ASWR Assignment 3

Part One:

Miesha: "My Talent is Perseverance."

*What is your talent/gift?

*What are you going to do with it?

*Compare your talent with Miesha's.

Miesha’s talent is perseverance, and I think perseverance is my talent as well.

I don’t mean to say that my talent is anything comparable to Miesha’s because she has a lot more that she needs to persevere through, but I try to persevere through whatever I do.

The perseverance I built up for myself was the result of being challenged through the course of my life. In school and in life I have faced a lot of challenges. Although I did not do the best in the schoolwork that challenged me or overcame extreme odds like Miesha in life, I did not give up. I tried my best to do what I needed to get done no matter how much it seemed hopeless to me because I always knew I had to try.

In the present as well as in the future, I plan to use this “talent” to get me through college and life. No matter what in the world I decide to do, perseverance is a key factor in my success. I know that college and life will have extreme challenges that I need to persevere through in order to be successful. Without perseverance, I would simply give up, be lazy, and have a horrible future. I’m going to use my “talent” of perseverance to get through the hardest moments in life because persevering through the challenges is the only way I can grow. (And I don’t mean height-wise to those who thought of physically growing -_- I know I’m short but I meant on the inside!)

Part Two:

Literary Connection: Jesus' Parable of the Talents NOTE: In ancient times, a measure of gold was called a talent: There once was a master and he had three servants. He goes on a trip and gives gold to each of them. The first one spends it having a good time, the second one purchases a rug in the market place. The third one goes out into the fields and buries it. When the master returns, he asks them what they did with the gold. The first one says, "I spent it and had a great time with my friends." The master says, "Very Good." The second one says, "I purchased a rug in the marketplace." The master says, "Very Good." The third one says, "Master, you will be most proud of me! I buried it in the fields and here it is!" The master beats him and sends him out of his house.

What do you think is Jesus' point? What lesson does he teach and how does it connect to you and Miesha? How does this story work on more than one level?

Jesus’ point in “Jesus’ Parable of the Talents” is that talents need to be put to use in order to mean anything. Every person has at least one talent that can be contributed to his/her own life and to those around him/her. If that person leaves the talent inside, no one will ever benefit – it’ll be a wasted talent. Although the third servant would have been the smartest in a story about character and morals, he is the one who made the biggest mistake in this story because the gold was the “talent” that was given to him. The third servant kept his gold because saving money is important in life. However, because the gold was a mere metaphor for “talent” in this story and the third servant was the only one who did not spend it, he did not use his talent.

Hiding his gold away for “safe keeping” did nothing for him. He did not get anything he really needed or did not have any fun with it, it was as if he did not have it. Nothing came out of it. If he were to have used it on something he wanted or needed, the gold would have meant more. For all he knew, he could die and it would stay buried in the field for someone else to enjoy it with no cost or hard work at all!

The story connects to Miesha and I because it is a message to make use of the talents given to you. If Miesha or I were to have used our talents for some other time, nothing good would have come of it. We would not have completed the tasks that were hard and, in the end, more worthwhile so we would not have anything to be proud of! However, following the moral of this story would allow us to make use of our talent for our benefit.

Because our talent is not gold or anything tangible, we are allowed to use it as much as we want! Our talent is not something that is limited to a mere object such as gold, so we can continue doing the things that require using the talents we were given. I think that would be another message Jesus is trying to say. What I am trying to say is, another moral to this story is that our talent has no limits in that we can use it as much as we want, and we should use it as much as we can.

The story has more than one level of meaning. The first meaning is that if something that has a monetary value is not used, it could be wasted from being lost or stolen. So we should use it before someone else has the chance to enjoy our items for us while we are off to the side, sad that we lost our money. The second level would be what I mentioned earlier – that if we do not use our talents, nothing good will come of it and so many times of learning and benefit would never have happened!

ASWR Assignment 2

After reading this book review, what do you think your experience reading this book is going to be like? Do you tend to look at book reviews before you purchase a book? Do you use book reviews to influence your book purchases? Are you more apt to listen to a friend who recommends a book to you? Your response should be at least 250 words.

