1 Curtice (I am sorry that I sent you the incorrect version, I saved these paper versions as Escuerdo4 and Escudero4 on my laptop and I think that this was an accident.) Mark Curtice English 125 section 56 Instructor Escudero This is a much better paper in terms of clarity and organization. Some problems with relevance and transitions persist, particularly toward the end, but this is very good overall = B. There is one specific problem area I want you to address. I want you to find a book called "Comma Sense" in the UGLI and look up the section on commas after introductory phrases or introductory modifiers. Then I want you to write an explanation about why the sentences in yellow needed commas. I expect to read this explanation in the reflection paragraph on your next paper. Special Days Special Ways There is one place in the city of Detroit, where special opportunities for learning and partaking of cultural knowledge have shaped my life: Detroit Renaissance High School. As a student at Lutheran High North, my football team played there in two contests, both against Crockett High School. Then in junior and senior years, I was able to volunteer there for a Special Olympics event. Through each of the experiences, I was challenged by what I saw to appreciate different cultures through a more sensitive approach to living. Making the football playoffs was a time honored tradition, while I attended Lutheran High School North, a predominately white school with 650 students in Macomb Township, Michigan, and home of the Mustangs. The first round playoff game was a tradition that was the culmination of a well accomplished season in the Metro Conference that would always end after the first-round playoff game with a challenging district team. The first time I was part of this tradition was as a sophomore mp when I was on the varsity team for the last game of year. For my team, the game was for the preparation and motivation of the young junior varsity players who looked for the opportunity to impress the coaches while practicing. The mood of the players on the practice field was light-hearted and fun; they knew they were going to lose the game and they just tried to immerse themselves in the joy of having friendship while participating in an activity that many would never be able to do again. The bus rides to the first Crockett game was an unnerving experience that left players anxious to stay at our school as it disappeared while we rolled further into the unknown. We left our high school at 24 Mile Rd to travel all the way to W Outer Dr, to Detroit Renaissance High School, approximately six miles north of the center of Detroit; the trip would take our team through nearly every socio-economic level neighborhood in the state of Michigan. The homes, stores, and factories on the way to the game told a story about the development of the Metro Area with the brick on walls and the cars in the driveways signifying prosperity and the ethnicity of the residents (evidence for this? How was ethnicity apparent from the walls, cars, and driveways?). The area we departed from was built around the 1990s and the decades continually rolled backward in time as we traveled south to the game field, to somewhere around the 1950s, the peak of the citys population and the start of the great ,,White Flight. As the bus pulled up to our drop-off point to Detroit Renaissance - this sentence is unfinished. Detroit Renaissance was chosen as the neutral field for a number of high school football games played that Saturday morning. Honestly, it was a nicer place to play there, than our own home field. Renaissance had generous seating, a stadium complete with Field Turf, a beautiful track, and a nice athletic field house for halftime; unfortunately everyone knew that the neighborhood was still in the city, an inner-city. Since Renaissance was one of the optional high schools for college prep kids in Detroit, it was a bastion of hope for the kids who went there. Its modern metallic architecture looked like a spaceship in the neighborhood it inhabited, an island of success in a region mostly devoid of it. Interesting The Crockett players were all black, without exception, and the champions of the Detroit Public School League title in my sophomore season, 2004 (MaxPreps). Their dark orchid and cooper jerseys
Curtice 2 were left untucked. In contrast, my team wore black and gold jerseys at athletic games, routinely washed to spotless perfection by our coaches, and handed out like sacred garments to be carefully worn with pride. Many of my teammates felt that the untucked jerseys of the players symbolized the slouchy couching of Detroit teams that played like groups of glorified individuals who wore their uniforms as a symbol of individualism that was truly ghetto. Crockett was the supposed symbol of black teams who had talent overflowing on the sidelines, and were just too undisciplined to ever win a state championship. We noticed the Rocket players were all business during practice and they started the game fast, scoring in what seemed like seconds of our life. It became apparent that the Rocket players seemed bored and were taking this game as an act of preparation for the next week. Later into the day tragedy struck my team, the Lutheran North Mustangs. On a passing play mp our quarterback, Richie Beebe, stepped back into the pocket as he threw the ball downfield pressure arrived from a very talented defensive tackle, Trevor Anderson, who eventually transferred to MSU this past year after playing for the University of Cincinnati (Spartan). On the play our sophomore quarterback was tackled to the ground and broke his collarbone. I believe that besides losing that game, it was the most important play of the year, because despite having success in his subsequent two years as a starter, he never threw the ball with quite the same authority ever again. I watched as our dejected team continued playing that day. Interaction between our players and their team was nonexistent interesting; before and after plays the Crockett players would return to their side of the line-of-scrimmage and talk, occasionally celebrating after individual feats of athleticism. By the end of the day we packed onto our bus and quickly left after cracking jokes about the opponents rocket mascot that revolved around the opponents perceived performance both on and off the field. We lost 62-0 that day. Wow! A few weeks later an article came out right before the state semifinal game between Crockett and Jackson Lumen Christi (Computing, MHSAA Football State Champions), a team that would go on to win in the state championship. The article was a November 17, 2004 Detroit News piece labeled "Humble Crockett aims high." The article talked about the hardships the Detroit Crockett Rocket football team was forced to bare as their permanent facility was being readied. The Crockett team was forced to dress in a middle school basement and train in a sparsely equipped weight room. To finish practice in the fall on a field with no lights, the Crockett parents had to turn on their cars lights to enable their children to prepare for