Flowers for Algernon Social Issues Response

          The book Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, tells the fictional story of a mentally disabled man named Charlie, who goes through a surgery that has been tested on a mouse named Algernon to raise his IQ. In it, a large social issue is the way that Charlie is treated when he is mentally disabled. Of course, Charlie doesn't understand what's going on and doesn't know he's being made fun of, and he only realizes that people have been laughing at him, and using him, through flashbacks after the surgery. What's horrible about the situation is that the ones making fun of him and using him the most were the people he thought were his friends at the bakery where he worked.
          In the days where Charlie was mentally disabled, he thought that those that he worked with at Donner's Bakery were his friends (his only friends). Little did he know, they were making fun of him all along, and he had been the source of mockery since he had first started his job there. During a flashback, he shows us just how much they mocked him, and how innocent he was. "He's a scream", one of the girls said. Everybody was laughing. 'Oh you were right, Frank,' choked Ellen. 'He's a one man side show.' Then she said, 'Here, Charlie, have a fruit.' She gave me an apple, but when I bit into it, it was fake." One of the bakers also used Charlie to make a profit for himself, making him deliver cakes and pastries to customers who he gave discounts to in exchange of a side payment for himself. Of course, Charlie was clueless and simply did what he was told. The bakers weren't the only ones making fun of him, as boys on the street laughed at him and threw garbage at him, when all he wanted to do was play with them.
          I think that the bakers' perspectives are left out because it leaves the reader thinking about why they treated Charlie this way. It first seems like Charlie couldn't have possibly done anything wrong to them, but he could have possibly threatened their job security. We are given insight into why they treated him this way though once he returns to the bakery after the surgery. Since he's now smarter than them, they despise him. They made fun of him to feel superior, and since they weren't the most intelligent people, he was the only one they could use to make fun of, the only person below them. I think not giving this perspective actually shows us more of what these people are like than if their perspective was shown: if their perspective was shown the reader might feel sympathy for them if they had a tough life and Charlie was the only person they could mock, when actually that would be no excuse for them to laugh at a disabled and innocent man.
          The situations in this book show the social issues of how disabled people may be treated, and how hard it is for someone who is mentally disabled to live a normal life. Charlie thinks he has friend, but they are his enemies, and once he starts living his dream and becoming more intelligent, they reject him because he makes them feel less superior. Charlie's situation shows that people are sometimes not what they seem like, and can hide a dark side when you think they are your friends, not your foes. This book shows how horrible society can be, and how innocent people like Charlie can wind up facing it alone.

YA fiction argument essay

            Young adult fiction has been the center of a large debate over the past years, and cases of schools or libraries banning or removing books keep popping up. For example, a school in Stockton banned the controversial book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, because of themes such as sexual abuse and because “the book would create controversy in the classroom.” Even though YA fiction can be dark or offensive to some, inspiring books help suffering teens and teaches other ones about what the world is really like. Teens should have the choice of what they read, and their access to books should not be limited.

            “Dark” YA fiction doesn’t scare or hurt teens, because they are aware of these dark subjects. Many teens have been victim to or seen cases of domestic violence, and according to the U.S. Department of Justice, 1.8 million teens in the U.S. have been victims of sexual assault (2014). Teens are not as innocent and ignorant as many adults may think they are, and trying to shield them from what the real world is like, even if it can be a dark place, is a futile approach to the matter. Sherman Alexie, the author of the aforementioned young adult book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, says in a Wall Street article of his, “[would-be saviors] wanted to protect me from sex when I had already been raped. They wanted to protect me from evil though a future serial killer had already abused me.” This quote shows that shielding teens from horrible things they are already experiencing is pointless, and that adults should stop trying to protect teens from the real world.

            These YA books not only don't harm most teens, they actually help many and inspire them. Teens that have suffered hardships, from drug abuse to anorexia, can relate to characters experiencing the same things. Sherman Alexie once again tells of teens he met who had suffered various hardships and told him that his book was the only one they had read entirely. This book that many adults had deemed threatening to teens helped teens who went through the same controversial topics in the book! Mr Alexie himself said that he would have loved to read his own book when he was suffering as a child, because he could have related to it and it would have helped him face the monsters of his world.

            Those opposing YA fiction say it shocks and hurts readers, and causes them to lose their innocence to horrible things too early in their life. Meghan Cox Gurdon says in her article Darkness Too Visible, "If books show us the world, teen fiction can be like a fall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously portrayals of what life is." Although young adult books can indeed give a very dark and sometimes depressing view on life, it is not a distorted view on the world. These dark topics may not always occur in everyday life, and some may be fictional, but many are very real to millions of people. These books are not meant to show what life is for every normal person on the Earth, they instead show the individual struggles of some teens.

