Kaitlyn Chow

812

The Story Behind It

Continued from #5

         I wrote this piece out of the top of my head. It was my best idea, and I know that peer pressure drinking goes occurs often. So I wanted to give the reader an actual scenario where it happened, I wanted the reader to feel like they were there,watching it with their own eyes. Peer pressure drinking is hard, because a lot of people don’t want to drink, but with an audience in front of you, you also don’t want to chicken out. It’s a very big social issue around the world, and is also something that needs to be stopped.

         I choose the main character, Doug to be alone so that it would be four people against one. So that Doug actually felt pressured to drink. I also wrote the thoughts that were going through his head when Katrina thrusts the bottle into his hand. I wanted the reader to understand what people face when they have the bottle and everyone is looking at you, expecting you to drink it. I also made the character seem strong, but inside, he was very vulnerable. I did this to show that what he was saying was so different from what he was actually feeling. Someone may act like something isn’t a big deal but inside they really want to disappear.

Kaitlyn Chow                                                                                  

ELA-Writing Project For Social Awareness                                                             

Short Dramatic Scene

#5

         I'm standing outside leaning against the cool brick building getting some air when a red range rover comes into view. The truck comes to a stop in front of me as three familiar faces get out of the car. My fellow classmates from West High. I catch a whiff of smoke as they walk towards me.

         "Yo Doug, I got that good stuff right here." Jeff says, holding up two huge bottles of alcohol like they are his prized trophies.

         "Yeah man. Take some. We'll give it to you no charge." Bruce says with a lit cigarette in hand.

         "I can't, I, um, I have this important job interview in the morning. Can't get hung over tonight." I say. My voice trembled a bit. I hope they didn't notice. I’ve never drank before.

         Katrina laughs. "You’re cute, Doug. A couple of swigs won't do nothing. You'll realize it when you try some. Don't sweat it." She says, taking a bottle from Jeff and opening it. She takes a long gulp and offers it to me. "C'mon Doug, I know you can take it."

         I can't take it. I know I can't. I'm not gonna do it.

         "Don't even think about it bro. This ain't even the real hard stuff, Doug." Bruce says, abandoning his cigarette to the ground and leaning on the hood of a car.

         "I told you, I have this important interview tomorrow. I can't screw it up." I start walking away. I don't even know where I'm going. Anywhere but here.

         "You won't screw anything up bro." Jeff says, catching up with me. He grabs the hem of my hoodie rather aggressively.

         I stop walking. I’m too scared to move.

         "Drink." Katrina says, thrusting the bottle into my hands.

         I look around. Tension is in the air. Bruce stands up, like he’s ready for a fight.

         If I don't drink, they're going to do something bad to me. I don't want to find out what that is. So I drink.

         "Atta boy. It's not so bad now is it?" Jeff says. Or screams. I'm not sure which because the world is spinning.

         "Try this bottle. I like it better." Bruce says, taking it from Jeff and giving me the other.

        

         But I can't tell if I'm holding it because I'm having trouble seeing. Tears are streaming down my face and my throat has gone raw. I drop the bottle and run, blindly.

Kaitlyn Chow

812

Excerpt from: Crackback by John Coy

Social Issue: Steroids

        

         “I don’t know, Zach.”

         “Tyson’s taking ‘em. Lots of seniors. Gives you that edge.”

         I stare at the capsules. I’ve never taken anything for edge. I get out and shove them in my pocket.

         “Take the Blast before the game,” Zach says. “Be ready to kill ‘em.”

         “I’ll be ready.” I slap my hand on the door.

Reading Response

#4

         This is an example of peer pressure to taking steroids. As a football player, Miles wants to get ripped. He wants to be able to lift heavy weights and take down guys like they’re nothing. So Miles’ best friend Zach offers him Rip Blast, says that most of the team is taking them. And Miles isn’t sure because he hasn’t done any type of drugs before. Throughout the book, Zach encourages him about taking the pills, and he thinks that Miles takes it on a daily basis. However, Miles only took it once. Only because he was peer pressured and Zach was sitting right next to him, watching him.

