the bus when the driver was ready to pull out, but she made it just in time with

a bag full of

tchotchkes and a bubbly statement, "My parents love knickknacks."

Apparently, after pulling away from the truck stop, the hum of the engine and the

vibration of tires against the road must have allowed me drift off to sleep for a couple hours

because the next thing I remember was the driver coming across the loudspeaker announcing,

"We will be pulling into Chicago's Union Station in approximately thirty- five minutes.

Please gather all of your items and be sure you don't leave anything on the bus. Thank you

for traveling with Megabus."

I was there, Chicago, where he lived now, and I just had to come. I retrieved my bag

from the cargo area and started looking for the subway. This, I was excited about. I had never

been on a subway train and couldn't wait. I asked a police officer where to go, and he told me

exactly what train to catch and what stop to get off at for the street I needed to get to my

rental car.

Two hours after arriving in this city I was finally at my hotel. After sitting on a bus all

night, I wanted nothing more than to take a shower, put on clean clothes, get a bite to eat, and

then, I would make the call.

Riiing, Riiing, Riiing...l was praying he wouldn't answer, and I would get his voicemail

so I could prolong this. We had so much fun in Tennessee. Then his job moved him to

Chicago. I guess I knew it wouldn't work as soon as he told me, but I thought I would try.

Rii...hello? It was him.

We talked about my trip and how his job was going. He asked about our friends in

Tennessee and about the latest gossip around our building. It came like I knew it would. I

asked him if he was going to be able to make it over that night. Surprisingly, he said yes. You

  15  
can feel it when the conversations aren't the same anymore and a person isn't excited to see

you, but this wasn't the case with him. He seemed to be excited to see me.

He arrived around six o'clock that evening smelling as good as ever, like a man,

woodsy smelling cologne but a hint of sweat from working hard that day. He asked if I had

eaten dinner, and I told him no, so we went next door to Bob Evans and had dinner. After

dinner I knew it was going to happen. We would end it or drag this on longer, but I

could tell by his half smile and faraway looks during our dinner what was about to happen. We

talked more about our families and how our lives were going, skirting around the issue until I

finally asked, "So what are we going to do about this?" There it was, the look on his face, like

that of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar right before dinner.

He explained he met up with an old flame from when he lived there before and things

were going well. While it felt like a hard slap across the face, like when I back talked my

parents as a child, at least I wasn't surprised. We stood there another hour talking about the

weather up there and in Tennessee and every other subject you can think of. It was ten o'clock.

I had had a long bus ride, and now that I knew we were done, I planned to spend the rest of my

time in Chicago as a tourist, so we kissed one last time, hugged longer than necessary, and said

our good byes.

The next two days I shopped, went to the casinos, visited landmarks, and enjoyed time

for me. Monday was another long bus ride home, home to my son, home to my family and

home to a man I had met through friends before I left who said he knew my trip was not going

to work and that he would be waiting for me to get back.

Closure is an important thing in some folk's lives. It is in mine. I knew Chicago and I

were meant to be, but I also knew when he moved, that was the end. I had to go close that

  16  
door. To close the door on that chapter so I could start the next with the man who waited on

me. The man I proudly now call my husband.

  17  
Vernesser Ausley addresses one of our most difficult and pernicious social issues: the effects of
racism on African American children. Ausley develops the essay through examples and
illustrations of the problem drawn from her and her children’s experiences as well as from
current events. Her writing illuminates sensitive issues from the perspective of someone
dealing directly with these problems, and it does so in frank and honest language.

____________________________________________________________________________

Vernesser Ausley

Professor Renee Eades

English 1010

16 February 2015

The Challenges of an African American Mother

As a mother, when my children were small, I would always talk to them about safety. I

taught them never talk to or take anything from strangers, never wander too far from the safety

of the front yard, and always look before crossing the road. I made sure to cover as many rules

of safety with my children as possible to create awareness. However, as an African American

mother of teen age and adult children and because of the constant fear of harassment by law

enforcement of African American youth, racism from peers in the public school system, and

the importance of maintaining a positive cultural identity, I am pressured to talk to my children

about how to cope with racism and the internalized oppression that it causes.

