TOW #30- Dear Future APELC Student

Dear Future APELC Student,

This is going to be no easy task.

You are probably walking into this class with some impressive grades you have earned the past two years, specifically well in English courses the last two years. With that said, no matter how successful you have been previously this course will challenge you in ways you have never been challenged academically.

For myself, I decided to take this course at the end of my sophomore year as I had done well in both freshman and sophomore honors language arts classes. I felt like I was ready to move up to an Advanced Placement course and succeed in that course similar to the success I have found in every Language Arts class I have taken in my time at Wissahickon. The only problem is, this course is not like every other Language Arts course offered previous to Junior Year.

You will be challenged like you have never been challenged before in writing and your analytical reading. You will be given readings to analyze that are not easy to pick up the first time going through. You will have homework assignments that are nearly impossible to save until the night before. Along the way you will see grades that you may have never even seen or imagined that you would ever receive in school.

However, after going through the course, you will see yourself as a better writer, reader, analyzer, and growth as a student. The difference between a student first walking into Mr. Yost’s room in September and a APELC student who is up at 8am on the day of the AP Exam is exponential, and through the course of the year everything is purposely instructed to prepare you for that day in May in which you show everything you have learned. At times you may have regrets in taking the course, or may be in fear of receiving grades that have never been present on your transcript. Nevertheless, at the end of the day this class is truly a marathon, and after the ups and downs of taking this course you will feel satisfied with the growth you will experience in only a year with Mr. Yost. 

Trust me, it will all be worth it even during the times where nothing seems to be going right in the course. You can really take my word for it as I had some of the worst lows I could ever have imagined in the course. There will be times of disappointment, but it will surely be reversed into the success and gratification that are associated with the growth gained from taking this test.

Best of Luck to You,

Drew Geller

TOW #29: Our Obsession With Guns

In Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine he has many claims that collectively make up for his overall argument regarding the gun issues in our modernized American society. With that said, one of his most focused on claims is the fact that Americans are obsessed with guns. At first, such a statement comes off nearly as a hyperbole when seeing the documentary, however after seeing Moore’s argument, it soon begins to make sense that this obsession could very well be the reasoning behind our gun problems we face today.

Moore interviews people from his own state of Michigan who are nearly obsessed with guns to the point where they stress it is a necessity in their life. The militiamen he interviews stress that guns are a right of being an American, therefore if an American does not own a gun, they are simply not capitalizing on one of the many opportunities there are for being an American citizen. Additionally, Moore compiles many different commercials we have all seen on TV, primarily commercials with an intended audience of children, which advertise child guns that are almost identical to those that an adult would have. Thus, Moore even goes out on a limb and says that this obsession is not even with adults, it begins with children therefore by the time they are adults the obsession has already developed and can lead to the issues we have today with firearms.

Furthermore, Michael Moore depicts America’s obsession with guns with more evidence as he travels to locations such as a barbershop where you can get your haircut, but also purchase a gun while you’re at it. He also goes into the house of a man who has a gun hidden right under his pillow, and the man’s simple yet convincing response to having the weapon under his pillow was for protection. Moore adds to this claim that Americans are obsessed with guns by tying it to another claim of his that Americans are obsessed with guns due to the fact that Americans live in fear. Hence, having a gun is what makes Americans feel safe, and with so many guns in circulation, this is when the catastrophes we hear on the news begin to make sense as these guns end up in the wrong hands.

After watching this documentary, the progression of Moore’s argument seemed to come alive in my mind, as it seemed to come together like a puzzle. The main claim, that Americans are obsessed with guns, begins to make sense when you look at the illustrations of fear in which our people live in portrayed from the media and other sources. This claim is further emphasized when Moore compares the safer Canadian society without guns to that of Detroit and other major cities in which there is atrocities everyday related to gun violence.