Paige O'Quinn News Final

Paige O’Quinn 6

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Article 1 with self-analysis

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The endless cycle of teen life School, work, clubs, sports, homework, and more and more responsibilities every day can really make any high school student feel like they’re sinking further and further beneath the water.

High school students, especially juniors and seniors, have so much to balance in their day to day lives. At this point students who want to go to college or have any sort of aspiration for their life have begun to take their dual enrollment, AP, or elective courses that push them further into what they want to make of their lives.

Many of these students are now driving and therefore have to pay for gas or insurance or both. What they had in savings no longer covers the costs so they need to get jobs. On top of any clubs or sports they may participate in it seems quite impossible to get any kind of homework or chores done.

Sleep becomes an alien word to a lot of the students who try to do everything and social lives are almost completely forgotten. According to the National Sleep Foundation teens need about 8-10 hours of sleep each night to function best. However, a recent study showed that only 15% reported sleeping up to eight hours on school nights and much less on weekends.

Juniors and seniors are beginning to feel the pressure of growing up. With test and attendance records being thoroughly watched by the colleges they want to attend the fear of screwing up looms constantly over their head. SAT, ACT, PERT, scholarships, and applications are all things they knew were coming but it really seems to come all too soon as their childhood slips right through their fingers.

U.S. News also stated that teens spend up to about 17.5 hours of homework per week. This divides up to about 3.5 hours per night. I don’t know about all teens, but most that I know would really start to think that 3.5 hours of their life could be used much better sleeping than doing homework after a long day at school, work, and sports. With all of the necessary daily activities teens have to accomplish its almost impossible for them to have a social life or to do anything they want to do which is actually very important for healthy physiological development.

Calling a teen lazy for skipping one night of homework or saying they don’t care because they want to spend one night out with friends can actually be emotionally damaging for any teen. These accusations are more often than not false. Teens should be able to get to live a little bit of their life before having to leave home and head off into the real world. If they don’t get to experience life before that they will be terribly unprepared for what the world has in store for them later in life.

Self-analysis a) What I was most proud of for this article was that it was one of my first successful editorial articles. I never saw myself as an editorial writer until I actually tried to create a good editorial. I then grew to like the style of writing and feel that some of my best pieces have been editorials. b) Like I stated before, I feel that this piece demonstrated editorial writing. The topic is a prominent issue in today’s society that I could relate to on a personal level. When I am personally connected to an article that is allowed a small amount of bias it makes me much more passionate about what I am writing which makes the article more interesting to read. c) To make this article stronger I would have liked to get quotes from other struggling students.

This would have made the article longer and more in depth. People like to hear stories that can relate to theirs so getting quotes would make the article more personable overall.

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Article 2 with self-analysis

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Punished for Privilege Starting this year the dual enrolled students of University High School are being excluded from campus until the period bell rings due to administration’s worries that late students, or other unauthorized individuals, will walk onto campus whenever they’d like. However, there is rarely an authorized adult available to open the doors to let them in when the bell rings.

According to Natalia Valentin, a junior who currently dual enrolls at University, she has to run to class once she is let in the doors and is often still late. “The only time an actual administrator let me in this year, was after the warning bell rang, and my class is in building 3,” Valentin stated. She continued expressing her frustration by explaining that she is being marked tardy after she arrives to her classes, breathless from running, just because she can’t get onto campus. “My dual enrollment class ends forty minutes before I need to be at school and it takes me about twenty minutes to get here. That leaves me with twenty minutes to either wait in the heat outside the school doors or use the air conditioning in my car and waste all of my gas,” Valentin explained.

Our assistant principal, John DeVito, was unaware of these issues. “These doors are locked for safety reasons; however, there should always be a campus advisor nearby to open the doors as students arrive on campus,” DeVito explained. This, as all dual enrolled students know, is not the case. When other administrators were asked to discuss the problem they had no comment. DeVito stated that he would be looking into the issue and that he is willing to work with the dual enrolled student to find a solution.

Dual enrolled senior, Jasmyne Lundy, states, “The majority of the time a student lets me on campus because there is no administrator in sight.” Lundy went on to explain that when an administrator does come to unlock the door, they take their time getting there and are more concerned with talking to other administrators or students than letting her into the school. “When I complained about the issue they told me to walk around to the front office, but why should I park by the busses if I have to walk around to the front of the school?” Lundy countered.