Because of the constant fear of harassment by law enforcement of African American

youth, I continually speak with my children about what to do or how to react if they are

stopped by a white police officer. It’s no secret that young African American youth are more

likely stopped, profiled, and sometimes murdered by white police officers than any other race

of people. I’ve always respected and regarded law enforcement to be noble men and protectors

of the community, but as an African American, especially an African American mother, I

  18  
question the integrity of white police officers with a great dilemma. I’ve witnessed via social

media, news broadcasts, Internet, and cell phone recordings many unarmed African American

youth with their hands lifted in the air, posing no threat of endangerment to the white police

officers who shoot them down like animals and murder them with no repercussion or

indictment from the law. As a mother concerned for the safety and protection of my children, I

don’t trust that the law provides protection without discrimination to children of color and to

the communities of our youth as they do the communities of their white counterparts.

Because most school personnel are not typically trained to be culturally sensitive to the

complex needs of African American students, often African American students are

misunderstood, unfairly treated, and given harsher discipline than other students. Talking to

my children about how to deal with racism from school administrators and some of their white

peers in public schools is a prevalent conversation, among others, that I discuss with my

children. There are times when my children have come home from school very distraught

because of disciplinary measures taken with them by school personnel that seemed to be more

reflective of their race than their character. Seventy-one percent of all suspended minority

students are suspended for nonviolent offenses and things such as breaking school polices.

For instance, my daughter attended her first year of high school at Lebanon High

School in Wilson County, Tennessee. The first couple of weeks she came home from school in

tears every day. My daughter had always been a respectful outstanding student who had never

been in trouble before. She was given ISS (In School Suspension) for breaking the school’s

dress code for wearing a skirt a little above her knee with stretch pants. A white teacher

standing in the hallway while she was changing class wrote her up for breaking dress code

policy. My daughter made sure she was conscious of what she wore from then on; however,

  19  
she was aware of the same teacher allowing several white students to break the same dress

code or worse. Sometimes she noticed that some white students dressed in a very provocative

way with very short skirts and scantily clad spaghetti strap tops, which was clearly against the

school’s dress code policy, and walked pass that same teacher every day without any

disciplinary actions being made. My daughter clearly felt a sense of bias coming from that

teacher. After witnessing this situation go on for weeks, she and a couple of her African

American friends who had similar experiences, deliberately broke the dress code to see what

would happen. They all received write-ups from that teacher and received ISS.

Racism can cause African American children to become internally suppressed. Of all

the disparities in the African American communities, discrimination has caused far more

complex issues; therefore, I feel the need to teach my children the importance of maintaining a

positive cultural identity. Helping them to understand their roots will help them to be proud of

who they are. Slavery was an evil enforced upon African Americans that stripped them of their

identity and the family structure that they were so familiar with. Being forced to survive in a

new world so unfamiliar, diminished to believing they were inferior, and treated with less

regard than animals, the African American culture has suffered a brutality that has caused

disaster to the structural foundation of family and values.

In conclusion, as an African American mother concerned for the safety and well-being

of my children, it’s important to me to talk with my children and help them deal with racism

whether from law enforcement, peers, or administration in public schools. I also teach them the

importance of a positive cultural identity since they all are factors that have affected the lives

of my children, as well as the lives of many other African American children.

  20  
Hanna Carr’s narrative of her father’s year-long struggle with cancer is a strong example of
descriptive narrative writing. Carr not only details her father’s treatment; she shows how a
grave illness can affect an entire family. The essay moves from descriptions of medical
procedures and treatments to a concluding metaphor inspired by the work of author Annie
Dillard. Carr does a good job incorporating a quotation from Dillard’s work and showing
how it fits the circumstances of caring for someone who is gravely ill.

____________________________________________________________________________

Hanna Carr

Professor Marjorie Lloyd

English 1010

21 April 2015

The Sudden Leap Out of Childhood

It is a disease that can affect anyone in a monumental, colossal way. It is a disease that

many people devote their lives to, either battling through it or striving for a cure. It is a disease

that can be curable, but many unfortunate souls lose their lives battling it. It is cancer.

