Essay

                 Me personally I don’t believe that the current school system holds boys back from achieving academic success. I believe that something does hold them back from being as good as they can be and it is they themselves that are holding back them back.

                First off, what is it with boys not doing good and not being interested in reading? I mean just because something doesn’t interest you does not mean you don’t do it. You still have to try hard no matter what. If you don’t like your job and don’t do anything, guess what, you’re going to be fired right. If you don’t like a certain something in your sport and don’t try you aren’t going to play.

                So do you think that girls love every single piece of literature they are given in class? Most likely they do not. They can also be uninterested in stories, but the difference between guys and gals is that guys are lazy. Yeah I said it “guys are lazy” it’s true. Even though a girl may not find a story interesting she will still do it because you’re supposed to. This just goes to show that girls are just working way harder than boys in school. Which explains the huge gap between boys and girls in testing and grades.

                Like I explained in the last paragraph girls are working much harder than boys in school. Girls basically do better because they aren’t lazy. They almost have a “you can’t stop me from achieving this” attitude which I believe boys lack when it comes to school. Most boys aren’t focused on doing as best as they can in school compared to girls.

                All these things show that the current school system has nothing to do with boys not achieving academic success like they once did. It is actually themselves that are stopping them from achieving success in school.

Cause and Effect Essay

Why shouldn’t high school basketball players be able to enter the NBA draft? I mean there was a good amount of high school players drafted right. The NBA should change their rule and allow high players to go to the NBA again. No No No! I'll tell you why high school players shouldn’t be able to go directly to the NBA and why they should go to college.
Alright first off the kids deciding to leave early are giving up a free ride throughout college to play basketball for about 15 years. What about after their years of playing? What do they do know? Even worse. What if they weren’t good enough to play in the league? Where do they end up now with no college degree? Now if the athlete decided to go to school this wouldn’t be a problem.

Next if the kid goes to college for a bit he will be ready for the physical and mental part of the pro game rather than being thrown into the spotlight straight out of high school. By going to college he will also have to go against better talent to show if he is ready to go to the NBA or not. It also gives them time to get bigger physically to be ready for the wear and tear of the NBA games going against older and stronger men.

Now for the numbers. Ok Kevin Garnett, Monte Ellis, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, and Dwight Howard. All these guys had come straight out of high school to the NBA but there are a lot more who have been drafted out of high school and not succeeded. There were plenty who skipped college to go to the draft but were never drafted and have yet to make it to the NBA. Only a handful has been successful. If the kids go to college they will be able to find out if they are ready by one year or see if they need a few more years to get to that level or even find out that they need to just focus on a different future.

I believe the rule the NBA has is a good thing for the sake of the high school players and they shouldn’t change it no matter how many players leave after one year of college. How they are doing it now is perfectly fine with me and everyone else.

Article 1

Is there a way to limit the amount of concussions in football for the young? The Sports Legacy Institute(SLI) thinks there is a way. They believe there should be a Hit Count somewhat like the Pitch Count in baseball -which is a pitch limit so pitchers do not hurt themselves- but the Hit Count would minimize the amount of hits to the head possibly reducing the number of concussions. Studies show that in an average season the brain recieves 10 g's -or 10 times the amount of gravity- of force and no more than 20 g's a year -10 g's of force is the same amount of force as a car getting rear ended- which can possibly be fatal. SLI will be talking to scientists, coaches, and other experts later on this year to discuss the Hit Count to hopefully find if it the Hit Count will help with the growing concussion problem.

Just Walk On By

Staple's describes himself as a shy black man that stands at six feet two inches. Other people see him as a big intimidating black man that is going to hurt them or other horrible things that he would never do. He uses the last sentence to basically say that he acts differently around people so that nobody feels like they are in trouble and it also helps him not feel bad emotionally like he does when people try to get away from him as fast as possible. I identified myself as the person that thinks he is going to do something bad. iIt affected my reading because it made me think of how people feel when someone else walks the other way just to avoid you.