The dual enrolled students of University High School know that, as high school students, complaining will get them nowhere; they are often told that it is their problem and they are expected to fix it on their own. So, they took their plans to the guidance and administration offices, just to be continuously ignored. “I think they can spare one advisor to check the doors regularly so students don’t have to stand outside forever,” Lundy stated. Many of these students, including Lundy and Valentin, are fully willing to show advisors their ID’s to prove that they are dual enrolled and not just late students trying to get on campus.

Dual enrolled students are now fed up with the idea of them being excluded from campus until permitted times; it is, in fact, their school as well. To qualify for dual enrollment you must have a clear record and high GPA’s which makes these kids some of University’s best students, who are now being threatened with something as simple as a tardy referral just because they aren’t being let into school. These students being punished because of administration’s inability to do what they say they will needs to stop. All the dual enrolled students need is for their school to see that there is a crucial problem and for someone to take action to resolve it.

Self-analysis a) I was proud of this article because I got to speak about a current issue within my own school.

It was something that was effecting my friends and I that I felt needed to be looked into. I got to publish this piece and I’d like to believe that anyone who was experiencing the same circumstance would be glad someone decided to say something about it. b) This article had a lot of meaning to the many dual enrolled students at my school who may have read it. It was something important that needed recognition. It was an editorial piece that I felt had a greater purpose. c) I didn’t have enough interviews for this article due to the lack of responses I received. I should have tried harder to get answers out of people or just looked to other people to answer my questions. I feel that more information from administration especially would have improved the

quality of the article immensely.

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Article 3 with self-analysis

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In our hearts…..always Alan Rickman fans around the world gathered to raise their wands to the Half Blood Prince on Jan. 14 when the actor passed from pancreatic cancer at 69 years old.

Rickman, most popularly known for his roles in the Harry Potter series, Love Actually and the more recent Alice in Wonderland movies, was loved by many University students. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook seemed to fall in a depressed state that Thursday morning as the news quickly traveled around campus. Many social media posts even made students break into tears.

“I had left class to go to the bathroom and began to see the “R.I.P Alan Rickman” posts on twitter,” Abigail Kelly began to explain. “I honestly didn’t think it was real until I looked further in my timeline, I was in shock. By the time I reached the restroom I was in tears. I did not want to go back to class!”

Many students have grown up with the roles of Rickman and were actually in disbelief that such an iconic figure could be gone from our world forever. Even outside of his acting career Rickman tried to make as much of a difference as he could wherever his influences could reach.

“The news was super difficult to swallow since Alan seemed like he was immortal,” Kallahan Stanley confessed.

Known worldwide as Snape from the Harry Potter movies, Rickman was given incredible opportunities to work with amazing people and others were given the pleasure of working alongside him. After word got out about his passing, many social media posts from people he previously worked with touched the hearts of many students who only wished they could have gotten the chance. Even JK Rowling sent her condolences to Rickman’s family and spoke about how tragic of a loss it was.

“JK Rowling’s tweet was beautiful, but I can’t say that I had a favorite post because each one was, while alike in essence, unique, like how Alan meant different things to different people,” Stanley explained.

Alan Rickman was truly a genius who graced the screen, stage and world with his undeniable presence.

He gave his all in every role he played and lived helping the world in its search for a brighter future.

“Alan will forever be his characters. He is still alive in his own way. He is ALWAYS with us,” Abigail Kelly proclaimed.

Self-analysis a) I was proud of this article because it was another piece I was truly passionate about. I feel that it is written the best a tribute to Alan could be written. Like I said before, I believe that my writing improves when it is something I can relate to or have previous knowledge on which was definitely the case for this article. b) This article was written just days after the man’s death so a level of importance was surely there. I believe that it is written very effectively and demonstrates an apparent tone. c) I fell that this article could have been much longer with the help of outside references and more quotes. If I had made more of an effort to get more opinions and feelings on the matter the article could have been improved greatly.

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Personal Essay

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When I was young I very distinctly remember a conversation I had with my mom. I was upset because I felt that I was letting her down due to my poor grades in school. That day my teacher had called on me to read aloud to the class and I made a fool out of myself in front of everyone. I couldn’t read very well at the time and being nervous made it ten times worse. I was failing all of my reading, writing, and spelling assignments and I knew my mom expected more than that from me. When I told her how terribly I was doing I expected her to be angry but she wasn’t. Up until this point in my life I had believed that only time could make things better and that if you just waited the situation out you could eventually find your way but then my mom gave me a new, eye-opening piece of advice. That day she told me that if I wanted something for myself the only way I was going to get is by working as hard as I possibly could for it because dreams don’t come true by simply wishing for them to happen but through hard work and perseverance.