Cancer had made a home in my father’s tonsil in the summer of 2011. Initially, we all

thought this protruding lump on the side of his neck was just a swollen gland. It began to grow

larger throughout the summer, and it started to cause pain. Daddy, being the stubborn man he

is, would not go to the doctor. In March, he finally went to the doctor for a check-up. They

gave him antibiotics. He was on the medicine for a few months. However, it failed to help. He

was then referred to an ear, nose and throat doctor, who did a needle biopsy and an X-ray that

proved negative for cancer. This doctor thought it was a congenital cyst. Numerous tests were

run, and we were told the life-changing news. “I’m sorry to inform you. You have tonsil

cancer.”

Tonsils are two oval-shaped pads in the back of the mouth that are part of the body’s

germ-fighting immune system. Tonsil cancer often causes difficulty swallowing and a

  21  
sensation that something is caught in one’s throat. The doctor’s first step of action was to

remove the affected tonsil. This procedure is called tonsillectomy. Undergoing such a

procedure at the age of forty-nine was extremely difficult. During the surgery, Daddy’s throat

collapsed. The doctors had taken the affected tonsil out, but there was still one tonsil in his

throat that needed to be removed. After his throat collapsed, the doctors medically paralyzed

Daddy to get the muscles to relax in order to intubate him. However, they would not take the

risk of getting the one tonsil he had left.

The next step of action was chemotherapy and radiation. During the treatments, I

witnessed my father lose hair, weight, muscle mass, strength, and himself. For three months,

Daddy was “chair-ridden.” He could not lay back in a bed because there was too much

pressure on his throat; therefore he had to sit up in his recliner. He lived in that chair, besides

the trips to and from the doctors. Because of the intensity of the chemo and radiation

treatments, Daddy could not eat through his throat. He had to get a feeding tube put in his

stomach. That made the food go directly into the stomach. The only thing that could go in this

feeding tube was a liquid substance. My mom, my sister, and I all took turns putting the

substance in his feeding tube eight times a day. However, during the times when we were at

school or work, Daddy had to do it. He would say he did fill his feeding tube, but he did not,

which made him lose one hundred pounds.

After they put the feeding tube in his stomach, they put a power port in his chest. He

received his chemotherapy treatments through this port. Within the same doctor visit, two life-

impacting procedures had occurred. Throughout the treatments, Daddy was in extreme pain.

The pain was caused by the cancer itself, but mostly from the radiation; the raw skin that was

around his neck burned. Because of the pain, Daddy took several amounts of pain medication,

  22  
mostly Oxycontin and Morphine. Due to the pain and the medication, Daddy would be blacked

out for days. The only way to try to escape the pain was to sleep.

Cancer had a chain around my family for one long year. One long year of agony.

Cancer not only pierced my dad’s life, but affected me as well. I learned at a young age that

life is not filled with rainbows and butterflies, but rather pain and suffering. Witnessing such a

devastating event for such a long period of time can make one insane. I wanted to get away

from it all. I did not want to see the strong, fearless man that I looked up to, to become so

weak. However, I had nowhere to go. Like the young girl in Annie Dillard’s autobiographical

story, “The Chase,” as she was running for her life, she felt like there was nowhere to go:

“Mikey and I had nowhere to go, in our own neighborhood or out of it.” The angry man kept

chasing her. It did not matter where she went, he would always be behind her, gaining on her.

Cancer was the angry man chasing me, gaining on me. It did not matter where I went, it would

always be with me. For one long year, it was always with me.

  23  
   24  
 Section 2:
English 1010
Researched Argument

  25  
 PRIZE WINNER

First Place Researched Argument winner Jason Gammon’s essay is an excellent example of an
original, well-focused argument that is supported by solid research. Gammon considers how
decisions by two U.S. presidential administrations likely contributed to the rise of terrorist
organizations in the Middle East and Africa in recent years. To support his claim that the U.S.
is, in part, to blame for the current proliferation of terrorist groups, Gammon incorporates
research from a good variety of reliable sources. The research he has chosen to include
demonstrates that Gammon’s position on the Iraq War, and the rise of terrorism after it, is
well-informed and credible.

____________________________________________________________________________

Jason Gammon

Professor Deborah Moore, B.S., M.A.

