It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizinni

One thing that struck me as interesting about It's Kind of a Funny Story is Craig's willingness to seek help. He takes his medication and participates in therapy; and when he's feeling suicidal, he calls the National Suicide Hotline and takes their advice to go check himself into the hospital. From the reading I've done for my single story, I've come to realize that there isn't one presentation of depression, but it's still impressive that a teen felt brave/comfortable enough to call the hotline and check himself into the hospital. Having depression can make it difficult to seek help. Those who are depressed may convince themselves that they don't need help or might be too scared to seek help. I'm glad that a young adult novel showed that seeking help is the right thing to do. It's so important that we destigmatize mental health for young people. Especially when, as of 2016, suicide is the second leading cause of death for those aged 10-24 in the United States. Unfortunately, I know it's not the case that every depressed adolescent will seek help, but I'm glad that Ned Vizinni normalized seeking help, and depicted a character who benefitted from seeking help. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"A Time to Talk" by Robert Frost - Digital Poetry Interpretation

https://youtu.be/ssWXEm7TLBE For the most part, I enjoyed working on this project. I think I took somewhat of a different approach to thinking about this project when it was assigned, which, as a result, impacted how my final video turned out. Way back when the video was assigned, instead of finding a poem I enjoyed or knew I wanted to work with, I thought about what I would enjoy filming. I just transferred schools, and while my best friend from high school goes here, I was really worried about making other friends. But her friend group instantly took me in, and now, even though it's only been two months, I've never had such a close group of friends. So, when this project was assigned, I knew I wanted to film them and to create something that represented all the fun we have together. Knowing this, I started looking for a poem that would fit what I wanted to film. I probably spent a good week looking for a poem that I liked about friendship. I liked A Time to Talk becau
Read more

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

This was my first time reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. As for my first impressions, it was a difficult book to get through. The writing wasn't difficult, but I found that reading the book altered my mood. It's a sad book, and I guess I wasn't expecting to be so effected by reading it. Having heard it was a sad book before I read it, but not knowing anything else, I was surprised by the normalcy of Esther's life in the first couple of chapters. There are hints that she's unhappy but they can be interpreted as just everyday, "normal" moments of unhappiness. But things quickly escalate. At the start of the second half on the novel, Esther makes her first suicide attempt. It was difficult to read, but maybe not for the reasons I expected. It was off-putting how nonchalant Esther was at attempting to take her own life. This is one of the many points in the novel that made me realize that depression can alter not only how you feel but how you act. This is
Read more

Lessons from History / The Digital Divide

I was surprised at the ways in which technology has been present in English curricula over the past 100 years. I thought the introduction of technology into teaching was a more recent development. I guess I think of technology as things like laptops and tablets and forget that radio and film were new forms of technology once. I personally think that incorporating technology into the classroom is a great way to get student engaged with the course material. McCorkle and Palmeri found that in many of the English Journal articles teachers felt this way too: “teachers valued new media because they viewed them as more engaging for students.” My high school had laptop and tablet carts that teachers could reserve for lessons. I remember that the class was always super excited on the days we got to use those carts. I think my high school is now a one-to-one school where each student gets a chromebook. I wonder how students engagement with technology has changed now that they each have a laptop
Read more