Literacy Blog #8

Athlete suspended for driving friend

I would have probably done the exact same in Erin's situation. The reason for this being is because I wouldn't just abandon my drunk friend, that would leave them in a dangerous situation of getting in a car accident. On the other hand it would also be a smart idea to not drive them home. Alternatives would be to just call their parents or just let the police handle it.  I think this decision will affect her future colleges she wishes to go to. This incident  will be on her record, and colleges don't want to see things like that, so it will make it harder for her to get in. The principle regarding alcohol that schools are trying to stand for is "Teen drinking is a serious problem." as stated in the article. Yes, I do agree that teen drinking is a serious matter, but someone who is not under the influence of alcohol should not be submitted to this kind of punishment. I think the reason that schools are getting involved in the efforts to prevent teen drinking is because if students are found drinking then schools should take away things that are dear to them, just like Erin was "suspended for five games and stripped of her captaincy." She was the captain of her team and they took that away from her. She wasn't drinking though, and that's why I think the school went a little overboard with that. As said in the article the school sent out a "dangerous message -- that young people are better off letting their friends drive drunk..."  I think the reason they suspended her was because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time and they suspected the worst outcome. I do think my school would suspend me if I were found at a party of drunks, even though I never took one sip, it just matter that you were there you can still get blamed. Erin was doing the right thing, but it were others who over thought the situation. 

Link to article: http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/9826842/high-school-athlete-massachusetts-suspended-driving-drunk-friend

Literacy Blog #7



Pencil and Paper
2006
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Based on the evidence from the atricle I can see that the SAT can be useful for college in the furture, but on the other hand it is giving students a hard time to actually write well in this SAT. The article stated, "No scratch paper is provided for outlining or essay planning." It made me think that they are really limiting us to our best abilties with a short amount of time. They actually say that "the best approach is to just make stuff up.", so I guess they don't care what we have to say. We just put whatever and they grade based off of our vobaulary skills, not on the accuracy of the information. Also, when the article stated that graders basically don't "do anything more than skim an essay before making a grading determination." It shocked me becasue we could write anything in the that essay, and they could just run over it without noticing.




Dipper writing stuff
3/4/2012
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The best way for the SAT's writing evaluation to be accuratley judged would be to take out the skimming grading proccess. It might take longer to grade and read over a bunch of SAT's, but in the long run it will give the fair results that some of the students need. They also need to focus more on the writing ablility and what the writers are actually trying to prove or disprove. If they ask a question about themselves that is personal, I guess that they can't actually ask them if it were true, but the content has to be relavent to the topic.

After this article I don't think I would be prepared to even look at the writing SAT. Now that I know, I can further my writing abilities and practice for when the time comes. I might need to spiff up my vocabulary a bit, time myself when given a topic to write about, and try to use my time wisely. I think teachers should give their students a few pointers in the classroom to make them more prepared.

Here is the Link: http://kellygallagher.org/resources/AoW%201314_8%20SAT%20Writing.pdf