English 1010

22 April 2015

The Inadvertent Architects:

How U.S. Politics Built The Islamic State

In April 2003, U.S. coalition forces captured the city of Fallujah in central Iraq.

Fallujah marked a crucial gain for the coalition, as its central position and placid residents

provided a fulcrum for the panoptical invasion into Saddam Hussein’s urban strongholds.

Unfortunately, Fallujah and the wider Anbar province to which it belonged would quickly

devolve into a crucible of sectarian violence. So when the new year dawned in 2014, Fallujah

and its strategic advantages had been captured once more, this time by the Islamic State of Iraq

and Syria. Considering the vast measure of military resources in the area, how was control so

quickly wrested from the coalition? Can undulating domestic political pressures explain such

wild swings in operational results? The externalities generated by complex geopolitical

statecraft dictate that there are no simple answers to such questions. Nonetheless, sufficient

evidence exists to make at least one decisive inference concerning the Iraq War: Western

  26  
foreign policy decisions have accelerated the destabilization of the Middle East by

inadvertently facilitating the rise of ISIS.

The desire to liberate Iraq from the autocratic Saddam was paramount in the early

decisions that culminated in the emergence of ISIS. The Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, signed

into law by President Bill Clinton, clearly states “...that it should be the policy of the United

States to seek to remove the Saddam Hussein regime...and to replace it with a democratic

government.”(“H.R. 4655”). The calls to expel Hussein reached their apex after the terror

attacks of September 11, 2001 when intelligence suggested that the Iraqi government was

actively involved with Al-Qaeda - the radical Islamic group responsible for the attacks.

Ancillary intelligence also indicated that Saddam may have been purchasing and developing

components for use in military-grade “weapons of mass destruction” (“Iraq’s Weapons”). In

response to these allegations, the Bush administration spearheaded a full-scale invasion of Iraq

in 2003, resulting in the fall of Saddam and his Baathist government. Unfortunately, these

seemingly positive developments were attenuated by the unexpected convergence of hostile

entities into the region who attempted to fill the vacuum created by the sudden expulsion of

Hussein. Chief among these insurgents were operational cells from Al-Qaeda itself, later to be

rechristened Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQ-I).

Consequently, the attempt to prevent the AQ-I insurgency from gaining control of the

Iraqi power structure forced the western coalition to evolve their initial strategy of invasion

into a complete occupation. Domestic political divisions were exacerbated among western

leaders because of these new strategic developments, and the resolve of the coalition was

weakened considerably. Member-nations began to carefully withdraw operational personnel

from Iraq as early as 2006, forcing the U.S. to assume a majority of both the administrative and

  27  
engagement responsibilities for the remainder of the war. Intelligence gathered from captured

insurgents further compounded tensions among the allies when it was revealed that there was

never an alliance between Saddam’s government and Al-Qaeda (“Postwar Findings” 108).

In an attempt to mitigate the negative political effects of these revelations, U.S.

leadership began to transfer operational directives to the newly established pro-western

government of Iraq. The young Iraqi military proved largely incapable of the task however,

and AQ-I swiftly regrouped and expanded as a result of decreased western military presence in

the region. George W. Bush carried these adverse developments into the apogee of his

presidency, and both his diplomatic influence and the influence of the U.S. military in the

Middle East were softened as a result. In what would prove to be a final act however, the Bush

administration engineered the “troop surge” of 2007, which was largely successful in expelling

AQ-I from many critical urban areas. According to former Army Intelligence Officer Jessica

D. Lewis:

[AQ-I] reached its apex of territorial control and destructive

capability in late 2006 and early 2007, before the Surge and the

Awakening removed the organization from its safe havens in and

around Baghdad...degrading the organization over the course of

2007-2008 such that only a fraction of its capabilities

remained…(Lewis 7)

It is evident that a capricious western foreign policy had began to stabilize by 2007, but that

equanimity would not endure. Lewis further explains, “As of August 2013, [AQ-I] has

regrouped, regained capabilities, and expanded into areas from which it was expelled during

the Surge” (7). Throughout the period between 2008 and 2013, the convulsive nature of U.S.