         My thoughts on peer pressure are that we need to bring awareness to this because it’s something that is very hard to control. You can’t control people ganging up on a kid in the middle of the night, but you can encourage self-esteem. The people that get peer pressured go out of their way to do what others want because they either don’t want to get hurt, want to impress others or feel like it’ll turn out to be good for them. Unfortunately, that’s not true, you should do what you want to do, feel what you want to feel and believe what you want to believe, don’t let others do that for you. They aren’t to decide for you.

         I think that the message of this was to act and write out scenes that can actually happen inreal life, and being pressured to do something because your friend(s) are doing it happens a lot. In this case, Miles’ best friend has already started to take these steroids and expects Miles to as well because they’re best friends and they usually do everything together. However, Miles knows that steroids are drugs, and he isn’t sure about this. I think that it’s regular to feel that way. Miles knew that Zach and him were best friends and they don’t keep secrets from each other, but on this one, he didn’t want Zach to judge him for not taking the pills for football. Personally, I think that you should not do any type of drugs because in the end, they always end up negatively affecting you. It’s not good for your body or mind. No matter what it can do or make you feel.

Kaitlyn Chow

812

Observing my Surroundings

#2

        I come across homelessness often, because I live in New York and there are many homeless people here. But not just here. All over the world. They should be noticed, not overlooked. I find them in train stations, sitting outside busy places or all over Manhattan.

        Homelessness is a big issue all over the world. So many people go to sleep with no shelter over their heads. Nothing to protect them from the heat in the summer, the cold in the winter or the cold rain storms. I feel sympathy towards these people because they 

don’t have a home to go to. They live a life on the streets, where there are things like rodents and wild animals, bugs and harsh weather. Everyone should deserve to have safety. A home is a necessity it’s where you cleanse yourself, sleep eat and entertain yourself. To live life worrying about how you’re going to survive each day is heartbreaking. They live on the streets because they are less fortunate, and we should help them. It’s wrong to leave these people on the streets when you go home to so much more, and they have nothing but a miserable life.

Kaitlyn Chow
812

Writing Project For Social Awareness

            The writing project for social awareness project serves the purpose of writing about important social issues around the world that we need to become aware of. We each picked three things to write  and think about. I chose the following three to write about from the list.

2.        Observe your surroundings (school, home, neighborhood, media). Write a list about all the scenes or situations you come across on a daily basis that you think are unfair and/or not right in some way. Pick one of the ideas from your list and write a longer entry about it - 2-3 paragraphs. Describe the problem, what's wrong with it, cause and effect, and possible solutions.

4.        Write a reading response on a social issue in a literary work (your independent reading book, short story, essay, or poem/song). Write a 3-5 paragraph reading response. What problem/issue is it about? What is the message? What does the text make you think, feel, and/or know about the issue?

5.        Write an original literary piece (poem, song, short dramatic scene, personal narrative, etc.) responding to a specific social problem/issue. Be creative, detailed, and specific. Also, write 1-2 paragraphs describing your process in writing the poem and what problem/issue it is about. 

Kaitlyn Chow                                                                           November 18, 2014
ELA Blogpost #5                                                                                               812

Nonfiction Reading Response

Upfront Magazine

            The article I have picked is called, "Guess Who's Looking At Your Facebook Page?" by Alessandra Potenza. The article is about how you should start being more cautious about what you post on things like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram because colleges look at them to help consider whether or not they want you in their school. Colleges aren't the only ones who scout social media to consider you, but managers at the job you are applying to look at it as well. They look to see your personality. They don't want people who post inappropriate things or insults because they want a good student/employee and they judge that partially based on their social media. The article wants the reader to be aware that they are being viewed by colleges or job managers to consider them because the author has realized that, "what you post online can have real consequences." An example of this was given in the article when a girl from Findlay, Ohio posted a complaint about the small tips from customers on Facebook. Her managers were notified about it throughout one of her Facebook friends, and she was fired. This person was included in the article because it was an example about how Facebook posts can really matter, and you should be cautious about what you say. 

