English Vocab Project

Prompt:  “In The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan says that she hopes her daughter will be ‘a beautiful little fool.’  Daisy believes that, in some cases at least, ignorance is bliss.  The contradictory attitude is the commonly-stated belief that ‘Knowledge is power.’  Write a carefully reasoned, persuasive essay that demonstrates which of these two ideas is the more valid.  Use specific references from your observation, reading, or experience to develop your position. 

            In today’s world, intelligence is the key that unlocks the door to power and wealth.  In today’s world, ignorance is the dead bolt that keeps the door to sorrow and disappointment locked.  Two different doors: both existing in our culture.  Read the rest of this entry »

Meredith McKinney

Mrs. Lisa Huff

AP English 11

6 March 2009

Allowing Concealed Weapons on College Campuses

There is danger all around us, everyday, everywhere.  Why should we expect someone else to protect us?  Shouldn’t we, the students, the teachers, the staff, have the opportunity to protect ourselves?  After all, this is our life, our one life that we have.  I don’t know what you think, but I know that when I go to college, I want to be able to protect myself.  I want the right to carry a concealed weapon on a college campus.  Read the rest of this entry »

A criminal, according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, is a person “guilty of [a] crime.”  A crime is defined as ” an act or the commission of an act that is…commanded by a public law.”  Someone who breaks that law is “liable to punishment by that law” (Merriam-Webster Online).  In this case, A=B and B=C so A must =C.  In easier terms, these definitions just warrant my point that criminals don’t follow the law.  That is simply why they go by the name of criminals.  If a law states that students aren’t allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus, what is going to stop a criminal.  They don’t care about breaking the law, so if they really want to bring a weapon on campus, they are going to do just that.  Should law abiding students have to pay the price for those that choose to break the law?  NO!  Student’s lives should not be endangered because they are not allowed to protect themselves. 

Another debatable subject is murders that occur from using a gun.  They don’t happen as frequently as a person may be lead to believe.  Based on the Gun Owners of America’s fact sheet from 2004, more kids “are killed playing football than are murdered by guns” (Gun Owners of America).  If we are allowing football to be played at college, why can’t we allow concealed weapons?  The weapons seem less dangerous, according to the fact sheet.  If college administrators aren’t allowing concealed weapons on campuses because they are worried about murders or suicides, maybe they should take a look at some of the other hazardous activities and surroundings on campuses.  I’m sure if you hit someone hard enough playing football you could murder them or at least injure them pretty badly.  And what about all of those tall buildings on college campuses?  If someone really wanted to commit suicide they could just jump off one of those.  They wouldn’t have to use a gun.  It seems to me that having concealed weapons on campus wouldn’t make murders more likely.  It would however deter killers because they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a person with a weapon and a person without one.

The point is, concealed weapons would make college campuses safer. 

Two possible thoughts come to mind when I know I am in the presence of people carrying weapons.  My first thought is “WOW! I must be very safe here with all these people to protect me.”  The second, possibly more accurate, thought is “Oh crap!  I’m surrounded and could be shot at any minute.”  My instinct tells me that if the people carrying the weapons are college students, my reaction will probably be closer to my second thought.  This response is nothing personal against college students, for most people are college students at some point during their life.  I just don’t think most students in college are responsible enough to carry a concealed weapon. 

Parties are very common on college campuses.  Many parties involve students drinking alcohol or doing drugs.  Adding weapons to this mixture will just lead to a deadly combination.  According to the Brady Campaign’s statistics, “alcohol…’is involved in two thirds of college student suicides, in 90% of campus rapes, and in 95% of the violent crime on campus.’”  These are very high numbers.  Now think about adding guns; ”[these]assaults [are definitely] more likely to be fatal” (Brady Campaign).  The point is, any of these fatalities are preventable without the use of concealed weapons on campus.  If they are not, then obviously campus security is not performing their duties correctly.  As MSNBC reports, campus police forces are stepping up their game.  Their improvements include “installing brighter lights [and] building observation towers.”  Police officials will also be “attending security summits” (MSNBC).  Allowing campus police forces to improve their tactics seems like a much better idea than allowing students to carry concealed weapons of their own.  Police officials have gone through training and their job is to protect everyone on campus.  Students should stick to their job of earning a diploma. 

 Now doesn’t it just make sense that more weapons on campus would lead to more violence?  I know it makes sense in my mind.  College students aren’t ready to deal with other college students possessing weapons.  They have enough on their plate.  How about colleges just stick to improving their campus security?  That seems like the best solution to me. 

There is danger all around us, everyday, everywhere.  Why should we expect someone else to protect us?  Shouldn’t we, the students, the teachers, the staff, be allowed to protect ourselves?  After all, this is our life, our one life that we have.  I don’t know what you think, but I know that when I go to college I want to be able to protect myself.  I want the right to carry a concealed weapon on a college campus. 

