Connect Four

Texts:
“On The Sidewalk Bleeding” (short text) by Evan Hunter
“On The Bridge” (short text) by Todd Strasser
“Do You Need Prehab?” (article) by
“The Blind Side” (film) directed by John Lee Hancock

A connection that I have explored throughout my four texts are the choices that have been made by the main characters. The four aspects of choices that I have learnt about from the texts are the freedom of choice the characters had, influences, the positive and negative choices the characters made and the consequences to the choices. I will be explaining the freedom of choice the characters had from the two texts ‘On The Sidewalk Bleeding’ and ‘Do You Need Prehab?’. The influences will be explained through the text and film, ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and ‘The Blindside’. The choices made will be explained through the texts ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and ‘On the Bridge’. The consequences will also be explained through the texts ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and ‘On the Bridge.’

The first aspect that I’ve learnt about is freedom. Freedom means that you have the right to do or say whatever you want. Some people though, don’t have their freedom of choice due to family or maybe friends’ circumstances. In the texts ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and ‘Do You Need Prehab?’ the main characters both had the freedom of choice. Andy from ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ had the freedom of choice to join a gang which led him to wearing his gang jacket -the Royals- to his girlfriend’s dance recital. He also had the freedom of choice to take a shortcut through the alleyway and was jumped in the alleyway by his enemies the Guardians. Andy didn’t have to wear his jacket but he chose to because of identity and the recognition of the gang or maybe because he wanted to look tough to other people. “The cop picked up the jacket and turned it over in his hands. ‘A Royal, huh?’ he said. She (Laura, Andy’s girlfriend) looked at the cop, and, very quietly, she said, ‘His name is Andy.’ The cop slung the jacket over his arm. He took out his black pad, and he flipped it open to a blank page. ‘A Royal,’ he said. Then he began writing.” The cop said that because when he saw that he was a Royals gang member he immediately knew about them even though he doesn’t know Andy. Rachel from ‘Do You Need Prehab?’ had the freedom to take ecstasy pills because she felt like she had no one to comfort her and help her during her time of grief when her ex-boyfriend cheated on her and her dad was really sick. She also had the freedom to look forward to the weekends to party hard and drink. Because Rachel had the freedom of choice to do those things she had an anxiety attack from drinking and taking ecstasy pills, but the last choice she made was to go and get professional help from a psychologist.

The second aspect of choices I’ve seen in the text ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and film ‘The Blind Side’ is the influences the characters encounter. Influences are when someone motivates you to make positive or negative choices. In the text ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and the film ‘The Blind Side’ the characters were influenced or impacted by people in making positive or negative choices. ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’, the Royals gang had an influence on Andy to probably feel like he was invincible because he got a gang jacket which gave him that feeling of recognition and acceptance. The Tuohy family from ‘The Blind Side ‘had a huge impact on Big Mike.
Big Mike was a homeless teenage African-American who didn’t even know his father and had a drug addict mother. Michael ‘Big Mike’ has had little formal education and few skills to help him learn. They took Big Mike into their home and helped him to believe in himself. They also hired a tutor Miss Sue who helped him in his studies. “We were wondering if you would like to become a part of this family.” –Sean Tuohy. They also gave him a chance to live a good life instead of dropping out of school, doing drugs and being in a gang. The influences and impact that was made towards the characters gave them recognition and to Big Mike, a second chance to living a better life then Andy did.

The third aspect of choices that I’ve seen in the texts is the choices made by the main characters. Choices are either positive or negative decisions we make in life. In the two short texts ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and ‘On the Bridge’, the main characters both made positive and negative choices. Andy from ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ made a negative choice to join a gang and to him he made a positive choice to remove his jacket before he died because he wanted to die as Andy and not a Royal. “It seems very important to him that he takes off the purple jacket. He was very close to dying, and when they found him, he did not want them to say, ‘Oh, it’s a Royal.’ with great effort, he rolled over on to his back if he never did another thing, he wanted to take off the jacket.” Seth from ‘On the Bridge’ made a negative choice to hang out with Adam who was a bad influence by smoking and doing inappropriate things on the bridge. A positive choice that Seth made was to walk away from Adam because he realised that Adam isn’t as tough as he looks and didn’t own up to his negative choice made on the bridge.

The last aspect of choices that I’ve seen in the texts is that all the choices the characters make have either positive or negative consequences. Consequences mean a result after an action, whether it is positive or negative. In the texts ‘On the Sidewalk Bleeding’ and ‘On the Bridge’ the characters both encountered consequences. The consequence to Andy’s choice was being jumped in an alleyway and left to die. Seth from ‘On the Bridge’ made a choice to hang out with Adam, the bad boy. Because Seth was with Adam he was beaten up because of Adams actions and not his own. “Seth took his hand and saw that it was covered with bright red blood. It was dripping down from his nose and chin onto his denim jacket, leaving red spots.” The choices that Andy and Seth made had consequences which were negative because their choices we negative.

The four texts highlight freedom, influences, choices made and the consequences. When we have the freedom of choice to do whatever we want we should always think more carefully. I learnt that we should be around people who influence us to make positive choices. Whatever choices we make in our lives there will always be consequences. If we make positive or negative choices there will be positive or negative consequences. So when we make positive choices we will get a positive outcome, vice versa.