Have you ever had to make a choice? Was that choice life or death? Most people don’t realize people living in the projects make life or death choices everyday. In the book If I Grow Up by Todd Strasser, a boy named DeShawn had to make this choice everyday. In the beginning of the book DeShawn didn’t want to join a gang called the Disciples. Toughout the book DeShawn is thinking that he should join the gang. So, he does join the gang. Even though he joined the gang he still had the choice to make his life better. He could have gotten a job, listened to officer Patterson, and stayed in school to get a better education.
Some people may argue that DeShawn didn’t have a choice because, he didn’t have any money. Yes, by joining a gang you do get more money, as DeShawn said on page 161, “Thanks to the Disciples, I had money now. Enough to pay rent.” Though he might have money from the gang, but he could have gotten money from a job. He didn’t need to risk his life to get money.
DeShawn could have better his life by getting a job. Just like
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DeShawn had always wanted to stay out of trouble and stay in school like he said to Officer Patterson on page 14, “ ‘Gonna join the Disciples someday?’ ‘No sir. Gonna stay in school and out of trouble.’ ” This is one choice DeShawn could have stuck with to better his life. Getting an education will help better any ones life if they try hard enough. With an education he could have gotten a job and that would have help with many of his problems. DeShawn at one point wanted to go to a better school to get a better education like he said on page 81, “I may even go to Hewlett Academ over in Beech Hill.” He was even offered help in school if he really wanted to come back. He was told on page 177, “If you ever decide you really want to come back to school in a serious way, I can help you.” He had the choice to better his life with education but he didn’t take that
Don’t Call Me Ishmael Analytical Essay Ishmael Leseur is the main character in “Don’t Call Me Ishmael” a book by Michael Gerard Bauer. As a young boy, he courageously stepped up to year nine only to be bullied for his name, embarrassed in front of his first love and to become a social outcast. This leads to him naming year nine the toughest, the weirdest, the most embarrassingly awful and best year of his life. One of the ways Ishmael refers to year 9 is the toughest year of his life.
“We have to help him!” Todd yelled.” This is what Todd said in “The Race,” by Heather Klassen. Todd is desired to help others and make everyone happy. He does this by going back and helping a little boy and sacrifice his win, he felt bad for the boy and wanted to help.
“Three Little Words” by Ashley Rhodes Courter is a memoir chronicling the author’s experience growing up in the Florida foster care system. Before Rhodes Courter was introduced to foster care, she was raised until the age of three by her single-teenage mother. In Ashley's Ordinary World, she recalls feeling happy and loved by her mother. However, her mother, unbeknownst to Ashley, engaged in hazardous activities, abusing drugs and neglecting Ashley and her half-brother, Luke. After their mother was arrested, Ashley and Luke were uprooted from their home and crammed into the dysfunctional foster care system (herald).
a. Lead In: Bless Me, Ultima is a book about coming of age. Antonio, the main protagonist in the book is thrown challenges that will shape Antonio into the man he will become one day. Once Ultima, a curandera or healer comes to stay with his family, Antonio’s world gets filled with twists and turns like a book written by R.L. Stine. II.
The Book “Daniel Isn’t Talking” is written by Marti Leimbach. Leimbach writes a nonfiction book that is semi-influenced by her own personal experience with her child's diagnosis of autism. The book is written in first-person point of view, through the eyes of Melanie, a 29-year-old mother of two. Daniel, that is almost three, and Emily who is four. We see Melanie face difficulties trying to cope with life issues due to a past life of hardships involving deaths of many loved ones and her new relationship with her husband Stephen and his never supportive family.
The purpose of “King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail” was to say that nonviolent resistance should be used to face racism. He was criticized by white religious leaders and encouraged by blacks. King was inspired to write the letter because he was an advocate for racial equality and he felt the people writing the letter were not. He also mentioned moral responsibility to break unjust laws. Civil disobedience is the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest.
How I Learned to Drive: A Critique of Abuse and Morality in Society Child abuse is regarded as one of the most heinous crimes in society. During the past few decades, social awareness regarding child abuse has reached a new high. In the award winning play How I Learned to Drive, Paula Vogel explores the subject of child abuse through the life of Lil Bit. In the play, Lil Bit recalls her journey to adulthood through a broken chronology revolving around driving lessons. The play is centered on the increasingly intimate relationship between Lil Bit and Uncle Peck through her teenage years.
Forced into Submission Brent Staples is living his life in constant worry and fear. Due to his tall and threatening appearance, people are often uncomfortable around him. And even though he means no harm, he leaves others terror-stricken. He could easily startle someone into attack mode. Resulting in him being forced into an obedient, unassertive lifestyle.
Have we ever wondered what it is like to come from being born poor and then as we start growing up we become famous in whatever we want to do? This is the case for the famous author Thomas Paine. Paine was born in 1737 in England and his parents were very poor. His father worked as a farmer and his mother worked as a corsetmaker. During his teenage years, “He attended the local school until, at the age of 13, he withdrew to help his father” quoting from this made me feel very sad for Paine at this time, because I’m sure that he did not want to quit school just at the age thirteen; he wanted to continue on into school so he could pursue a career in writing journals, poems, and possibly even writing his own books and become a very famous author
One in every two thousand; the chances of being born with the life changing disorder Kyle overcomes every day. If you were that one, would you chose to let it hold you back from chasing your dreams or would you prove to the world that you are just as capable as any other person? No Excuses is an inspirational story about the life of Kyle Maynard, who was born a congenital amputee. With arms ending at his elbows and his legs at his knees, you can imagine the plethora of issues he is faced with each and every day. The book tells how Kyle must overlook everyone’s doubt and pity to reach his overall goals and prove he is just as normal as any other human.
He mostly relied on the friends he made on the street and proceeded to follow in their footsteps and devout his life to crime and drugs. In addition, while everyone is entitled to a free public education, many African-American children are required to attend Abbot school
Maturity is the feeling of needing to prove that one is sophisticated and old enough to do certain things. In the short story “Growing Up,” Maria’s family went on a vacation while she stayed at home, but when she heard there was a car crash that happened near where her family was staying, she gets worried and thinks it is all her fault for trying to act mature and angering her father. Society wants to prove how mature they are and they do so by trying to do things that older people do and the symbols, conflict, and metaphors in the text support this theme. First and foremost, in “Growing Up,” Gary Soto’s theme is how society acts older than they are and that they just want to prove they are mature. Maria wants to stay home instead of going
In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. was sent to jail because of a peaceful protest, protesting treatments of blacks in Birmingham. Before the protest a court ordered that protests couldn’t be held in Birmingham. While being held in Birmingham, King wrote what came to be known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Not even King himself could predict how much of an impact this letter would have on the Civil Rights Movement. In the letter kind defended Kings beliefs on Nonviolent Protests, King also counters the accusations of him breaking laws by categorizing segregation laws into just and unjust laws. King uses this principle to help persuade others to join him in his acts of civil disobedience.
DeShawn did have a choice in bettering his life because he was offered help, he could have got a job somewhere, and he was offered better education, but he didn’t take up on the offer. Others believe that he had no choice because he had no money, he had no role model, and his test scores were too low to get