            Although many may disagree, YA fiction helps teens more than it hurts them. Banning books only has negative effects xXZS as it stops teens from observing a view on the world they should be informed about, if they aren’t already. Sometimes adults do more horrible things to teens than books ever will, and such was the case of a boy from an Ivy League school Sherman Alexie met, who explained to him that his father was forcing him to join the army instead of letting him follow his dream of being a writer. Even the most privileged teens go through horrible things, and as Mr. Alexie says, “he was old enough to die and kill for his country. And old enough to experience the infinite horrors of war,” but according to some adults, he was too young to read disturbing material? Young adult books are meant to be read by young adults, and adults need to stop trying to change that.

Flowers for Algernon response

          The book Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, tells the fictional story of a mentally disabled man named Charlie, who although he works hard and tries to "get smart", never seems to make progress. He goes through a surgery that has been tested on a mouse named Algernon to raise his IQ, and he takes us through the experience through his diary. He experiences emotional hardships and discovers that some things are not how he used to think they were. He also takes us through his troubled past through flashbacks, where we see just how hard it was for him his whole life. One of the interesting relationships in the book is of his with Algernon. They are not constantly together throughout the book, but they are alike in many ways and have a deep connection.

          Algernon and Charlie have very similar situations, as they both were born with very low IQs and underwent the procedure. Since Algernon underwent the surgery before Charlie as a test subject, he can show the reader in advance how Charlie will be affected by the procedure in some ways. At first, Algernon passes through the mazes with ease while Charlie struggles, giving us insight that Charlie will improve and become more intelligent as time wears on. But when Algernon starts behaving strangely and having trouble with simple mazes, we can tell that Charlie will soon start deteriorating too. It's an interesting way of foreshadowing, and while it gives us an idea of what will happen, it isn't blunt and doesn't spoil the storyline.

          The two also have other connections that are shown when they are presented at a scientific convention near the end of the novel. Charlie is tired of being treated like a "guinea pig" for the experiment. He's also frustrated that the scientists are acting as if he wasn't a human before the operation and that they act like they created him. Since Algernon went through the same thing, the two understand each other and decide mutually to escape from the convention and the experiment altogether. Charlie opens Algernon's cage and creates mayhem, allowing them to escape from the convention. This is the turning point in the book where Charlie starts deteriorating, but also realizes that he should cherish his time instead of trying to prolong it.

          Although Charlie and Algernon are different things (a mouse and a human), their struggles and changes make them very alike. They go through hard times, lows and highs, and have the same train of thought. They know that they are their own being and are not guinea pigs. This story and relationship shows the struggles of life for those who are disabled, but also how hard it is to change.

YA Fiction Article Critical Analysis

          In the article "Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood", by Sherman Alexie, he explains how so-called "dark" books help suffering teens, and how he himself suffered when he was a child. Sherman Alexie uses examples of teens he has met that have already suffered the hardships of life, showing they're not as innocent as adults think they are. He speaks of one girl he met who, after becoming pregnant as a teenager, almost dropped out of high school but continued on. He also writes about a 17-year old teen he met, who was in an Ivy League school, but was forced to join the military by his father instead of following his dream to be a writer. Mr. Alexie uses these examples to show that normal teens experience the horrors and hardships of life, even those who would seem to be problem-free and innocent. He implies this to the reader to show that adults shouldn't shield teens from dark books and what the real world is like, since all will find out, and some already have.
          Sherman Alexie hopes to persuade the readers to see that "dark" YA books help suffering teens, or those who have suffered already. He achieves this by citing a ceremony where he was a speaker, and were dozens of teens who had experienced the hardships of life and had been inspired by his book were. This shows that these books help and inspired these suffering teens, instead of, as Meghan Cox Gurdon says in her article, taking away their innocence and hurting them. He also uses the idea that he can relate to suffering teens so readers will be more convinced, since he knows first-hand how suffering feels at a young age, and if books would have helped him. He achieves this by citing the ways that people tried to protect him from horrible things that he was already experiencing when he was just a young boy, a theme his book is focused on. He uses the quote "Wow, you are way, way too late" to show how trying to shield teens from horrible things is useless, since many experience them firsthand. Instead, he says, reading his book would definitely have helped him to relate to somebody else. He is trying to form a connection with the reader, and have the reader feel empathy and sympathy through these points.
          I completely agree with Sherman Alexie that instead of trying to protect teens' usually non-existant so-called "innocence" from the hardships of life, we should offer support in the form of books and characters that can help these suffering teens get through what they're dealing with by being able to relate to characters going through the same things. Using his personal experiences, and those of teens he'd met really convinced me that many teens go through horrible things at a young age, and that trying to protect them is useless. Although I think some very dark YA books may frighten some kids that are more innocent than others, and who have experienced and witnessed less horrible things, in my opinion YA books do more good than harm, and help teens more than they hurt them.