As I got older I tried to follow this advice as best I could but life kept throwing obstacles at me that I wasn’t sure I could overcome. About half way through 5th grade my dad pulled me aside and told me that we were moving. I had never been a very social person but by this time I had made the friends I wanted to keep but lost them all due to the move. I started telling myself to give it time again, that people would start to like me eventually but then I remembered that if I wanted to make friends I had to get up and do something about it. I began to make a new life for myself there because I started taking initiative instead of waiting around for life to make things happen for me.

That’s when I realized an issue I’d have to resolve there other than my lack of friends.

My mom had been a teacher at my previous elementary school and all of my teachers had known me basically my whole life. When I moved I no longer had this favoritism at my disposal. My teachers didn’t care that I was bad at reading and writing, they told me to improve my skills or my grades would suffer the consequences. It was there that I went from hating reading because of my previously mentioned humiliating experiences to being above grade level in reading and writing and turned into a true book worm. I read as much as I could until I found the first book that I actually enjoyed reading and it all looked up from there.

After about a year in my new home I realized a tension within my family. My parents refused to ever talk to me about it but I could tell something was going on. They were always fighting and my dad would spend the whole night out. My mom and I haven’t always been as close as we are currently, there was even a time that I refused to talk to her because I couldn’t see that what she was doing was best for my family. It was right after 6th grade when my mom told me we were moving back to Volusia County and that my dad wasn’t coming with us. She gave my sisters and I no choice, we were not allowed to stay with my dad, we had to go with her. It was later that I realized that she was filing for divorce and when I found out I blew up. I was angry with my mom because instead of working to improve her issues like she had told me to do she ran away from them. I did something I probably shouldn’t have done, but to this day I am glad I did it. I called my dad and told him what she was doing and that he needed to come home and stop her.

Obviously it wasn’t my place to say anything. When I told my dad he said he already knew and that it was none of my business to get involved. However, I guess what I said to him did end up sinking in and he did come back to us. They eventually figured things out and got back together saying that it was what was best for the kids but I know that they never really wanted to split up. They loved each other, their issues had just gotten out of hand. Even though she doesn’t know it, it was the advice that my mom gave me that, in the end, saved her from a divorce she never really wanted.

By that point my original belief that “time heals” had truly changed. The idea of doing something about your troubles is what got me through almost all of my hardships I have had so far in life.

When I started 7th grade back in my original hometown I had to deal with a lot of rumors about as to why I was back and why I ever left in the first place. My old friends no longer wanted to talk to me and instead of being pathetically defeated by that I kept my head up and decided that I was going to make new friends, again, and be a better student than I ever was before. I got so good at reading and writing that I eventually decided I would make a career out of it. It just goes to show how one humiliating defeat and a good piece of advice can change one small belief and make a world of difference.

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Spread Design This year I got to use InDesign more than I ever have before. I learned how to successfully navigate the tools within it and how to create my own unique spreads. I already knew how to use photoshop so it wasn’t a completely new universe but it was still a struggle to develop spreads as quickly as they needed to be made. I made this spread for the spring magazine. I used the teal from the selected color sceme as the background. This is my favorite spread I have done so far because it was a lot of fun and is very cute. I enjoyed getting to work in designing the magazine and helpng the yearbook staff. I hope to expand my skills even further next year.

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Which Teacher Are You? 3. What is your best quality?

A. My personality B. Loyalty C. Sarcasm D. Strong work ethic E. My striking appearance

1. Your favorite superhero.

A. Batman B.Superman C. Ironman/Batman D. Spiderman E. Ironman

2. Favorite Animal A. Bald Eagle B. Dolphin C. Otter D. Dog E. Kangaroo

4. Most preferred genre of music A. Anything but country and classical B. Light pop C. nothing D. Classic rock E. Folk rock

5.Favorite thing to do outside of

school A. Watch movies/go to the beach B. Watch baseball/go out to eat C. Read/sleep/watch movies D. Family time and football E. Play outside with my daughter

6. Favorite TV shows

A. Walking Dead/ Daredevil/ Game of Thrones/ Fast N’ Loud B. Castle C. Castle/ Game of Thrones D. Game of Thrones E. Walking Dead

8. Favorite Book

A. Jurassic Park B. The Hunger Games C. The Mistborn Series D. Game of Thrones E. A Land Remembered

Mr. Burnside

Mr. Deloach

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7. Who is a role model you look up to?

A. Vince Lombardi B. My mom C. Ron Clark D. My dad E. My oldest brother

9.Favorite Restaurant A. Texas Roadhouse B. Goodfellows C. Brio D. Kobe E. Pitmasters BBQ Mrs. Revlet

Coach Kells

Mrs. Drysdale

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