Essays

Paragraphs on Prompts for Timed Writes

Craft an argument about how other's perspectives affect an individuals sense of self. 

Argumentation 

This is so weird when not double-spaced.

Opinions impact the world and individuals in an irreversible way, unfairly determining the fate of careers and relationships. In a free country like the United States of America with a plethora of unique opinions, we vote for whomever we feel should represent us. By studying we demographics and the voting public's general stance on issues an official is able to shape their campaign and persona over off of what they believe reaps the most rewards. Gatsby—Daisy's former lover—existed as a simple country boy, but after his love left him for a wealthy man that his family preferred, his sense of self diminished, and he tore himself down to build someone that could match her standards. Sacrificing who he truly was, Gatsby ended up entangled in a web of torrid affairs leaving the arrangement with a fatal gunshot. Symbolistic of what happens when one compromises their true self, Gatsby's desires to fit a mold led to his ultimate demise. In Freakonomics, black people of a low economic standing typically give their children black names, something that has been found to correlate with falling into a category of remaining in a low standing. Opinions of employers and educators determine these children's lives from when they exit the womb through their adult career. Bias and prejudice seem to have decided that a unique name equals a criminal or a fool, a flawed idea. The perspectives of others are able to compromise how an individual views themselves as well as how society views that individual. People hold so much power in their hands and are blissfully unaware, their unconscious bias inadvertently determining the fate of lives.  

Craft an argument about the effects of social expectations.

Names of schools will be omitted for privacy purposes

Exemplification and Narration

Social expectations cause a lot of stress, which is the 15th largest cause of death in the United States, therefore, stress, when believed harmful, invades social expectation social expectations and self-worth. According to the speaker MCG from the Ted Talk on "How to make Stress Your Friend," (side note: because it is not a book it is in quotes, right?) stress is only harmful if you believe it is, but think about kids preparing for tests because everyone thinks they need to get an A. Imagine that football captain who is placed on a pedestal, how much do you think they fear failure? Social expectations build these people up and up until the negative stress breaks them because we were not made to be bulletproof. MCG claims that everyone can utilize stress and they will vastly improve, but this disregards the pessimists, those who cannot comprehend stress, and those with biological chemical imbalances that cannot just change how they think or what is expected of them. The Woodlands High School, the most prestigious and successful school in the Conroe area actually has a worse drug issue than Smoke Ridge with a different dangerous substance; many of the students are hooked on prescription pills. So much stress and pressure placed on them daily pushes them into to a breaking point, because how do they cope with so much stress? This issue cannot be covered by MCG's oversimplification, because you cannot just rewire the brain's of thousands of children who face very real consequences when met with failure. Despite the seemingly professional opinion of a capable specialist, they seem to miss the root issue and prove to be out of touch with the consequences of reality. Generalizations have a very low rate of total accuracy, and assuming that everyone can experience good stress is quite presumptuous because absolute terms simply always prove themselves to be flawed. (Sorry for another side note, but I have to leave that in because the hypocrisy made me laugh.)

Craft an argument about why one must understand the relationship between causation and consequences.

Cause and Effect and Exemplification

Understanding the relationship between causation and consequences proves a necessity because when analyzing any correlation between two items determining whether or not they actually affect each other or merely correlate is crucial to truly define an argument. Sometimes two variables can initially be assumed related, and seem to match up perfectly, but when further scrutinized they are discovered to only correlate at a surface level, and not actually influence each other or result. In Steven Levitt's Freakonomics, he writes several model examples of causation and consequences. Black people of lower standing typically give their children unique names that seem to affect them throughout their lives, but later states that this actually spawns from the concept of correlation. Fueled more or less by the prejudice of the world, believing that names cause failure seems fairly realistic and simple, but some things simply are not as shallow as some want to believe. "Black" names have been found to only be indicators, not the root problem or cause because the true downfall of these people traces back to their original economic standing and how hard climbing out of that predicament is. In contrast to such an example, Levitt provides a causation and consequence example earlier on, linking abortion to crime rates. He states that when abortions became more commonplace in the late 70's and 80's, the crime rate started to plummet in the 90's when the unborn children could have become criminals. This made more sense as one starts realizing that those abortions are from women with hard lives that were unable to provide for a child and could possibly neglect them. Children from unhappy homes are statistically more likely to produce deviants and delinquents, therefore by decreasing the birth of those children, one decreases the likelihood of hundreds of thousands of criminals, a tenth of the abortions. Understanding the relationship of causation and consequences as opposed to a surface level correlation is crucial to being able to properly understand and create a viable argument.   

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So this should be interesting. These are not my best and I will be uploading some from past years, and I guess I want to see if y'all think my writing is as good as some have said it is.