News from the world out there: Kirsten Wiking, now at Marlboro CollegeDuring my first semester as a freshman at the University of San Francisco, I was enrolled in an Honors English class reserved for incoming students who had in high school received a "4" or "5" (the highest grades) on their AP English exams. The class focused on exploring ways in which modern technology either has or has not improved how people today learn and gain knowledge. For our first major assignment, I wrote an essay defending the reading of historical texts. For the class following the turn-in date of this assignment, my professor had run photocopies of my essay for my classmates to read as an example of the kind and quality of writing he was looking for. I received an "A" on the assignment, and very quickly became the go-to editor and proofreader of my peers' papers. In reading their essays, I often found basic grammar and syntax-related errors, errors that I had learned to avoid because of the intensive editing process emphasized in my NFS classes. I definitely credit my strong writing and academic success in large part to my education at the North Fork School. Self-evaluations (3 copies of each) are DUE on Tuesday, 3/16. Use the following questions as guidelines for your self-evaluation:How have you become a better student this year? What are you doing well right now? What needs to be improved? What could you be doing to be a better student? What specific steps will you take during April & May to improve your performance? What are your own personal goals for this year? Have you reached them? If so, what did it take for you to acheive these results? If not, what can you do to reach these goals? Has this been a successful year for you so far? If so, why? If not, why not? For your new words each week click: Honors World Literature VOCABULARY To see pieces written by this class, Click hereClick on the icon at right to access Editors' Links and directions for email editing: MEEEEE!by Bennet RoperI slump into my hard chair, observing my peers file into the classroom. My eyes bounce off a variety of styles: four preps, two emos, three nerds, and one loser. My brain automatically catalogs the presentation, putting people in their places, while my head bobs along to the tune of the Papa Roach song that blasts in earbuds under my hair. We each live in our own empires, being watched by followers, friends, cliques, and groupies. But our self-important, unique style is nothing that hasn't been seen before, and friends can be read like open books. Personal individualism has been drowned out by mass media: replaced by stereotypes we notice only in others. We are not at fault. Parents, the root of all evil, have treated us like we are special from birth. Prizes and rewards are doled out equally, never earned. One sweltering Saturday afternoon watching little league soccer, I, along with a crowd of other family members, cheer my brains out for my little cousin, who is running up and down the soccer field on his stubby legs, chasing after a soccer ball like a small heat-seeking missile. He is not playing a position. He, and all of his teammates, along with all of the players on the other team, are just trailing the ball. At the end of the game my uncle swoops onto the field and swings his little soccer star around. My family and I rush in and hug and congratulate him. A unanimous decision to go for ice cream is the perfect way to reward my cousin for his "victory," regardless of the unmentionable double-point loss. Children are given attention and prizes no matter how they play. In 2001 Dan Kindlon, a psychology professor at Harvard, surveyed 654 teens and 1,078 parents. Most families had annual incomes over $50,000; many had incomes over $200,000. Kindlon observes: "Frequently, parents shower their kids with gifts and attention...They bend over backward so everything is perfect for their children. They hate when they're upset. All this attention makes children feel they are the center of the universe." Such attention is the one thing those children -- now teenagers -- strive for, but as we age, applause becomes harder and harder to get. Teens in the twenty-first century need someone to take us to ice cream. Without such universal and immediate admiration and gratification, teens have devised ways never to be alone. A virtual world that is almost larger than the physical one brims with emails and IM's; cell phones buzz constantly. We have a subconscious need to be connected. In 2008 71% of teens in America owned a cell phone. According to an August 2009 study by senior research specialist Amanda Lenhart with Pew-Internet Researchers Association, Americans sent and received an average of 357 text messages per month in 2008, as well as making and receiving 204 monthly phone calls. In the 180 days preceding the writing of this article, 1,032,720 thirteen to seventeen-year-olds had Facebook pages, according to insidefacebook.com. This is proof that we are important, that we are winners. On a single weekend evening, my friend and I watch movies, surf the internet, try on clothes, and finally play Wii. She suddenly jumps up, exclaiming: "It's 8:30!!" "Yah, so," I reply. "It's EIGHT THIRTY," she all but spells out for me, "and I haven't gotten a single text all night!" She proceeds to whip out her phone, fixing that dilemma with several sent messages of her own. Her personal "empire" has forgotten its ruler. Teens merge into large bunches based on "obsessions" -- each a variation of a giant hug on a soccer field. That only sucks more of our individualism away. As the ever-popular chick books say: "the only thing harder than getting in is staying in." If someone isn't interesting enough to capture the fifteen-second attention span, she sinks to the petrifying bottom. Our voices combined with others make them sound louder, but then is that voice really ours anymore? Millions of eyes compete for one spotlight. Doting parents have created monsters out of innocent children. Our generation feels the need to be celebrated. This craving to be fabulous results in an empty, attention-sucking, insecure mass of teenage consumers with gigantic electronic connections. Teens dread disappearing into the oblivion. Our cliques -- emos, preps, nerds, and losers -- seem to be the only way we can survive. But am I really all prep? All emo? All nerd? Individualism is unnecessary in the large jigsaw puzzle of teenage existence: take one piece out and there is no loss. One small detail simply disappears, over one lowly scoop of ice cream. *** = must be finished by end of 3rd Quarter
Gerrit:
Catcher in the Rye essay ***
2 rejection letters
Danny:
personal opinion essay ***
2 rejection letters
Bennet:
Catcher in the Rye essay ***
2 rejection letters
Kiana
interview paragraph -- Bennet's pen ***
During your MDHS reading class this year, choose some books from the 9th-10th Grade Reading List .
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Copyright March 9, 2010 Marie M. Furnary All rights reserved.