Undergraduate / "Your future begins here" ; Estero High School [NEW]

This grade determines whether or not I pass my comp class so I was wondering if anybody would critique it for grammer and such maybe give me some clues on how to spice it up anything.. I'm most concerned with grammer though thats what I've done poorly on in the past.. well any way heres my essay, if anyone could help me out I'd greatly appreciate it.

"Your future begins here." This was the saying painted on the wall I passed every day for four enduring years of my life, as I made the walk from the parking lot into Estero High School. I didn't know until recently however, how true and dreadful that statement would become. I spent 12 years of my life going to school every day. Often times I ask myself if the education that I received was even really worthwhile. I mean, 12 years of school, and all I have to show for it is that one powerful piece of paper known as a high school diploma. Is the diploma the only thing I have to show for 12 years of school? The education I received was insufficient to prepare me for the standardized tests given to high school students across the nation. Preparation for higher education is deficient; mandatory information about college is not given to students. For most of the teenagers entering colleges in the U.S. today, they find out the hard way that they didn't get the education they rightfully deserved after 4 years of hard work in high school. High schools in America today are providing students with poor and insufficient educations and as a result, students that try to further their education in college are rendered helpless when they do not have the knowledge and skills required of them.

A recent study, taken in 2001 by researchers at the Council for Aid to Education, says that more than 50% of students entering a 4 year college will not leave with a degree (Associated Press). Wes Habley, the director of ACT's office of educational practices says that this is percentage should have been expected. "It's the lowest it's been and it's been going down by increments," says Habley on the percentage of college students that actually graduate (Associated Press). Although the facts are there, that half of students that enter college don't succeed, there is still little being done to push for reform and improve public high schools throughout the country.

According to John MacBeath educators once saw educational reform as cyclical. Every ten years or so one could expect a public outburst followed by frantic efforts to mend a broken system. However, in the last twenty years or so there seems to have been a perpetual reform. Looking to the past it seems as though the curriculum has become somewhat diluted. Schools used to offer many electives, but now offer much fewer. There are even some electives that are required to graduate in some states, such as a foreign language. Schools have now even watered down the curriculum hoping to keep students, which obviously only compounds the problem of insufficient education in today's public schools. (MacBeath and Mortimore 12). Curriculum now resembles a lawn sprinkler covering a lot of area yet having very little force.

There are numerous factors that influence the curriculum taught within schools, most of which are decided by the school board of the county the school is located. In every state there are requirements on what classes a high school student must take in order to graduate. Throughout most of the nation, the core curriculum, or curriculum required to graduate from high school consists of 4 years of english, 3 years of math, 3 years of science, and 3 years of social studies. Of all the students that receive this core curriculum, only 15 percent score better than an 1100 on their SAT's, while nearly half score below an 800 (Horn et al. 10). Students in the U.S. are no longer adequately educated to pass the standardized tests that determine whether or not they will even be able to go to college.

Low standardized test scores is just one ingredient of the problem that needs to be fixed. For many students the concept of completing high school and moving on to a 4 year college just doesn't sound very appealing. This leads many students to drop out before they even graduate from high school. According to a study in Monitoring the Future: questionnaire responses from the nation's high school seniors roughly 58 percent of high school seniors had no desire to even graduate from a two year college program (Bachman et al. 25). A person with a college degree is said to make a million dollars more throughout their lifetime than a high school graduate will make. However, some youths do not feel it is necessary to go to college; rather they go straight into the work force or choose to do something else with their life. Out of a population of approximately 26 million 18 to 24 year olds, about nine million (roughly one third) decided to attend college.

So what happens to the students that do make it past high school and into a 4 year university? According to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics, after their first year at a university level, a student that received only the core curriculum that was required of them, maintained an average GPA of 2.53 (Horn et al. 16). The economic level of the high schools that educated students using the basic core curriculum was normally a lot lower than high schools that provided rigorous curriculum. Students that do beat the odds and advance into colleges from these inferior high schools are more than likely going to need scholarships in order to cover the financial expenditures that college brings with it. This presents a problem because almost any scholarship available requires the student to maintain a steady 3.0 GPA. Most students that come from these high schools that only taught a core curriculum find it nearly impossible to maintain a 3.0 GPA. This is in all probability one of the main reasons the percentage of freshmen that will actually graduate from college has now fallen below 50 percent.

So it is now a seemingly never-ending cycle that is getting worse and worse every year. Public high schools throughout the U.S. are becoming more concerned with the number of students enrolled at their school than they are concerned with the curriculum they teach, depriving students that spend 4 years of their life going to school of the education they rightfully deserve. How long will this problem go unnoticed before somebody takes stand? It is clearly getting worse every year. So what is it going to take for the United States government to finally do something productive amongst public schools and require a little more demanding curriculum? It is unmistakable that high schools today have insufficiently prepared students for the real world. So I ask you, how much longer will it take for somebody to finally step up and do something about this seemingly never-ending cycle of depriving students the educations that they technically deserve?

Book Reports / 'Eleven' - A personal response essay about a short story [2]

For my composition 2 class we have to write a personal response essay about a short story. I was wondering if somebody could take a look at this and correct my grammar. Also I had my professor review my opening paragraph and he said the thesis was a bit off, so if anybody has suggestions on how I could make that any better I would appreciate that also, thanks for your time..

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Eleven

For me, the story Eleven definitely brought back the fears that I too experienced as a child. Sandra Cisneros does a fantastic job of portraying the unfairness and injustice we all had to experience throughout our childhood. It is certainly not Rachel's sweater but nobody, not ever her own teacher will believe her. Her image is in jeopardy here, I mean she's eleven years old and image is everything to an eleven year old girl. Every paragraph in the story illustrates exactly how a young adolescent girl like Rachel views the unfairness of life at her age.

