The College Currency

Author’s Note: This is a research paper about the money that some college players receive. Not every player receives money, but the ones who do get serious punishments.  This piece states reasons why and why we shouldn’t pay college athletes.

Robert Traylor, Reggie Bush, and Cam Newton: three players that are suspected of receiving money or other items for playing in college sports (Dayton). Unfortunately some of them have received various awards and have been stripped of them due to this.   For example, in 2005,  a football player named Reggie Bush was awarded with the Heisman Trophy, but due to receiving money from college boosters, Reggie was later stripped of his Heisman award and other murals displayed in his honor were taken away. Mostly everyone involved in college sports is aware of the serious issue of college players receiving illegal money.

Some reasons that people think that players in cllege should be paid are that the collegeo players cannot be in any video games, T.V. shows, or commercials because it ruins their minor league reputation.  Another reason is that the players are the ones that attract the fans and earn the money for the university, so they should get at least a part of that money.  Finally, some think that players that come from poor families might get injured in school or get in trouble and be suspended, or won’t make it into the professional leagues and thus, won’t receive money for what they have done in the past (Brill).

Although there are a lot of people that support players receiving money, there are also many people that disagree.  A few reasons people don’t want to pay athletes are that they already got a scholarship ,which pays for all school needs, and they don’t deserve any other awards (Salvadore). Also,  some people think that they should prevent paying athletes because players getting paid in college is against the NCAA rules and that they don’t want to change them. Finally, people think that if receiving money in college was legal, many players might struggle with their college contracts and might end up having to stay in college more years than they wanted.

The few players that received money in the past were top notch athletes that now have money, with or without getting paid in college.  All three players mentioned are now, or were millionaires and threw their past behind them.  Paying athletes for playing college sports is a serious topic that mostly everybody involved in college sports is aware of.    

Works Cited

Dayton, Kels. Should College Athletes be Paid. n.d. News Article. 6 May 2013.

Salvadore, Damon. Top 10 Reasons College Athletes Shouldn't Be Paid. n.d. Document.

Brill, John. Why College Athletes Should be Paid. N.d. News Article. May 22, 2013

Vacation Scare

Author's Note: This is a creative piece about a family going on a vacation, but is late to get to the airport and barley makes the plane. This piece can relate to many family that are bad at staying in time.

Finally, the sun was peeking from the clouds and the the weather was finally feeling like spring.  After spending for what felt like an eternity in the winter, spring was on its way and by the looks of it, it was coming fast.  Tomorrow was spring break and my family and I were as eager as a kid on Christmas.  Florida was our destination and so far everything was going smoothly.  I attempted to get to bed early, but excitement got the best of me and I ended up staying up way late.

In the morning, I woke up as drowsy as a sloth and it looked like my whole family was the same way.  I got up, packed a little, looked at the clock, packed a little more, looked back up at the clock, and screamed.  We were supposed to leave twenty minutes ago.  I ran around arousing the whole house until everybody was up and packing.  After a few minutes, we were out the door and on our way to the airport, hoping that our flight would be delayed.

We arrived at the airport around a hour late because of the raging traffic.  Everybody in my family was sprinting down to get to security and make our flight.  At the security gate our day didn’t get any better. My dad go pulled for a random security test and that took a good chunk of our precious time.  After we finally got past security, we gazed up at the departure times and our flight was delayed.  We made it on the plane and the rest of the vacation was smooth sailing.

Winter Wonder-Not

Author's Note: This is a creative piece about the scares and wonder of winter. This story is shown from the perspective of a boy who has never experianced snow in his life until one day when an enormous blizzard comes.

This seems pretty weird, but the worst day of my life was also the best. It all started on February 15th, the day before the so called blizzard, a word I have never heard for years.  Living in North Carolina it would be expected that a twelve year old boy wouldn’t know about a blizzard. In all of my twelve winters I’ve only experienced snow twice and that was only a quarter of an inch. On this particular day I was extremely jittery: I heard stories about cars crashing, people dying and the worst, shoveling. The night of February 15th was one of the craziest nights because everyone was freaking out not knowing what to expect.

All of my thoughts that last night were wrong though.  I woke up at five to gaze upon my greatest fear, but looking at the snow I knew I was wrong.  In the past, the snow came down in small flakes falling slowly and then melting on the concrete like an ice cube melts in your mouth. This snow was different, it came down in huge clumpy flakes that bombarded the concrete and stuck to everything.  I could tell there was already about five inches of snow on the ground with more coming.  After examining the snow through the window for a few minutes, I thought it wouldn’t kill me to experience the weird wonder of winter.  I grabbed all of my equipment and ventured into the snowy wilderness.