            The author wants the reader to be amazed that colleges and managers really do look you up on Google to help determine whether or not they want to accept you. The author wants to make you feel like you should be careful about what you post, because it can determine your future. If the job  you're applying to sees that you post appropriate, positive things they are more likely to consider you than if you posted inappropriate things. It's almost as if the author is warning the reader by pointing out multiple consequences you can get for posting inappropriate things. As stated in the article, "more than 90 percent of (jobs) recruiters check candidates' social media profiles." The author gives numbers numbers to give the reader an idea of how many people actually check your profile so you can see how many people are actually serious about it.

            This article has changed my thinking because I feel like now I am aware that posting things can change my future, I want to be more cautious about it. I've decided that because I can post positive things, I will. I can make the choice not to post inappropriate things, so I won't.

Citation

Potenza, Alessandra. "Guess Who's Looking At Your Facebook Page." October 6, 2014. Upfront Magazine. November 14, 2014. <http://upfront.scholastic.com/>

Kaitlyn Chow
November 6, 2014
ELA 812

Book Response

Looking For Alaska by John Green

          Smoking and cursing are things people frown upon, however, the book Looking For Alaska contains these things. Looking For Alaska by John Green is about Miles, who goes to high school and adopts bad habits such as smoking, cursing and breaking multiple rules. This book should be banned because although it does show a lot about the value of friendship, it contains many examples of rule breaking, bad influences and inappropriate issues.

          Drinking becomes a main habit in the book, and they do it for fun and act like it’s cool to do it, and that it’s no big deal. This an incredibly bad influence on the readers of the book because they are getting drunk by underage drinking and that is a horrible example to set. They play drinking games and sometimes turn to alcohol to reduce stress, like when Alaska died. An example of this is when Miles goes to Takumi for alcohol after Alaska dies. He says, “Do you have any alcohol?” and Takumi asks why. In response, Colonel says, “Uh, because we want to get drunk?” as if it were so obvious. This quote shows how easily the Colonel and Miles are around alcohol, and they don’t take drinking as a serious thing. 

           In the book, there are also many times when they smoke. Most of the time, Alaska is the one to influence them to smoke. She sometimes supplies them with cigarettes. “So, Alaska. Sell us some cigarettes,” the Colonel says on page 15. They depend on Alaska a lot, and she’s mainly the one who’s influenced them to this sad life of drinking, smoking, breaking curfew, cursing and setting pranks. This was also an example of them breaking rules because it was against the rules to smoke on campus, yet they still did it.

          Miles has changed throughout the book, and he’s definitely not the same person as he was when he first started going to Culver Creek high school. Before he attended this school, he never experienced the feeling of drinking alcohol or smoking. It’s described so the reader can infer that his parents were considered overprotective of Miles, and this is part of the reason why he felt like he was bad when first doing these things. As Miles says in the book, “I swallowed hard, and there, yes I did it. I was drinking on campus.” From this quote I can tell that Miles felt accomplished in this action because he’s never done something as rebellious as that. He felt like he was now cool and was even a bit shocked, proud even. Most of them reason why Miles did all these things was because Miles was peer pressured into it. The environment that John Green created for Miles affected him in a bad way, and he is now a bad influence.

          Banning this book would be the right thing to do because of the inappropriate issues. Looking For Alaska can relate to readers because by reading this text, they might think that these things are okay to do in their lives. However, the actions in this book should not be copied because underaged drinking and drunk driving is illegal. In addition, drunk driving puts others in danger as well. Also, smoking is brought up a lot in the book, and I feel like you shouldn’t smoke because it’s one of the worlds top killers. Looking For Alaska does not set good examples and should be banned for it’s inappropriate content.