain damage during the accident. At the hospital that day, the doctors came into the waiting room and told us that she was brain dead – the breathing machines were the only thing keeping her alive. Three days later, we decided to turn them off. She died within 40 minutes.
Irrational guilt
The next few weeks were a blur. I remember just going through the motions while planning my little sister’s funeral. After that, it was pretty hard even getting out of bed. I went back to work so I could stay busy. But nighttime was the worst. I was so lonely and overwhelmed with guilty. I would cry for hours. Sometimes, I would call my mother and she just listened as I cried on the phone.
The authorities don’t know whether it was my text that Ash was reading when she crashed or if she had dropped her phone and was trying to retrieve it. But the police officer who located her cell phone did say it was open to my text message. When I heard that, I felt a pain that can’t be explained. I asked for the official accident report to be sent to me, and it arrived about three months later. The report states that, in the police officer’s opinion it was distracted driving by way of text-messaging that caused the accident. Just to see that on paper and know that, in an indirect way, I killed my sister … that’s something I deal with every year.
Even though my family and friends tell me that it wasn’t my fault – she made the choice to text and drive – their words don’t help. A year later, I still feel guilt of having in some way contributed to her death. My sister may have picked up her phone, but it was me she wanted to talk to and feel comforted by when talking about our dad’s death
Taking it out
My therapy has been to go out to different schools and tell people my story. I gave my first talk two months after Ashley’s accident. I’m trying to raise awareness about the serious dangers involved with distracted driving, something I obviously know too much about. I want people to get the message that it’s not just about them. You could be the best texter in the world, but you get behind the wheel and your actions can affect so many other lives. What about the parent who has to bury their nineteen-year-old child? What about the sibling, like me, who will never see her sister again? It’s really about more than just you.
Sometimes when I text someone, I wonder if they might be driving. But the people in my life know what I’ve been through, and they’ve all made a conscious effort to put the phone down while in their vehicle. If they still do text while driving, it’s never in my presence. I hope that when they see it’s me, they purposely don’t reply while on the road.
Cosmopolitan November 2010.
1. Bearing mind the mixed genres that are a feature of magazine what kind of co-text might you expect to find with this narrative?
2. What kind of text purpose common in magazines is also embodied by this text?
3. Where does the first complication occur in the text?
4. What grammatical change indicates this change?
5. Using Waletsky and Labov’s model, decide what stage of narration is most prominent in the section irrational guilt. How many examples of this stage can you find and what grammatical structures are used to realize them.
6. Referring to Hallidays register variables Field, Tenor and Mode, what do you notice about the register in the Taking it out section?
7. Can you give examples of material process verb (i.e. actions) that perform an evaluative function.
8. Is there any kind of abstract in the story the story?
9. Is there just one orientation in the story?
10. Is there a resolution to the story? If so, how is the story resolved?