The first thing I did when I got outside was touch the snow.It was a very heavy substance and it was very cold.  After a couple of minutes doing that, my sister’s face  appeared in the door and she rushed out as curious as I was.  While we were further examining the snow my parents came outside with a giant present.  We didn’t even notice it at first, until they threw a ball of snow at us. After we saw it we ran over as fast as a bull charging at a red flag.  We ripped the paper off and discovered a large piece of red plastic.  Apparently you could ride through the snow like a surfer rides the ocean waves.  It seemed kind of pointless, but when we tried it, we loved it.  

The day ended by us drinking a kind of silly thing, which was milk and chocolate warmed up in the microwave.  Even though it was a very different day than normal, I really liked it.  It’s not everyday that a city like Raleigh, North Carolina received this much snow and I am pretty sure I made the most out of it.

The Mustang Miracle

Author's Note:This is a creative piece about a high school football team and there journey into the playoffs.  In this piece I really worked on my punctuation and grammar.

Seconds were winding down, the Mustangs were down by two and with no timeouts, it was going to be a hard game to win.  The Mustangs had the ball at the twenty yard line,  all they need is to get the ball to a good position for the kicker, but the Grizzlies’ defense was amazing the whole game.  The quarterback on the mustangs received the snap the ball and hits their star receiver for a twenty yard gain.  Now at the middle of the field twenty more yards would be ideal  for the kicker.   Again, the quarterback receives the snap and rolls back, but no one was open and the  grizzlies star linebacker sacks him for a loss.   It’s second down and the quarterback is rolling back, finds the running back for a five yard gain.  Third down the running back blows through the middle and gets the first down.  Only a few yards left and a few seconds left.

The quarterback receives the snap, but  a defensive lineman breaks through the line like a bull breaks through  a gate which forces the quarterback throw the ball out of bounce.  The time is stopped at five seconds and the  team’s only choice is to attempt an around fifty five yard kick.  Not only does the kicker have to focus on accuracy, but he also has to kick the ball as hard as he can for it make it there. The team is on the field and the ball is snapped.  It’s a clean catch and put , the kicker runs and gets the kick off.  It whizzed across the field like Usain Bolt whizzes across the track , hits the bottom post of the field goal and … goes in! 

The bench of the Mustangs goes crazy as well as the crowd.  That snapped the Grizzlies undefeated season and had brought the mustangs into the playoffs.  The kicker gets picked up and carried around the field and into the locker room.  Over the next few weeks the Mustangs went on a hot streak, blowing out teams that they would’ve lost to. The Mustangs made it all the way to the division championship where they played the Grizzlies again, but this time instead of a close game the Mustangs won by seven.   This season went down in the school records, leaving the juniors pumped for the next season. 

The Battle of the Views

Author’s Note: This is a point of view piece about how both the Americans and Great Britain felt around the time of the Revolutionary War. Everybody in America thinks they were right for not wanting the taxes and everybody in Great Britain thought they were right for taxing.  This piece will explain the point of view from people of both of these countries.  Both countries would’ve had very different point of views because both of them had honor for fighting for their country.

Mostly everybody in America knows about how America came to be and how they thought America was right about rebelling and breaking away from Britain.  The thing is that these people who think America did everything are from America, but if you look at this situation from Great Britain’s point of view the story might be very, very different.  For instance a Great Britain citizen might think that America did everything wrong and was not smart to rebel.

Journal Entry 1773 by a British Loyalist: I don’t know why those stupid Patriots calling themselves America’s, tearing apart the beautiful country of Great Britain.   First the Americans don’t want to pay their taxes, which are only helping all of them, now just the last week they break into our tea ships and dump all of it in the sea.  How dare them, we give them the privilege to live in Britan and they repay us by vandalizing all of our goods.  Pathetic!  Not only are the patriots doing all of this, but they are also threatening to start a war.  All I know is that we don’t care about the threats, if we had a war we will destroy them.          

Journal Entry 1783 by an American Soldier :  I can’t believe we are this far into the war.  Everybody on the King George’s side doubted us since the beginning, but look where we are now on the verge of winning the war.  Although, we didn’t win yet, once those French soldiers come it will be an easy ride to freedom, if they ever come.  We have spent months of waiting for those darn French, if they could just come and help, we will end this war.  Alas, all us soldiers can do now are fight as hard as we can for America.  God Bless America!

All of the people living and fighting honored their country and it in shown through their point of view that people from different countries had very different point of view.

