Analysis Of Bjorn Skogquist's Essay An Apology

Bjorn Skogquist’s essay An Apology is a story about the hardships her and a new group of friends cause for a young girl in their class named Tiffany Stephenson during the fourth grade. Early in the essay Bjorn talks about her hardships she was going through during the time. These hardships include moving to a new school and her parents having marriage issues. The focus soon turns to the ridicule her and the classmates displayed to one of their classmates named Tiffany Stephenson. One of her classmates Describes Tiffany as,”fat and ugly and she stinks,” (Skogquist, paragraph 5.) Though Bjorn personally doesn’t see this she accepts it and goes along with her classmates for fear of not being accepted. The rest of the essay describes the many

The essay covers events placed throughout entire fourth grade year. Harassment that came from Bjorn and the other students was very diverse and multiple different examples are listed. Passing hurtful notes, name calling, threats, and even physical acts where just a few examples of what the students did. The actions conducted by Bjorn where not just simple things that Tiffany could ignore and forget about. Her harassment was very brutal and occurred so often that it just cannot be forgiven through a well worded essay and apology. I’m willing to bet that Tiffany was probably bullied often in school in the years that followed her fourth grade year. Bjorn and the student where relentless and didn’t allow for Tiffany to enjoy any aspect of school. When a teacher decided to post Tiffany’s art on a prize board at the end of the week as an act of encouragement Bjorn and the others used it as another source of hatred and reason to harass Tiffany. Not only did the students Harass Tiffany but Tiffany’s friend Sharon was also became a target of harassment. Sharon was bullied for the sole fact that she was friends with Tiffany. Bjorn and the students grew to the point where any happiness in Tiffany’s life brought them