AP English Lang exam

Walking into the gym, I immediately was overwhelmed by the amount of seats in the gym. I had taken an Ap exam before but there were only about 60 students the time I took it, but this time they announced there were about 300. I was really worried and didn’t know what to expect from the next few hours. When I read the first few multiple choice passages I was relieved and noticed it wasn’t that bad until I got to the 18th century reading and it threw me off a little so I skipped it and moved on. When I read the readings for the essays I was also really surprised noticing that the test was easier than any prompts we’ve gotten in class. I feel like I was well prepared and even though I was worried I feel that there is a possibility that I could have gotten a three. I really hope I did well on the test, and if I didn’t that’s also okay, but I will still be upset since I did invest money and time into this test.

Teen Pregnancy

     Teen pregnancy has been a issue in society for decades. Despite widespread sex education given to students, teen pregnancy is still a reoccurring problem. This problem was prevalent in history because many people weren't very cautious and weren't very educated on the topic of pregnancy. Although pregnancy rates for women under the age of 19 have gone down, pregnancy among teenagers is still evident. The reason for this being because many adolescents may not have practiced safe sex and lack of education by the school or their parents. This topic is important to me because many teens and people my age are not aware that there are consequences to not using protection and because being pregnant at such a young age will effect your youth and will make life very difficult at such a young age.
    Our news report was a a parody of a Dr. Phil show which stars two of my classmates as pregnant teens. Our skit over exaggerates the lifestyle of a pregnant teen. I believe that our video was an effective way to address teen pregnancy because it shows how people view pregnant teens and it makes the watcher want to avoid this type of situation at all costs. I contributed to this project by helping to set roles and helping to create scripts for each member including myself. I also starred in the video as the mother of  my peer, and helped write the group essay. Our group as a whole put in a lot of work as a team, and I believe that our project was well made.

Shame

            Activist, Dick Gregory, in his narrative essay, “Shame”, discusses his first encounter with shame as a young boy who was living in poverty. Gregory wrote this essay to share how his first experience with shame had affected him. Gregory establishes his purpose by using negative diction, figurative language, and personal-case examples.

            Gregory frequently used negative diction throughout his essay to establish his purpose. By using negative diction the author could get a sense of how he feels toward the situation. At the bottom of page 279 the author states, “The teacher thought I was stupid. Couldn’t spell, couldn’t read, couldn’t do arithmetic. Just stupid.” Not only does the author use words with a negative connotation such as stupid and couldn’t, but he repeats them to exaggerate the bad experience he had. The author’s manipulation of these words with negative connotations radiates a feeling of despair or shame. It lets the reader know that Gregory felt shame in the fact that his teachers thought he was “stupid”. The effect that the use of these words bring is evident and made a clear distinction of his purpose.

            Gregory also utilized figurative language to share his purpose. On page 280 Gregory states, “I was pregnant with poverty. Pregnant with dirt and pregnant with smells that made people turn away, pregnant with cold and pregnant with shoes that were never bought for me, pregnant with five other people in my bed and no Daddy in the next room, and pregnant with hunger.” In this quote Gregory introduces his feeling of shame by using a metaphor to compare poverty to a word with a negative connotation, a process that takes a long time, pregnancy. By comparing poverty to pregnancy the reader can associate the long process to poverty and see how the author truly felt about living in poverty. The author’s use of this extended metaphor makes the reader try to view the situation through his eyes, how living with no dad and 5 other siblings and nothing to eat must feel. His shame was in the fact that he had no dad, that he was living in poverty, and by writing this metaphor the author made that clear to the reader.

            Throughout the essay Gregory is describing a personal-case example and many details from his personal-case examples contributed to his purpose. By using personal-case examples the author can share his own experience concerning shame and that’s exactly what Gregory did. On page 281 it says “’My daddy said he’d give… fifteen dollars.’ . . . I was crying too.” These sentences describe the first time Gregory felt shame, the author was ashamed because the teacher embarrassed him by basically calling him poor in front of his class and his crush. By sharing his first-hand experience the author shares his experience with shame and how it deeply upset him. The author carries this personal-case example with him forever and will always recognize it as the first time he felt shame and therefore directly contributed to his purpose. He felt shame because he was a boy living in poverty and had no control over that and it affected him greatly.

People face shame regularly and Gregory was brave to share his experience with many readers. By doing this he lets the reader know shame is common and that no one is alone. Gregory is just one among billions of people who have experienced shame in a lifetime.

School lunches

Topic- School Lunch
Audience- Families
Purpose- To raise awareness about bad quality school lunch.

    Good Evening ladies and gentlemen. I have gathered you today to inform you about school lunch. I am an 11th grade student who attends a New York City Public school. I am a devoted student and I spend most of my time doing school work. I have never had any problems with public school, but I’ve always had a concern about the school lunch.
    The past 12 tears of being a student I have eaten school lunch 5 times. Each try has had the same conclusion, it was disgusting. There was one time that I had lunch at school and I had a bad reaction and puked. The students do not have a choice to eat what they want, in fact they often say “you get what you get and you don’t get upset.” Lunch is a very crucial part of the day, and the school can’t even provide us with the nutrition we need. Schools may claim to carry the appropriate nutrients, but according to online study 15% of 13-15 year old girls and 14% of 13-15 year old boys are obese. Why are the children of our NYC public schools gaining weight? Who is to blame for this epidemic?
Schools are to blame. According to the Physicians Comitee for Responsible Medicine and the Healthy School Campaign, school lunches are too rich in fat and cholesterol instead of the appropriate nutrients which students need. Without these nutrients how are we supposed to remain healthy?
    The lack of nutrients in these school foods are hurting students when schools are supposed to provide foods that benefit us. Students of public schools deserve better food options. How is this going to change? It begins with you. You have to take action, we all have to take action. We must create a change, and just by using your words, we all could make a change, and it starts here. Thank you.

Introducing myself

  Hi, my name is Marta, I'm 16 years old and I really suck at introducing myself to new people, and new things. I have two sisters, a dog who I basically spend all my time with, and my parents who barely understand english. In school a lot of people might know me as the girl who got her finger chopped off. This is because the cafeteria door slammed on my finger in freshman year. Since then I've had two surgeries and I am still seeing my a doctor for it bi-yearly.
  When I was little I thought I'd be able to have at least one hobby, but as time went by I realized that I don't really have any. The only thing I actually enjoy doing is getting money and spending it. I worked at a Subways restaurant during the summer and even though i hated working there, I loved getting money too much to let the job go. I am also very timid and still need to tell my boss that I quit. My birthday is during February and every year I get myself a present because it's an excuse to spend money. You could say that I love shopping or call me shopaholic, but I genuinely enjoy spending money I've earned, but doesn't everybody?
    Many of my friends consider me a tall girl because they are only 5'1, but honestly being 5'5 is average for a girl, it's not like I'm a giant. My boyfriend on the other hand is 6'2 or something along those lines, he's an actual giant. It comes to the point where when everyone has their umbrellas up on Main Street, he has to duck them or the umbrella would hit him in the face. I honestly wrote this thinking I would have so much to say about myself, but now I've just come to the realization that I've actually done nothing the past 16 years. Hopefully this year I'll be able to do things I've never done before and grow more as a person. It's a big year for us juniors and I wish everyone good luck!