1. "The American Male at Age Ten"

I overall found this piece to be a quick and enjoyable read. Colin sounds like such an exuberant, joyful young boy, and this look into his life definitely captured my attention and interest. One paragraph of the essay that especially stuck out to me was the description of Colin's bedroom. For one thing, this reminded me of the exercise that we did in class on Wednesday, when we had to close our eyes and imagine our childhood bedroom and write about it. I think that someone's bedroom can say so much about that person. We learn so much about Colin just from what his bedroom looks like. Even if we did not have the rest of this essay, we would still gain insight from this one description.

Colin’s bedroom shows his quirky side and what makes him unique. We learn that he has an interest in advertisements and that he could go on and on about pop culture. We learn about his desire to move to Wyoming. However, his bedroom also shows us that Colin is, in many ways, the typical ten-year-old boy. He has a pile of dirty laundry on the floor. His pet parakeet is named Dude. Of course he has a pet parakeet named Dude. What else would someone want to name their parakeet?

I found Colin to be such an endearing and promising young boy. It is so interesting to me that even through his bedroom, we can see the parts of him that are very youthful and the parts of him that are starting to grow up. Sure, he still likes Spiderman and has a teddy bear. But he also cares about consumerism and money. Colin is the boy I would’ve wanted to be friends with at ten years old. To be honest, I probably would have been dying to meet Dude, too.