Never Just Pictures

In the essay "Never Just Pictures" Susan Bordo talks about how the media is making both male and females feel that they are overweight because they want to look how the media perceives people to be causing them to have eating disorders. Bordo supports this by giving examples of how celebrities look in magazines and on television and even how athletes look. She gives evidence on these people on how they had eating disorders yet the media celebrates their bodies. I do agree with Bordo's argument because many do look at these people as how they are supposed to look even though the one's that think they are obese may actually be just fine. It can effect people's confidence and also can possibly be depressing to many people. Another reason I do agree is that the eating disorders are not healthy whatsoever which is especially not good if you are already fit. Starving yourself is not the answer yet people believe it's the only option because of the media saying this is how you are supposed to look.

Descriptive Essay

It is basically proven that it is best to have teamwork if you want to win. If you want to win you must have good teamwork but to have good teamwork you may have to sacrifice some things you may not want to give up.

Teamwork in basketball is much more than just passing the ball. Teamwork is doing your job on the court, cheering on your teammates, letting your teammate know when they did something good, helping them up when they are down, not having a huge ego, passing up a somewhat open shot for a shot that is completely wide open for your teammate, and playing as hard as you can so your team has a better chance of winning the game. Teamwork is the key to winning and past teams have shown that it is.

Now to show some past teams that had great teamwork. First up the Detroit Pistons back in the late 80's and early 90's. This team was good to start but they needed more people that were team players. So this team gave up one of their best players (who was good at scoring but was not willing to play less minutes so his teammates could play more) Adrian Dantley for players who were willing to play less and do more than just score. After they traded away Dantley the Pistons were able to win 2 championships. Now the Chicago Bulls of the 90's. During the 80's this team lost to the great teams because Michael Jordan did not figure out yet that you must have good teamwork to win. Once he learned that being a good team player would get him past the hump that he had yet to get over the Chicago Bulls won 3 championships in a row not once but twice. Lastly a more recent team the Boston Celtics in 2008. This team was able to acquire Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to go along with Paul Pierce which they already had. All three of these players were all-stars that scored over 20 points per game every year. They all got pretty close to winning a championship by themselves when they were younger but now that they were older they wanted to win a championship. That year all three of their statistics dropped a little but just by sacrificing that little stat they were able to have the best record in the NBA. This team was also able to win an NBA championship over the Los Angeles Lakers in just their first year together. So just little things like sacrificing points or playing time are all part of teamwork and help you win.

I will now show you players and teams that did not give up anything to try to be good teammates or did not have good teamwork. First up a player that has yet to win a championship and be good team player, Lebron James. He has not won yet because he has not sacrificed anything yet and he basically feels he has to carry most of the load by himself for his team. I'm sure had he sacrificed some of his statistics and his ego he would have already had a championship by now but he does not. Next up is a really good team that just lost its magic the Los Angeles Lakers of 2004. This team had previously won three championships in a row. They had Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'neal along with more star players. This was possibly one of the most talented teams in the NBA of all time but the big egos of Bryant and O'neal could not be on a team any more. The whole year they butted heads and made storylines of how they completely hated each other. This very talented team was able to make it to the NBA finals despite all the negatives. They would eventually lose to the much more team oriented Detroit Pistons. After the season the Los Angeles Lakers had no choice but to break up most of the team.

This just goes to show you that teamwork is needed to be good and if you don't it probably won't end up to good and that if you sacrifice a few little things it will most likely be for the better.

APA Format

To reduce bias in your writing and/or papers you must describe the level of specificity. You must also be sensitive to labels. Also you must acknowledge participation in your writing. To reduce bias in your writing you must not mention marital status, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic identity, and fact that someone has a disability. You are supposed to reference a text when work of individuals whose ideas, theories, or findings had influenced your work directly even when paraphrasing or describing their idea. To reference your work you must have them in order by authors name or the first authors name if there is more than one author. You must indent your reference list and you must double space the list as well.