"The American Male at Age 10"
this story was so interesting! As well as entertaining and funny. I had a great time reading it! Susan describes this subculture as an old town. Old but civilized and far from a busy city like LA or New York. There were gracious parks in the city. She described it as a great place to raise your children as well as a serene place to live anyway.

Rough Draft of Memoir

                Back then I didn’t know what education was. I didn’t know what it did for people, didn’t do for people, and how much power it had. I just went to school every day because my mother and father said I had to. I knew education as going to a building where I sat in a room and learn fun little things until I got to go to recess and play. Teachers back then in 1^st 2^nd grade taught us all we needed to know at that time of age. They taught us all but one thing; what education was. I am choosing a long memory for my memoir. My journey through school until I realized what education was.

                Of course we were taught that education was very important and the foundation of an American in this country blah blah blah. But I was young and more concerned with the funny faces my friend was making across the room. Meaning they taught me this but I was way too young for it to sink in. I was not yet exposed to educations awards and consequences. I didn’t know what it could or couldn’t do. It just was what it was and went to school because I had to! It was as simple as that. It felt like almost every day that my parents told me how important school was to me. It was everyone 3 feet taller than me that told me this all the time. I would always wonder why they pushed this one thing on me so hard and frequently. Why is this thing I dread every morning so significant to my life? I hated homework I hated big projects I hated reading and I hated waking up at the crack of dawn every day. Why couldn’t recess or cartoon be that important to my life? I would wonder why, but never sat down and really tried to figure it out. I was young I didn’t care enough to do that.

                5^th and 6^th grade come along and I end up in a charter school. Charter schools are known for being a little more rigorous than public schools, just my luck. I did fairly well in all my classes but it was definitely a lot harder than 3^rd and 4^th grade. It was like I went from riding my bike in the park to downhill the great pyramids. So this is why this whole education thing was so important. Because it was so hard! Now I know that’s not the real reason why but at the time that was what I was going with. I was getting closer to figuring out why exactly this was all so important. As I got older I got wiser; I listening more carefully. I started to understand why my parents push me as hard as they still do.  I began to see education as the stepping stone that all these adults perceived it as, the outlet of success. I saw the awards of a good education. I saw what it offered people and their families. I saw what my family wanted for me and my future! As I fast forward to 8^th grade graduation, I saw accomplishment. I felt awarded for the first time in 8 years of academic effort. And my parents told me it was only going to get better from here.

                It was this time of my life where the meaning of education clicked into my brain. High school was no joke. Homework every day, projects every other week, quizzes every Friday and exams every month! It was exhausting. I hated it! I felt grown enough to make my own decisions yet I was directed around like a child. It was extremely frustrating. On top of the amount of work high school piled on me, my parents began to push me even harder. It was time to start looking for colleges. Another thing they told emphasized on importance. Why was college so important? I didn’t get it. Now I had to figure out what I wanted to do in life and go to another school that offered that. Sounds easy enough but of course it wasn’t at all. I started just giving up. I still did not understand why education was so important to my life. That’s when I saw not the awards of education, but the consequences. Long talks with my very close teachers helped me realize this. They started telling me their own personal stories of how education played a big part in their lives. They told me stories of how not having an education can virtually break someone. Feeling the wrath of their experiences put me into perspective. I realized that it was so important because without it life would be extremely difficult with almost no purpose. I felt like I finally knew after all these years. The real reason why education was so important!

                I was wrong. Coming into college here at BCC really showed me why education was important. It’s not about the awards and consequences you receive because of education. It was about to pure act of learning! Every day you should learn something new. It was about how we as a species just furthering our education to the point where we can’t anymore. Learning is such a beautiful thing and we should not waste it. There is no better feeling you get after learning something you didn’t already know. Educating ourselves will prevent future mistakes as well. There are so many things that education offers and so many different reasons why it is so important to me. The financial awards and stability in life are just extra.