  28  
foreign policy in the Middle East would again render a path for AQ-I’s advancement. The

results were consistent, but the names had changed.

Cratering support for the Iraq War was an almost singular factor in the ascension of

Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency in 2008. Positioning himself as the “anti-Bush”, Obama

introduced a new strategy for Iraq as Commander-in-Chief. The Bush administration’s intrepid

venture to bring democracy to the Middle East was replaced by a more passive counter-

reactionary foreign policy. The Obama administration quickly began to curtail U.S. military

operations in the region, preferring to cede engagement responsibilities to the fledgling Iraq

government. Predictably, the Iraqis were again incapable of interrupting AQ-I advancement,

and the insurgency began yet another phase of rapid growth. Simultaneously, Al-Qaeda in Iraq

expanded their roster to include thousands more Sunni fighters by supplying vital military

assistance to rebel factions during the eruption of the Syrian Civil War. These developments

were crucial to the evolution of AQ-I. After gaining control of important strategic areas in Iraq

and Syria, antipathy between AQ-I and traditional Al-Qaeda leadership resulted in the

metamorphosis of AQ-I into ISIS - The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Bunzel 17).

In a strange reversal of fate, the Obama administration was compelled by domestic

political pressures to surge back into Iraq to prevent the fall of the Iraqi government to the

newly-emboldened ISIS. President Obama was also forced to publicly abandon planned

military support for rebel factions in the Syrian Civil War when it was discovered that many

rebels were defecting to ISIS (Catalucci). The Obama administration then changed course and

offered military support to the Syrian regime, initiating a precision air offensive against the

rebels. Obama and U.S. military commanders were forced into a lengthy state of deliberation

after finding themselves in such an impossible political situation, and ultimately responded by

  29  
ordering another large withdrawal of forces in the region. Top Al-Qaeda commander Dr.

Ayman al-Zawahir curtly defined the U.S. predicament - “The Americans are between two

fires. If they remain [in Iraq] they will bleed to death, and if they withdraw they will have lost

everything.” (qtd. in Byman and Pollack 55).

Inevitably, these military reductions precipitated an expansion of ISIS operations into

Africa. After the Obama State Department engineered the overthrow of the militant dictator

Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, ISIS satellites rushed in to the fill the vacancy in much the same

manner as when Hussein was felled in Iraq by the Bush coalition. Journalist Catherine

Herridge recently reported on, “One of the alleged ISIS leaders in [Libya] is Abdelhakim

Belhadj, an al-Qaeda-linked [Libyan] who was considered...a willing partner in the overthrow

of Muammar Gaddafi…”(Mora). Adding to these vexatious circumstances was the reticence of

western nations to involve themselves in central African affairs. This protraction has allowed

numerous terror groups (such as Boko Haram) to proliferate and pledge their loyalties to the

Islamic State (“ISIS Expands”). As a result, the deathly scope of ISIS has expanded beyond

Iraq and into the Eastern Mediterranean region, a mere two-hundred miles from Europe.

Ultimately, history is the only laboratory in which we may accurately calculate the

“rights” and “wrongs” of Middle Eastern foreign policy, and even then the results will surely

be rife with contention. Despite these eventualities, we must never undervalue the irrepressible

evidence that the United States and her allies, however inadvertently, aided the Islamic State in

its rise to prominence. We may never know if the alternatives were preferable, but we can be

sure that the erratic push and pull of internal politics helped clear the way for this barbarous

new enemy. Though recent gains against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria are encouraging, the

pragmatism of history should temper any confidence. Once again, Fallujah belongs to pro-

  30  
western forces, but according to Byman and Pollak, “...it is far too soon to count [ISIS] out.

History is littered with the corpses of countries who believed that they had eliminated an

insurgency, only to have it come roaring back when they prematurely shifted their focus” (57).

Viewed through that prism, Fallujah hardly seems to belong to anyone.

  31  
 Works Cited

Bunzel, Cole. From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State. Brookings

Institute, 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

Byman, Daniel L. and Kenneth M. Pollack. Iraq's Long-Term Impact on Jihadist Terrorism.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 61.8 (2008): 55-68.

JSTOR. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.

