anna's story

“Anna’s Story� is a non-fiction expository text written by Bronwyn Donaghy. Donaghy’s deliberate use of language and selection of detail have combined to convey specific attitudes about teenagers and drugs. The way these are conveyed is also aided by the use of structure, point of view, quotes and bias. In this text we are given facts about drugs as well as the story of Anna’s life and what caused the early end to it. Donaghy is trying to convince us that it was not Anna’s fault she died, but that it was the drugs. The book starts with forward which is by David Bennett; he is the head of Adolescent Medicine at a hospital in New South Wales. He talks about how he is moved by the story. This is included because he is a doctor and because he sees so much suffering and bad things in his line off work. It talks about how he is moved by what has happened, this is supposed to make us think that we too should feel some sort of sorrow for Anna Wood because he would not be moved by something that wasn’t very sad. The letter from Kate Ceberano is put in so that we see that someone popular (a teen idol) is giving up her time to include a message about drugs being bad. We are supposed to look up to her and listen to what she is sayin

saying, but to us she is not very popular and this tends to bore us. Therefore in these first few pages, Donaghy has already bored us with information that is uninteresting. The book then goes on to part one, which is accounts of Annas life from her family and friends point of view. People included in this are her mum, dad, Alice, Julie, Kathie, Eddie, Toby, Gayle, Ian, Chloe, Alexia, George and Sarine. They all talk about how good she was to them and how they can't believe that she died from a drug overdose. The selection of detail in these accounts tries to make us believe that Anna was an angel and it wasn’t her fault that she died. Donaghy has selectively put in mainly good things about Anna, but if we read closely we see that she was not like the picture that is painted of her. We pick up on this in Chloe’s story: “The first time I tried dope I was at Anna’s house.” pg 60. This shows us that Anna was not really as innocent as she is made out to be. Even though it is not stated whether or not Anna was smoking it too we assume that she was due to the fact that it was her house. This makes Donaghy less credible to us and we start to question what the book is selectively leaving out. In the middle is the information that turns the book into a non-fiction expository text. We get a big chunk of facts about drugs and alcohol. It gives us long explanations about the drugs and this information is repeated over and over just using different words. This is trying to show us the dangers of these different things thought it just bores us. The inclusion of these facts is supposed to inform us and scare us into not experimenting with drugs. Part Two of the book is gives us information about what wen