It is commonly believed that allowing concealed weapons on campus would lead to an increase in violence.  Why is this so?  Let’s take a look at the public college campuses of Utah and see if we can counteract this belief.  In Utah, there are nine public college campuses located all over the state.  Since these schools have allowed concealed weapons on campus, there have been no “incidents of gun violence (including suicides),” there have been no “single gun accident[s],” and there have been no “single gun theft[s]” (Concealed Campus).  These are prime examples of allowing concealed weapons on campuses and the violence NOT increasing.  There are many civilians that carry concealed weapons all the time.  This act has not lead to an increase in violence, so neither should concealed weapons on campus.  According to the Chicago Journal, if the “states without a right-to-carry” had allowed concealed weapons in 1992, “1,500 murders would have been avoided yearly…, rapes would have declined by over 4,000, robbery by over 11,000, and aggravated assault by over 60,000″ (Chicago Journal).  These big numbers represent cruel crimes, cruel crimes which could have been prevented by the simple act of using a concealed weapon.  These crimes may not have taken place on a college campus, maybe they were in a small town, a city, or a village, but after all, isn’t a college campus a little community of its own.  Couldn’t the same crimes prevented in society by concealed weapons also be prevented on a college campus. 

I am just a few years away from college.  When I get there, I don’t want to have to worry about who is going to protect me.  College security is the answer to this right, but can I always depend on them?  There is however a simple solution to this problem; allowing college students to carry concealed weapons.  If it is legal in public, then it should be legal on campus.  The right to protect myself; this is the right I am fighting to have.  

Let’s Put it to Good Use

Throughout our lives we are tested.  Students are tested on their knowledge daily with quizzes, unit tests, and standardized tests.  Teachers are required to pass tests before they can teach a class.  Doctors must pass a test before they are allowed to operate on anyone. This may come as a surprise, but even a job interview is a form of test.  If you pass, you get the position you’re applying for in the workplace.  If you fail, you can kiss that dream job of yours goodbye. 

Since we as people undergo some form of testing all the time, one of those test might as well be put to good use.  SAT and ACT test scores are helpful to college admissions offices in determining who gets in and how much scholarship money they will receive.  Now I know you’re probably saying to yourself, “WHAT?  That is all colleges base their admissions on?  That’s not fair to people who excel in subjects not covered by these tests.  And what about those students who are just bad test takers?”  However, the truth is that’s NOT all colleges look at in a future student.  Grades throughout high school matter.  How rounded a person is matters.  The colleges overall impression of a student matters.  And yeah, I’ll admit it,  SAT and ACT test scores do matter, but they are presumably just one of many things that matter when it comes to getting accepted to you’re dream school. 

If you look “art” up in the dictionary, it has many different meanings.  Because the word “art” has so many definitions, it makes sense that art can be found everywhere.  Everyday when we wake up, we see art all around us-in movies, books, magazines, and stories.  The more intellectual people recognize this art and pick it apart, discovering the rhetoric within the language.

Examples of Rhetoric from Movies:

• Hyperbole; “You should’ve gone to China, you know, ’cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods.  You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.”  -Juno
• Rhetorical Question; “We call this a battle but what are we fighting for?”  -Step Up 2: The Streets
• Antimetabole; “The true losers in life are not those that try and fail, but those that fail to try.”  -Popstar
• Parallelism; “Every dad is entitled to one hideous shirt and one horrible sweater.”  -Cheaper By the Dozen 2
• Anaphora; “I’ll give you the shoulder, I’ll give you the hug.  I’ll feed you, I’ll clothe you if you need it.”  -Madea’s Family Reunion

 Rhetoric is everywhere in our world, just like art.  There are many different types of both, found in many different places.  No matter what your definition of “art” is, next time you see some, dig deeper and try to find the rhetoric within the language. 

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When I first saw the Extraterrestrial Life RSS feed in Scientific America, I thought it would be cool, interesting, and something a little out of the ordinary.  I was expecting stories about sightings of aliens and how there could be life on Mars.  Well, when i started reading some of the articles, that’s not exactly what I found.  One of the first articles I read was titled I See Doomed People.  It introduced me to M. Night Shyamalan’s new move The Happening and gave an interview with Shyamalan.  The movie has to do with extraterrestrial life, which I guess is a good connection to the title of the feed, just not what I expected.  Another article I read was Were Meteorites the Origin of Life on Earth?  By reading this article, I learned that scientist found chemical building blocks, similar to the ones in our genetic material, in a meteor that hit Earth in the 1960s.  This brought up the possibility that meteors long ago may have helped create life on Earth, however, many scientist are sceptical about this.  With limited information, I’m not sure what I think about a meteor helping to create my ancestors, but it was definitely something interesting to read about.