An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green response 10/19/14

          The young adult fiction novel "An Abundance of Katherines", by John Green, tells the story of a child prodigy named Colin who, after getting dumped by a girl named Katherine for the 19th time, decides to embark on a road trip with his friend Hassan. He ends up in a rural town in Tennessee named Gutshot, where he discovers new friends and a new life. It's a novel that teaches a lot about what life should be about, and I felt there were a lot of morals. And although many of the morals were very clichéd, they were truthful and meaningful.
          One of the clichéd morals was the biggest one, and this was that you don't have to be a genius or somebody famous to be important. Throughout the book, Colin repeatedly states that he wants to leave his mark on the world and be remembered by everybody. Colin says "“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”  (page 106, line 8) and this is shown as one of Colin's flaws over and over again. He thinks that solving an algorithm that would predict a relationship will help be remembered, and he spends his time trying to be remembered instead of actually living life. This starts to change once he develops a relationship with his new "family" he starts living with, mainly Lindsey and her mother, since he realizes that being who he is is important enough, and that he needs to start living life instead of trying to be a prodigy. An underlying moral in this main one was also to be who you are and not pretend to be someone else.
          Two characters display changes in behavior that represent this moral that being yourself is the only way you should act, instead of displaying a fake attitude and pretending to be someone else than who you really are. Lindsey and Colin both learn a valuable lesson from this, as Lindsey constantly changes what she acts like around different people because she thinks this will help everybody like her. She acts like a very Southern girl and puts on a thick accent around older people, acts bubbly around her boyfriend, and tries to act like a "nerd" around Colin and Hassan. When Lindsey says"I'm never myself. [...] I'm nothing. The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real. (page 203, line 12)", she has no real identity, but having a relationship with Colin helps her find one and become her own person. Colin, on the other hand, is his own person and has a unique personality, but he only realizes at the end of the novel that being himself is enough to be important and leave a mark on the world and the lives of others.
          These are just two examples of clichéd morals in the book, and there are many more. And though usually a prosaic moral is, well, boring, the ones in this novel are meaningful and really show how they can change a person's life. This book taught me many valuable lessons and altered the stereotype in my head that clichéd morals and lessons would be boring and repetitive, and that they can instead be important themes to the book that shape the plot and define the characters.

College Sports Argument Essay

            Have you ever watched a college football or basketball game, and seen the huge stadiums or arenas packed with thousands of fans? Each of those games generates hundreds of thousands of dollars, and almost none of it goes to the players who play the game itself. The NCAA has deemed them amateurs, and therefore they don’t receive any payment. These athletes base most of their time around the sport they play, especially the biggest sport football and basketball in which they play dozens of games, and aren’t rewarded financially. This is different then being on the swim team or another extracurricular sport, where there aren’t too many practices or meets/games, and the athletes can focus mainly on their academics. For the players, this is their focus and academics usually take a lower priority since less time is left for them. Since they don’t receive any of the money they generate in the first place, college athletes are, in a way, exploited by the NCAA and they should be paid at least a minimum wage and receive other benefits.

            In college, most students get a job outside of school to help cover expenses, and for college athletes in top sports this is almost the same thing, except for the fact that they aren’t paid for it. Athletes shouldn’t spend this much time doing the sport and not receive any compensation to pay for expenses. How could they possibly find the time to obtain money a different way between spending almost 60 hours per week practicing and playing the sport and focusing on academics? Some of the athletes’ basic needs aren’t covered as shown in this quote from Shabazz Napier, a star point guard for the University of Connecticut basketball team. “There are […] nights that I go to bed and I’m starving,” he said, the year he and his team won the hugely popular ‘March Madness’ college basketball tournament. In Upfront Magazine issue 15251292, it is stated that “the average full-scholarship athlete accumulates $3,200 in debt for each year they’re in school, because meal plans and other incidentals often aren’t fully covered. Even though athletes receive some benefits, they must receive the best benefits, such as top health insurance that covers almost all expenses, since they can succumb to serious injuries that can affect their careers and cost a fortune, even to the players who don’t plan on having a sports career. Colleges need to start taking responsibility for these athletes that dedicate so much time to them. They need to start being paid, and though the fact that a federal judge decided that college basketball and football players must be paid if they are shown on TV is a start, they need more. Their living expenses need to be covered, and they need to start earning something for the “job” they do. The ones profiting the most are the adults who don’t take part in the games, such as people of the NCAA and the coaches.

