Non-fiction: Ashlyn Blocker, The Girl Who Feels No Pain

This article is about how this girl Ashlyn Blocker feels no pain. In the article the author, Justin Heckert, Explains Ashlyn's home life. He tells us that Ashlyn is a normal girl, who goes to a normal school, and lives in a normal house but there is something different about her, she literally can not feel pain.

The author wants me to know that Ashlyn has a very rare disease. He also wants me to know that a disease that sounds like your some kind of super hero, can actually be very harmful. He does this by saying how rare her disease is and how she can't feel a punch in the face, and how she can't feel boiling water, and how she could walk on hot rocks like it is grass. To show how harmful this disease can actually be, he gave examples about how even though she cannot feel the pain it is still damaging her body. Heckert told us about how when Ashlyn was little her parents had to keep an eye out just in case Ashlyn touched something hot or sharp. If Ashlyn got a burn she wouldn't feel it, but she would still be exposed to infection. Ashlyn parents also had to watch her when she was sleeping because she could grind her teeth or bite her tongue off and not even realize it.

I think that the author wants me to feel empathetic towards Ashlyn. I think he wants me to feel this way because Ashlyn's situation is so interesting that if I really put myself in her position it would make the story more intriguing. I also think that the author wants me to feel like her situation is really foreign. I mean I know that it is a rare disease, but I think Heckert is trying to make it sound even more out of this world to make his readers want to know more.

I found Ashlyn's story really intriguing. I think that I mainly found it intriguing because I personally like to hear about crazy diseases like this. I also think that the way the author wrote this article made me even more interested in it. I think that more authors should use the same kind of tactics Heckert used to write his article in an interesting way, but maybe those tactics could be used on an article where someone is raising awareness about an issue because it will intrigue the readers more so that they can do something to help solve the issue.