proposal

For my project, I want to focus on youth working in retail. The youth may chose to work for extra spending money, like I did, or for necessities. In the latter case, they need their jobs for simple requirements like food or shelter. In both cases though, they must struggle through a difficult job earning low wages.
There are certain conceptual tools I have learned from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, and The Working Poor by David Shipler that I plan on using while writing my next hypertext. From Schlosser’s book, I learned the importance of descriptive words. He would describe the slaughterhouse (Chapter 8) and how the workers must stand in “a river of blood” (page 171) so that the reader felt as if they were there. Ehrenreich’s main conceptual tool is that she actually walked in the shoes of the working poor, she didn’t just interview them. She also frequently changed the locations and jobs (Key West in Chapter 1 and Maine for Chapter 2) which gave her a mixture of experiences; this makes her experiment more diversified. Shipler’s novel gives definition of an idea than explains the many sides of it. For example, on page 5 he discusses the American Myth including the standard as well as the blame it holds. Shipler also uses stylistically conceptual tools such as beginning every chapter with a bold statement. He hooks the reader into every paragraph with pithy sentences such as “luxury is produced by humble hands” (page 77). All of the novels use personal stories intermixed with the authors’ own feelings as well as names and detailed descriptions of each personal story that connects the reader to the worker. I hope to collect stories from various young people who have worked in the retail business and compare them with my own experience.