            The NCAA has been using the “amateur” status for decades, and it’s slowly developed into a way to exploit the athletes by not letting them profit from their own fame and success. The sports generate billions of dollars, “800 million alone from the ‘March Madness’ basketball tournament” (Upfront Magazine, Issue 15251292, Page 15). The NCAA forbids student athletes to profit

 from their own likenesses or names, showing how the amateur status is a cover for exploitation and a way for the NCAA to profit as much as possible from these sports without having to spend on the athletes themselves. According to www.indystar.com, “The highest-paid public employee in 40 states is a college football or basketball coach,” showing just how much money coaches and other NCAA and college executives are paid. The amateur label needs to be removed, and NCAA rules must be changed, as the only ones not profiting are the players, and the NCAA is exploiting them in every way possible.

            College sports are a very heated and debated topic right now, but there is clear evidence that the athletes aren’t profiting enough, and that coaches and NCAA executives are profiting too much. Evidence shows that the NCAA is using the players to obtain huge sums of money and preventing the players from profiting themselves from their own image. Although some changes are starting to be made, many reforms need to happen, starting with payment and benefits for the athletes. It’s important for change to be made so that a balance can be established in college sports, with all the people involved profiting fairly, and I think these reforms should be made because it’s unfair that students don’t profit from their job. Changes are happening, and college sports are being changed for good, and for the best.

Faithful Elephants Reading Response

          World War II was a very deadly and destructive war that killed millions and affected many more, from the wives of soldiers to innocent animals. "Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People and War", a short story by Yukio Tsuchiya, tells the story of a trio of zoo elephants that must be killed along with all the zoo's other animals. The army fears that is bombs fall on the zoo, the animals could escape, wreak havoc and harm humans. The story takes place in the Ueno Zoo, in Tokyo, Japan, and is told mostly as a story to the author by a zookeeper who was present during the story. It's a heartbreaking story in which the zookeepers must starve their own elephants, their own friends. I think this story really shows how war is unfair requires innocent sacrifices, and how these sacrifices hurt everybody around them.
          In a time of war, innocence is rare. Even children realize how serious and horrible the situation is. "(Page 2, lines 18-21) Squeezing out what little strength they had left, Tonky and Wanly made their appeal. [...] they did their banzai trick. Surely their friend would reward them with food and water as he used to do." The war takes away the elephant's innocence as demonstrated in this quote, which shows how the elephants are confused about why their trainers are starving them and how they are being killed without doing anything wrong. The elephants and other zoo animals are being sacrificed to protect others, but it's really unjust. The story demonstrates how war isn't fair: in a time of war uninvolved people are killed for no reason. The death of these elephants represents the death of the millions of rather insignificant people and animals that wars cause. War has an effect on everybody, even the most innocent of uninvolved people.
          As said in the previous paragraph, war has an effect on practically every single person even just barely involved in it, even those who just live in a place where it takes place. It also hurts everybody, emotionally or physically, and usually both. The war and death of the elephants deeply emotionally hurts the zookeepers, because they were so close to these animals. "(Page 3, lines Still clinging to the elephants, the zookeepers raised their fists to the sky and implored, 'Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop all wars!' " This quote shows how much the death of the elephants hurt the zookeepers who had to starve them themselves against their will. In the quote, the trainers are clinging on to the elephants as if they were their lifeline, and in some ways they were, because they symbolized hope that the war would end. They yell at the enemy planes because they are furious that this foolish war cost them their friends. The elephants meant so much more to the trainers than just animals: they were like children to them. Even decades later, the trainer is still nostalgic and still remembers the death of these elephants who were such a big part of his life, because their death left a big scar in him and all the trainers. The death of someone/something you love stays with you your whole life. Wars destroy everything in their path, from people to animals to friendships.
         Wars are started for a reason, sometimes a good one, sometimes not, but they affect so many people that the deaths of innocents outshadows the fight for justice that a war usually is. War is unfair  and requires innocent sacrifices which hurt everybody around them, but are some of these sacrifices really worth it? What are the chances that the animals escaped and harmed humans? If the roles were switched and it was humans that could escape and harm the animals, would the innocent humans be put to death? Wars are like a disease: they burst into your life and spread to everyone around you, scarring them for the rest of their lives.