My teacher gave us a project to do on Bud, Not Buddy, but there is a question I do not understand. It is due tomorrow. The question is as...

I can see why you had a hard time understanding how to do this essay. This assignment is not worded very well, but if you read between the lines you can understand what the teacher is asking. Let us deal with the two parts of the project each in turn: art and essay.

In regards to the art the teacher is asking you to produce by asking you to cut paper “into the shape of something that resembles the great depression,” my suggestion is that you cut the paper into the shape of an apple. Many poor people in big cities during the Great Depression became “apple sellers” in that they would pick apples for free and then sell them in the city for one cent to rich people who were lucky enough to have work.

In regards to the essay, I would use the introduction to talk about how children were often orphaned during the Great Depression due to the simple poverty to which their parents were subjected as a result of the Stock Market Crash. This led many children to wish and to hope that their parents were still alive and waiting for them. Even though Bud’s mother has died, Bud is one of these children who wishes for his father. I would then suggest body paragraphs based upon the items in Bud’s suitcase. One paragraph could be about the stones and reveal that the “stones with writing on them” are actually mementos from Bud’s mother revealing dates and places where Calloway played music. One body paragraph could be about the pictures, especially the one of Bud’s mother on the pony, and what it reveals about the pressure put upon her by her father (Calloway). A final body paragraph could be about the flyer in Bud’s suitcase including all of the details of Calloway’s performance and the reason why the flyer makes Bud think his father is still alive. It is the conclusion of the essay that could contain the strange request to “compare an item to something Bud had in his suitcase.” Because a conclusion should always introduce a new idea to the reader, how about comparing Little Orphan Annie’s locket to Bud’s stones? Just like Bud and his stones, Little Orphan Annie had half of a locket that she treasured above everything else because she believed that her parents had the other half.