Mystery of Life

Author’s Note: This is a theme piece about the determination of a young boy named Bud to find his long lost dad.  

If you lived in an orphanage for almost your whole life and you knew that you have other relatives living in the world that you could find, what if you found a clue that could help you find one of them, would you try to find him or not?  A young kid by the name of Bud in the book Bud Not Buddy by is about a boys’ determination to find his lost father.  Determination is a huge theme in this book and it is also shown in life and literature.

The first  of many reasons that this book shows the theme determination is how Bud never gives up looking for his dad. One moment in the book he misses a train that would have brought him right to his destination, but he didn’t give up, he researched maps and decided to take the 7 day walk to Grand Rapids.  Also, when he finally made it to the house his dad was at, is father turned him down and denied any relationship between them.  Bud didn’t give up, he kept spitting out evidence like a printer spits out paper and finally his dad caved in and told him the news.

Although Bud is extremely determined to find his Dad, the whole city of Flint Michigan is also determined to help Bud find his dad. Right after Bud misses the train he went to  a library and a librarian gives Bud food and a map  so Bud can walk to Grand Rapids. Likewise, while Bud is walking to Grand Rapids a random bus driver pulls over, picks Bud up, feeds him, and takes him to where his father is.  Lastly, Bud’s father’s band always sticks up for Bud when his dad didn’t believe they were related.

Even though, Bud, Not Buddy is a one of a kind book with a giant amount of determination, Enclave by Ann Agurrie is another story that shows determination because the main character Deuce is determined to save her section of the city or Enclave and find out who her parents are.   Both of the characters in these books are very strong and started off with nearly nothing.  But, given a small  opportunity each of these characters can get determined and do almost anything.   An example is in Enclave when Deuce and her partner are running to help save a city, they run days on end determined to save the collapsing city.  Both of these stories show a significant amount of determination.

Not only does the theme in this book relate to literacy, but it also relates to life.  Most humans and animals that are determined will go to an extraordinary measure to accomplish a task, kind of like Bud.  For example, if a  

After overcoming all of these obstacles Bud is so much stronger and his journey paid off with Bud having an actual family.  None of this would have happened though, without Bud’s amazing determination. Also, Bud would have never got to where he needed to be.  Determination truly is a huge theme in this book and in many other literacy writing and throughout life.

Defending Your Colony

Author's Note- This is a prediction piece about what I think will happen in the book Enclave. I have wrote an alternation ending to explain what I think will happen as well as my other predictions. 

In first part of the book Enclave by Ann Aguirre the main character Deuce has her naming day, which consists of Deuce getting 6 scars up her arms to represent that she is a huntress.  The next day she is rushed into battle with the briefing that an unknown animal called the Freaks are threatening their village.  I predict that Deuce and the rest of the hunter and huntresses will go out and try to stop them but most of Deuce’s ally’s will die and they will have to retreat.  I will also predict that the beast will have a giant leader that Deuce and her remaining ally’s will have to search for and kill throughout the book.  Lastly, I think that Deuce will kill the leader Freaks and things are going to return to normal in their village.

I think this prediction is accurate because most of the Hunters and Huntresses are new recruits so I think that the savage Freaks will maul the un experienced bow men and women.  Plus, Deuce is probably the toughest one so I think she will survive.  Finally I know if there is a leader beast that the Hunters will have to follow it because the leader of the village is very strict and un caring about the conditions of his people and has very harsh rules in place . 

This book is similar to the character Catness in the book The Hunger Games by Susan Collins because both of them have a main character who is trying to survive in a different environment than normal.  They both have to hunt for food and survive by themselves.   Also, both of them are really good at hunting and amazing with a bow.  Finally, both of them have broken up family’s, Catness doesn’t have a Dad and Deuce only has sisters and brothers.

Alternate Ending-

Deuce and her partner Silk marched off into the darkness of the winding underground tunnels.  Their job was to hunt the freaks and find the food that got caught in the traps.  Silk and Deuce went for the first trap and saw their first freak tearing apart the game they caught.  They sliced the beast up and five  more jumped out from their hiding places and jumped on top of Deuce.  Through the hoard of freaks a giant mutated freak slipped into Deuce’s view.  Silk was trying to get the freaks off but there were too many.   

The freaks took them back to their den and locked the Hunters in a cage.  After being starved for 2 days the whole colony went on a search for them and fought off the hoard and Deuce escaped and had to kill the giant freak.  After a mighty battle the Huntress came out on top and the colony turned back to normal.