Today, I took a stab for what I believe is right in a simple situation. The last weekof November 2006, I was spending time in Salinas California where my cousin was getting married. Unfortunately, while I was away, my senior English research paper was due and so I had to have it e-mailed in by midnight the day it was due. I worked quickly and precisely on my 'A' paper [I didn't get an 'A'] all throughout my Thanksgiving vacation. The paper's topic [which I chose] was controversy in contemporary art. This was to be a persuasive paper; 12 pages long.
Our AP English teacher, whom most would consider a joke, once took 3 months to grade a 2-page paper that all of my 10 classmates wrote. After months of making up excuses as to why she did not grade our research papers yet, today, 2 weeks late, she returned them. My paper was filled with information: quotes, opinions, and well-put statements. Most of my teacher's comments that she tried to prove my paper wrong with were just personal experiences she has had, which I find not to be credible information. I was appaled at the complete lack of effort she put into reading the paper that took so much of my time. Where she did not input her own life in drawn-out comments, she placed many question marks beside eachother ['????'].
In the end, her final statement to me was "Your paper on controversial art was too controversial and that is why you recieved the grade you did." This statement angered and offended me, yet I cooly walked away. My freedom [OR WHAT LITTLE I HAVE IN SCHOOL] felt violated. "I will not rewrite my paper"was and is my final say. Every quote I used to support my thesis will in fact stay. Every paragraph I poured my educated opinion into will stay. She can not make me give up on keeping what's mine and my paper will not change. Sure, a persuasive paper can offend people, but all I ask is that you read and try to understand my point of view and why I belive it, not that you convert whatever beliefs you hold and entirely follow my path. A persuasive paper to me is one that persuades the reader understand and hear why the author thinks what they do.
Fight for your rights.
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