My thoughts on “And Still We Rise” is much like Mark Welch’s. I feel that Miles Corwin spent a lot of his time and effort into making the rest of American society (and perhaps societies around the world) to recreate these students’ lives in our own imaginations. Many people from a community like mine take the privileges and blessings they have for granted.

For those who feel offended by that statement, ask yourself if you ever get mad at technology, teachers who assign too much homework, and college applications. Or maybe even your parents for making you come home by curfew. But it truly is not our faults – it’s how we were raised.

This book allows me to really appreciate all of the things in life that I dread – homework, AP classes, tests, pressure for college – because now I know that there are other people out there who have to do all of what I do while dealing with their abusive parents or neglective foster parents and their full-time jobs. The students from South-Central who persevere throughout the entire 13 years of their education to graduate from high school (especially in the gifted program at Crenshaw) and especially those who manage to go on to college, are truly gifted.

To have a family who abuses and doesn’t care about them, to ignore gang activity and stay off the streets, to go to work so they can save up money for basic essentials and clothes, to stay up late at night after a hard day so they can study… that’s tough. I know that I wouldn’t last one year in this city. I would cry myself to sleep every night, pitying myself, asking myself “why me?” I doubt I’d have the courage and strength to do what these students do.

When I buy a book to read, I don’t read the book reviews. I tend to listen to my friends’ opinions or read the back of the cover and judge the book then. Now, I think if I look online for book reviews to read, I’ll find the books that are really great, the books that inspire.

ASWR Assignment 1

Read pages 1 - 61 in the text! Write a response to the 1st 61 pages with this prompt: What is Crenshaw High School like in comparison to Mililani High School? You may write in terms of the community, the layout/environment of the school, and the students/faculty/teachers? This needs to be at least 300 words. You may use quotes from the text to support you.

Crenshaw High School and Mililani High School differ in a countless amount of ways: from location to ethnicity to the personalities of the people and much more.

Crenshaw is located in a multiethnic ghetto called South-Central where 1/3 of their residents “subsist below the national poverty level.” South-Central is a collage of gangs: the Rollin 30s, Rollin 40s, Rollin 60s, Harlem Crips, Georgetown Crips, EastSide 97th Street Crips, Ness Gangster Bloods, Inglewood Family Bloods and so on. Each gang fights for territory anywhere possible – even in the members’ own high school. In Mililani, we don’t really have gangs. If we do, they’re really underground because no gang activity happens here.

The adolescents of South-Central have a somewhat forced destiny thrust upon them. Many students conform to the gang life because their friends join gangs, the people they live by are all one gang. In South-Central, if you’re not in a gang, you don’t have many other people to care for you other than your family. This portion of the United States definitely live at the extremes: they’re either extremely gangster or extremely devoted to making a better life for themselves. In this neighborhood, it is not uncommon to be beat or neglected by a parent or to be a “ward of the state.” Because of the other pressures of life here, the students do poorly when compared to the rest of the nation.

The adolescents of Mililani do not grow up with the same pressures to conform to gang life. There are opportunities to play sports, excel in academics, join Boy Scouts, and do other extra-curricular activities. Residents can walk the streets without the risk of getting shot up on the block by a rival gang and many families are friends. At Mililani High School, academics, sports, and community service is strongly promoted as well as widely accepted – something that cannot be said for Crenshaw. Although the residents here are not as rich as those in Beverly Hills, we still live lives of luxury.

In ethnicity, more than half of the population of South-Central is Latino and most of the rest are black. In Mililani, Asian is the dominant race.

However, there are certain parallels Mililani has with Crenshaw. For example, compared to the nation, Hawaii is not exactly the smartest. Although school is more important to more people here than in South-Central, Hawaii can still be considered as behind the nation. Not to mention, there are select students who truly wish to excel in school in both high schools. The students of the gifted program at Crenshaw are like the students who take AP and GT here at Mililani. We all want to go to college with scholarships, to create the best lives we can for ourselves.