Catalucci, Tony. “3000 Moderate Rebels Defect to Islamic State (ISIS)” Global Research.

Global Research Initiative, Jan. 2015. Web. 5 Apr. 2015.

“H.R. 4655.” Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. Library of Congress, Oct. 1998. Web. 7 Apr. 2015.

“Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs.” Central Intelligence Agency Report. Central

Intelligence Agency, 2002. Print. 2 Apr. 2015.

Lewis, Jessica D. “Al-Qaeda in Iraq Resurgent.” Institute for the Study of War, Middle East

Security Report 14.1 (2013): 7-9. Print. Mar. 28 2015.

Mora, Edwin. “U.S. Officials Confirm Libya Has Become ISIS Support Base, Safe Haven.”

Breitbart. ABN Company, Mar. 2015. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.

“ISIS Expands Into West Africa, Welcoming Boko Haram Allegiance.” NBC News. National

Broadcasting Company, Mar. 2015. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.

“Postwar Findings About Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism” United States Senate

Select Committee on Intelligence. Library of Congress, Sep. 2006. Print. Mar. 28 2015.

  32  
Preston Neal’s essay “Alzheimer’s Costs” examines the economic impacts of this terrible
disease and offers numerous insights about how national and global health care policy can
impact funding for medical research in this field. The author believes that more substantial
funding is needed for real advances in Alzheimer’s research, and the essay argues that
governments need to make this funding more of a priority. Neal supports this position using a
variety of sources, including those from specialized health care periodicals.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Preston Neal

Professor Cynthia Wyatt

English 1010

1 December 2014

Alzheimer’s Costs

Alzheimer’s disease is a radical form of dementia that plagues the elderly all over the

world. To contextualize the current state of medical research, it is currently unknown what

directly causes the disease, and how it can be prevented. Furthermore, there are many theories

relating to what causes the disease and how it can be avoided, none of which are concrete.

Although public awareness of Alzheimer’s has increased in recent years, research funding has

mostly dwindled. This is a worldwide and highly relevant issue in regards to not only the lives

of the afflicted, but the economic ramifications that stem from the copious amounts of money

spent on long-term care and treatment. Millions of people all over the world suffer from

dementia and Alzheimer’s, which costs billions in treatment and care, and this issue doesn’t

seem to be moving towards a solution, at any pace. The fact of the matter is that while

Alzheimer’s disease has gained considerable public awareness, it doesn’t receive the research

funding it deserves and requires.  

According to Scott Hannaford of The Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney, Australia;

Alzheimer’s Disease accounts for a staggering 60% of dementia cases, and costs a minimum of

  33  
$4.9 billion dollars every year for treatment and care in Australia. Today’s Alzheimer’s tests

are very expensive, and seem to be losing funding, because the results don’t justify the cost of

research. It seems prudent for governments in developed countries to relinquish the funds

needed for Alzheimer’s research, because the cost of care and treatment monumentally

outweighs the amount of funds necessary for research many times over. It seems wiser to

pursue research now, rather than have such a drain on the economy, but with countless other

demanding issues across the globe, Alzheimer’s disease research funding is not very high on

the priority list. In today’s world, this is understandable. However, from an economic

standpoint, the $156 billion that goes into treatment annually across the globe is unacceptable.

We simply cannot afford to perpetuate the problem as we have so far.  

In John O’Connor’s article that covers a recent study, he highlights some of the faults

in how this issue of Alzheimer’s disease is being addressed in the U.S. O’Connor states that

“The annual costs of dementia care could more than double by 2040 if the age-specific

prevalence rate of the disease remains constant as the nation's population grows older”

(O’Connor, Assisted Living). This statement reinforces the claim that if Alzheimer’s disease

research doesn’t receive the funding it needs to move forward in the near future, costs of care

will continue to grow exponentially, further increasing the financial drain on the economy. In

other words, this debilitating disease doesn’t receive the attention and funding it needs in order

to decrease the massive amount of money that is spent annually for long-term care of those

who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. This claim of fact is supported by Regina A. Shih, the

lead author of the study covered by O’Connor, who states that "The majority of Americans'

cost-burden for dementia is caused by long-term care." (O’Connor, Assisted Living)  

  34