Reading Journal - About My Kid

About My Kid This article was surprisingly really good. For some reason I thought it would not be interesting at all because it was about education and its rare for educational articles to be really exciting. But this was about a mother and her struggle with raising her child. Not a financial struggle or anything like that. A molding struggle. Or should I say a not molding struggle? She was raised around a family where everyone went to college. Both of her parents were teachers in school so it was "normal" to go to school and onto a higher education. When she had her little boy she knew what she had to do. She had to raise him into a well mannered STUDENT. She knew that a child was not someone you owned and that you could not mold them into something you wanted. She knew she had to be a support system until he grew his wings to fly. She watched him grow into a young boy with charm, great manners, great grades as well as horrible grades. He could not concentrate in class and had bad behavior here and there. It got to the point where she was willing to go into school with him and hover until he did his work. Pick him up from school and hover until his homework was done as well has organizing his planner day to day. She was so focused on giving him a normal life with all the potential he had. He could solve any technical difficulty effortlessly so she knew he had what it took. But he was not comfortable in a school setting. She finally realized that he was not going to grow up into what she thought was a "normal person" and accepted the fact that he his a human being and needed to be put into a lifestyle of his choosing. A lifestyle where he felt comfortable and was truly happy in.

"Killing Chickens"

The way the author described setting and action in this story was a great detail incorporated into this piece. Just the first line alone was extremely descriptive " I tuck her wings tight against her heaving body, crouch over her, and cover her flailing head with my gloved hand.". Another specific detail that was effective was how much emotion the author put into the dialogue. " 'It’s all right,” I say softly. “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right. Shhh, Silly, shhh.' I crouch over her." A third specific detail I thought was effective was the the bluntness and irony of the title. It did have to do with killing chickens but I believe the moral of the story revolved around her loved ones. That goes for her children as well as Bitty the chicken. I noticed that Hall's writing method was very descriptive. She really enjoyed bringing her audience into her mind and showing them the exact image of the story. I felt like I was watching a the story on TV that is how descriptive Meredith was in this short story.

Revised Sentences!

My hometown was a great place to grow up. All the girls had quite a conservative style. Mr.Bradley was Pittsburgh Steeler fan I ever had as a teacher. His room was covered in Steeler flags, jerseys, and posters!

My Education Ad

The message of this education ad is simple. It is telling people out there with less of an education that this school has the potental to change your entire future. The message is bold and effective. It not only reaches out to people with less of an education but also to people who just need their future shaped in a positive way. The simplicity of the message is what makes it so effective. It puts the audience in perspective. It makes them feel as if just being in the room itself will change your future. Obviously thats not what the audience thinks but subconciously its exactly what I thought. After seeing the ad my first thought was "Hm that easy huh?" The target audience for this ad would probably be young students ending their high school years and going into college. However it does appeal to people of all ages. Who doesnt want their future to be positivley shaped? This ad can relate to anyone trying to better themselves. I feel like it can make anyone from any background pause for a minute and think if they have their future stable. Education is very crucial in today's society which almost forces for someone to just take a second and consider. Thats the first thing an ad should do; is make the audience at least consider! Thats exactly what this one does.  Places I think this ad would be put up would probably be highschool counslelor offices, mini cafes, and anywhere else where there is a lot of people. Places where people are sitting down for a while and have time to look and read. It is probably places inside and out of busses, at bus stops and maybe even at a local boys and girls club. All these spots are great areas for this ad because they are places where there are kids as well as adults that would be interested in their future educationally. A book store would be a great area to place this ad. Speaking of reading, magazines like time magazine would be a good place to have this ad in. Its a well known magazine that hundreds would come across.

My Theme Proposal

There are certain topics that just appeal to me. Topics that I can read and write about all day everyday without losing a bit of interest. The topic of Education is definitely one of those never boring kind of topics. There is so much you can learn reading about education (no pun intended). The history of education, the future of education, and what it has to offer to anyone in the world. It brings people together. Gives people a common goal to achieve and celebrate together. Education is the single most crucial/exciting thing in life for me. Other than my love for music and fashion I put education at #1! Because at the end of the day my education plays the biggest role in all my loves and endeavors.

Back up ideas
- Nature
- Crime and Justice