Second Semester Pre AP English students are currently analyzing Revolutionary writings. We have looked at Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. We have talked about aphorisms, oration, parallelism and rationalization. Many of the passionate techniques used by these great men still apply to controversial subjects today. Each of us has something for which we would fight. Each of us has something for which we would declare ourselves free from if possible.
Here are two of our current Declaration samples. One is more of the serious nature. One has serious parts as well as humorous parts. Good ideas, everyone. Even if we can't completely declare ourselves free from terrorism and school, we can take on the challenges with the best attitude possible. Fight fairly when it comes to change needed. Remember, Jefferson points out that we don't fight simply because we don't like something. We fight injustices and abuses.
#1 Declaration from School (fun and serious)
We, as women, declare ourselves free from strict schooling! Strict school seems unnecessary; maybe we want to take art for the entire year or maybe even study hall. The thing is, what is the point in torturing ourselves with stupid rules and strict guidelines? We want to have a spa day built into our schedules to recenter ourselves, we want to take the classes we choose to take, we want to eat amazing food, and finally we want a school built without restrictions!
We will not come to school when asked to, we will only come to school when we would like to. We will not be forced to come to school on certain days or certain hours of the day. If we feel the desire to only come to school one day out of the five day school week, we will not be punished for doing so. There will be no toll of attendance since we do not have to be present by rule. We have the choice!
We will have a longer summer! Summer is a time when students can wind down and have fun with their friends and family, and we need a long time for that. Only three months is not enough for all of this; we need, at least, five months of summer. The school year will start on the first of October and end on the last day of April, therefore giving us a five month summer. If this rule may ever be changed, the summer will be made longer than five months.
We will have better lunch options! The food we are offered currently is mediocre, and the salad is dark green. Yucky! We want fresh, crunchy, iceberg lettuce, with a sandwich bar. Also, we will have separate kiosks where fast food chains will give us free food, like pizza from Italy, or french baguettes with bruchetta. We demand only the best.
We will have naps every day, whenever we want! We will be able to take naps as many times as we please. We, as students, need our sleep to get a good education, and we don’t get enough at night if we are involved in after school activities and/or have lots of homework and tests. As young adults, we need at least a full eight hours of sleep to be well educated and be able to pay attention in school.
We will have a recess! We deserve to have a break from all of our learning that we do each day. We deserve to get out of the school and be free for awhile. We would learn better if Grumpy Cat we got to have a longer break from all of our classes. We need to get out and be social with our peers in a way that doesn’t involve just learning. Many people don’t try in gym class either so having a recess will let students have a reason to be active without being forced to. Students need their free time to be social and active without the pressure of being graded!
We will have more options for classes. We will have choices that will give us knowledge in careers, or maybe just in everyday life. For example we want classes on how to apply our cosmetics, with maybe some skincare shenanigans in there as well. Or maybe we would just like a class on how to edit a Youtube video. These things are important, and they should not be left behind.
We will not see people in classes that we do not want to see. These people may distract us, annoy us, or disturb us in a way that we do not want to cooperate with. In order to have a successful run in our high school, these people must be taken away and taught a lesson to not be annoying. Then they may come back.
We will have more clubs and sports! We will have skydiving, bungee jumping, random dancing, animal cuddling, pinteresting, scuba diving, dolphin training, zumba, tanning in the sun, sandcastle making, nail painting, hair doing, makeuping, fastest texting, romantic novel reading, 30 second dance party, and excited screaming. We will also have a list for recommendations, even though we have most of them covered.
We will not have any required classes or courses. Required classes are usually hard in some way, and we do not like hard things. We like easy things.
We will not take any homework home it will now be called “atschoolwork”. We will also not take any test that we don’t want to take because sleep and food.
DECLARATION #2 (serious)
We declare ourselves free from terrorism.
We declare ourselves free from threats to intimidate others to get what they want.
We declare to stop putting fear in others unlike terrorists.
They are attacking innocent people.
They are hurting children, women, and men who are doing nothing wrong.
They attack for pointless reasons.
They attack our country.
They harm our cities and buildings.
They destroy streets and spread panic through our people.
They violate our constitution. They go against our own inalienable rights. They
They put fear in the hearts and minds of other citizens. They make the citizens paranoid in certain situations.
They use others as hostages. They take over our airplanes and take the passengers captive.
They make us CONDESCEND to certain races. They make more racism in our country.
They make our relations with other countries fail. They make us not have trust in other leaders of the countries.
They can strike at unknown times. They make it so citizens never know when they are going to attack.
They hurt their own economy. They make it so the other citizens are afraid to travel to their country.
We will prevent incidents like the attack on the World Trade Center.
We will try our best to get rid of the terrorism in our country.
We will protect our people for the wrongdoing of others.