playoff the games. This close atmosphere was the setting where a championship caliber team grew after just nine years of existence. Upon reading the article, I felt that the article was deeply biased against my school and neighborhood, thatwhich did have some of the advantages which Crockett did not have. I thought that I was being attacked for being a person who lived in a suburb, was white, and lived with an intact family, which was not the case for the Crockett players. I wanted to tell the author that for all those reasons I was a better person than any of those players I had just faced a few weeks prior. This paragraph shows great improvement. I now understand what you meant. Then I glanced at a quote from the Crockett head coach, Steven McGhee, "It just goes to show if you really want something bad enough you can get it done. I dont think anybody knows how far weve come." As I looked at a photo of the players with the city skyline in the background mp I realized where the players lived and I empathized with their situation for the first time. I thought of what life was like for kids who lived in one of the most unsafe cities of America, where priority number one was just to stay alive. The strength of their community, struck me. How the families used football to attain the success that was inaccessible in so many other areas of their lives left me in awe. I knew I did not know the full journey the players had taken to be in that situation, but I sincerely cheered for the Rockets to persevere. This is also a very well-written paragraph. My junior fall brought a rehash of the following year in the same respects except all eyes were on a special player who played linebacker and fullback for a depleted Crockett roster, Brandon Graham. The hefty kid was a force to be reckoned with on the field and had improved his game to become the only true blue-chip recruit from the state of Michigan that year (Prospect Ranking The Rivals100). I remember how, even though we were able to score points in that game, the outcome was never in the balance. I remember two players from our team receiving concussions after having collisions with Crockett Rockets. While going through the line after the game to shake hands, I remember wishing the other team luck in
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Curtice 3 the playoffs. My peers seemed happiest that day as we left Detroit to hang up the pads for another season, but not before sharing stories which involved Brandon Graham and his apparent fear of contact in sports as a child and commenting that he should go straight to the Lions. There was no question in my mind that Brandon Graham was the most respected player my team ever played against. Playing the Crockett Rockets gave the players on my team a great time for reflecting on the values that mattered most to them, how our team represented ourselves with others, and what we thought of other people. Many of the guys told and laughed at jokes about the black people we had seen; others quietly thought about the end of an important part of their lives; I was impressed by the courage and character I had seen on the Rockets. Thankfulness about the blessings I had filled my heart; life was different in the city limits, and I realized I would be afraid to have been born in to such a situation. The spring of my senior year was the most memorable experience of all my time at Detroit Renaissance. There was no rain at that event and all the special athletes were able to compete. That was the year in which we were actually able to interact with other students, special students. It was, in the words of my teacher who ran the honor society, a chance to interact with those who do not share the same blessing and opportunities you enjoy. I quickly met with a group of other "normal" kids who helped move equipment into place near a high jump mat for the disabled children to use. I was able to talk with my friends and attempt to mingle with a few kids I would be joining at University of Michigan the next year, while cherishing the time I spent with those who I would rarely be able to see on a regular basis. After a boxed lunch, it was time to head home after a wonderful day of volunteering. Excitement buzzed around the room as some of my peers discussed their interactions with kids from the National Honor Societies of other Detroit public schools and neighbor Lutheran High Schools (only Lutheran high schools attend the Detroit Special Olympics from outside of the city). After interacting with the other kids mp my classmates learned firsthand how NHS was a much less popular activity in Detroit,wp one large school had a society composed approximately of one dozen minority students; this was a much smaller ratio of people compared to my school, which had several times as many members, yet was nearly twice as small so what does that mean?. I found friendship with fellow teens that had made collegiate decisions based entirely upon financial considerations Relevance?. Transition? In a place where families are raised on a combination of low-wage employment and government assistance, it was much harder for students to have large expectations for their academic and professional futures. I think this paragraph needs better organization. From those experiences, I had firsthand knowledge of how life was different in Detroit for teens. Detroit Public Schools are often mentioned as being dropout factories by major news periodicals. I have a hard time finding a fulfilling explanation for exactly why the educational situation that exists in Detroit and other urban schools exists too much repetition of "exists", but it certainly is complex and should be carefully discussed to avoid finger pointing great point. The one dominant idea I came away with was that an education at my local high schools were an entirely different product than a Detroit Public School education. In my opinion, in an environment where graduating is entirely in question for a large percent of the students, it is extremely difficult to build a community filled with hope for the future. This is a very good conclusion in that it summarizes your views on the whole experience concisely and effectively.
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Bibliography
--. MHSAA Football State Champions. 2007. 30 January 2008 <http://michiganfootball.com/football.htm>. MaxPreps. Rockets SCHEDULE AND RESULTS. 20 November 2004. 30 January 2008 <http://www.maxpreps.com/FanPages/Team.mxp/AreaID-c29d54d3-010a-4cb2-841f650bffcbec7e/SchoolID-a255c713-62aa-4eb4-8c3f-989bbc358a76/Boys_Varsity_Football_Fall_0405/Michigan>. Prospect Ranking The Rivals100. 22 April 2006. 30 January 2008 <http://rivals100.rivals.com/viewrank.asp?ra_key=1162>. Silva, Chris. DIVISION 2 -- DETROIT KING 47, MIDLAND 21: King's 26-point 4th quarter is the stuff of legend. 24 November 2007. 30 January 2008 <http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071124/SPORTS09/711240322/0/SPORTS09&the me=FBSTATE07>. Spartan, The Enlightened. Spartans Nab DLine Transfer from Cincy. 4 August 2007. 30 January 2008 <http://www.enlightenedspartan.com/news/news.htm>.