I think one of things that made this story so great was the way she establish certain parts of the story. For instance, she first introduces the main event in the story in the end of the fifth paragraph by saying, "Today I wish I was one hundred and two...because if I was one hundred and two I'd have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk." From here you know what this story is basically going to be about but the way she presents this really draws the reader in and makes them want to read forward and see what this is all about.

The next thing that Cisneros did that I found interesting was her brilliant portrayal of exactly how a real eleven year old would have handled the situation in the given circumstances. As I read that part of the story I could not help but notice similarities between how Rachel handled the situation, and how I would have handled embarrassing situations when I was her age. In the part about her squeezing her eyes closed and putting her head down, Rachel thinks about how everything will be alright when she gets home because it's her birthday and there's a cake waiting for her back home. Who didn't do that when they were upset as a kid? Cisneros finds something that just about everybody did while they were a kid, and incorporates it into her story. This made her writing style very effective since I was able to relate to and even remember some of the times I had to experience situations similar to these.

The climax of the story is when Rachel finally breaks down completely and starts to cry. When Mrs. Price asks Rachel to put the smelly sweater on, she just can not deal with the humiliation of wearing that ugly thing and begins to cry. This shows us again how important our image was to us when we were eleven. She knows she will be ridiculed the rest of the week for wearing that ugly thing and it is just so unfair to her that she will have to put up with this. When we were her age in elementary school, this was one of the worst things that could happen, being embarrassed in front of your classmates. There isn't one person out there who didn't fear being made fun of in elementary school, so pretty much everybody reading this story has a way to share these feelings with the main character which, in essence, made the story that much more appealing when I could find a way to relate with my own personal experiences.

Essentially, the story Eleven is an account of something that we can all relate to. Of course it wasn't us not wanting to wear Phyllis Lopez's ugly red sweater, but I think all of us experienced something similar to this when we were younger that made us view our lives as being utterly unfair. When a reader is able to relate with the main character how most readers can with Rachel, it makes the story a lot more appealing. In the end, Eleven was an excellent story about a childhood event that just about everybody has experienced and I think the way the story was presented, made it much more interesting.

Essays / Visit to the art gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University - essay [4]

was just wondering if anybody would be kind enough to review my essay mainly for grammatical errors because thats where I tend to struggle it would be greatly appreciated, I have to turn it in today, Friday March 14 by 3:30 PM so if anybody can help me out thanks in advance

On a recent visit to the art gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University, I stumbled across a colored aquatint etch entitled Good Afternoon II, that I found to be one of the most remarkable pieces of artwork I had ever seen. Painted by Alex Katz in 1975, Good Afternoon II elicits a sense of modern realism while at the same time expressing a practical and genuine approach to etching. The painting illustrates an isolated canoe expedition in which there is one lone person paddling the canoe, thereby creating a sense of strength and passion in the eyes of the viewer. The composition of the paining is mainly structured in the rich green tone of the water which dominates over half of the entire canvas. Horizontal lines of a different shade of green depict reflection of the water and are an excellent form of symmetrical balance while the light brownish canoe can also be seen in the reflection, beautifully contrasting the almost olive green shade of the water. In Good Afternoon II, Katz uses these contrasting colors as well as a smooth and well balanced composition in a manner which emphasizes closed composition at its absolute best.

In the early nineteenth century, a new form of art known as abstract expressionism swept the world completely off its feet. Introduced in New York around the 1930's, this new wave of abstract expressionism would soon put the United States, or more in particularly New York City, atop the art movement of the time. As times progressed however and the world went to war, tremendous limitations were put in place as to what was considered "suitable content" artists of all genres were allowed to convey. Since abstract paintings typically didn't need to communicate one clear cut meaning or idea, many artists began to pursue that particular style. This is when Alex Katz would begin his legendary career as an artist. Born in New York in 1927, Katz's childhood was greatly influenced by this abstract movement, as is clearly evident in many of his earliest works. As time went on however, Katz grew out of this abstract ideal and moved onto a more emotionless and realistic approach to art known as modern realism and only then would he begin to be recognized as a prominent artist of the time.

Good Afternoon II was created well after Katz had made his transition from abstract expressionism to modern realism. Katz had previously created many similar works of art using intaglio methods similar to aquatint etching but none oh which were as rich and brilliant as Good Afternoon II. This can be mainly attributed to the remarkable achievement of balance that is portrayed by the work. The painting is in almost complete equilibrium as form, color, and mass on both sides of the vertical axis are almost exactly identical. By having such a smooth and balanced composition, the work elicits a tremendous amount of stability & unity. The closed composition of the painting forces the eye directly inward into the focal areas of the work which in turn causes the person viewing it to remain fixated on many small details not ordinarily valued in many other similar works of art.

Another aspect of Good Afternoon II that really sets it apart from the rest is its restricted yet brilliant color scheme. In retrospect, the painting only really uses two colors: green and brown. Although the entire work is made up of these two colors alone, Katz uses the full range of tonalities for both of these colors so that in actuality there are several different colors that can be distinguished in the shadows, background, main focal areas, and all throughout. Green and brown are two very natural colors that predominately represent nature and the outdoors, so it is not hard to see why they coincide with one another so well in this particular work of art that is based primarily upon a natural environment. The light brown canoe contrasts the olive green water so magnificently that the person viewing the work of art is almost instantaneously captivated by the chiaroscuro thus further emphasizing the closed composition of the piece and stimulating the viewer's senses.

P.S. I haven't written a conclusion yet if you were wondering, the final product will include a conclusion