Who writes 12 page papers in an introductory English class? Oh, we do? And then we have to print 5 copies of that? Think of the trees.
I'm striving to differentiate this paper between every other research paper I've ever written, because, frankly, I've hit the sophomore slump. Much like senioritis, that feeling that this doesn't matter anymore. Except the sophomore slump is more dangerous because the end result is you feel like dropping out. I'm not going to actually drop out (Although that doesn't even seem to be the proper term in college). But if I have to write one more research paper where I pretend for X amount of pages to pretend to actually know something about a topic that is much deeper and more complex than I can possibly give proper respect and credit to...
I like Dr. Ballenger's individual techniques, my conference time with him always feels valuable, but despite his best efforts I can't help but feel that this is structured just like any other research paper, except, it's overly long.
Perhaps this wine just has me whiney when my plans fell through on a Saturday night, and I am just in one of my moods, but seriously, I can't help but wonder how I can possibly write anything about the negative effects of the militarized police.
What do I know about societally engrained racism?
What do I know about the black guilt created by our police forces?
What do I know about what it's like to hear your son was shot, and the very next day tanks are in the streets to remind me that the police are here to "protect" me and to remind me that they made the right decision?
I can write a lot about that, I can research and pretend to know just about everything about that.
But what a facade, what an impersonation
And what an abuse of privilege, to stand up and pretend to understand what people are going through every damn day of their life just for the sake of writing a persuasive paper for a grade. The issues that I will honestly merely skim the surface of despite what will appear to be a heavy analysis, are, to me, objects. They are the next paper, the next debate, a tool that I wave around to say "look at me, I'm socially aware! I'm conscience of issues and I care about them." But I'm not really doing a damn thing about them. And that issue, that problem, whatever it is.. For me it's a 10 page obstruction of my life that I will throw together in the last minute hyped up on red bull or whatever the hell else gets me through my weekend.. But for the people that this effects.. The people of Ferguson, African Americans in general, this is their life. This is what they live. And we just take it for granted and write it off, quite literally, in a paper, for a grade.
Privilege is a beautiful and gracious creature to her friends, isn't she?
But she's also a two faced bitch, quick to repeatedly disappoint those who weren't fortunate enough to land in her good graces.
It's sad that you think that. I hope you don't tell people things like this often because it would give Honors college a worse connotation than it already has. We are supposed to love learning. These papers aren't going to be submitted into any academic journals, they are learning tools! They are our tool to explore new topics and learn how to write well-written and interesting papers. If we don't practice now, we won't automatically know how to write well in the real world. But maybe you will, because you are a debater. But debating is also just another tool to use on the way to the real world. World issues are not solved just because someone debated about them! It's the same with these papers, they are a tool for learning, and maybe it's just the next requirement to check off the list for you. Since you look at it that way, you won't get out of it what the rest of us will. And for the record, printing cases for debate uses WAY more paper than 5 copies of a research paper!
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