"What would you tell America's founding fathers?"

Author's Note: This is piece I based off of the writing prompt," What would you tell America's founding fathers?" for the Patriot's Pen essay. Notice my higher level in word choice and A and B transitions throughout it.

In some moments, I wonder how it was during the time of the founding fathers. If I was alive during that time, what would I say to them? What kind of morals and way of life do they live? During the busy lives of us Americans, we tend to push aside the honor that the founding fathers truly deserve.

If you happened to do a survey of how many people knew who the founding fathers were, only a couple people would say they knew. In my opinion, I feel that they need more recognition. After all, if they have schools, states and other things named after them, they must have done something pretty spectacular for our country. For example: the state of Washington and the capital of the United States named after George Washington, Jefferson City, Missouri named after Thomas Jefferson and many dollar bills with faces of the founding fathers on different ones.

How did the founding fathers help our country, you ask? Well a huge part of their history is  signing the Declaration of Independence. In result of them doing this, we gained freedom and were saved from being under Britain's control. We tend to overlook our freedom that we're blessed with.   It may be difficult to comprehend, but people are out fighting in wars, risking their lives so we can live in a free country.

One of the components that we should be grateful for is freedom, but another one is having such great presidents. Currently, we are undergoing an election for our next president who will lead our country. We have truly been blessed for having presidents that dedicate their lives to the United States. Even after the founding fathers and 200 years of presidents, we are still reaping the benefits of having a strong country with many resources.

We tend to overlook it, but the founding fathers really had an impact on our country that we need to start recognizing. They truly did a great job starting our country, going through all the hard work and dedication. I am proud to be an American and I am proud of my founding fathers who have protected and preserved our country. 

Cancer

Author's Note: This piece is a personal narrative about how my grandpa ends up getting diagnosed with cancer. Notice my more advanced word choice and voice.

Cancer is a hard thing to grasp. One moment you’re as healthy as can be and the next, you are in the intensive care taking 15 different medicines. The hard thing is, you can’t control it. It just comes and catches you off guard. Well one thing's for sure, this event that happened with my grandpa caught my attention and had the whole family puzzled.

This horrifying, uncontrollable disease hit my grandpa, Roger, faster than he could blink. He was just walking to the mailbox one day and all of a sudden he fell to the ground, experiencing an excruciating pain in his leg. Being the stubborn man that he was, he tried to delay letting my grandma know what had happened.

The pain ended up getting so bad, he had to go to the doctor. He was hoping they would say that it was only temporary pain, that it was harmless. Except when the nurse came out with the test results, she said ,"Sir, I'm sorry. I'm afraid you've been diagnosed with acute leukemia. It's one of the fastest spreading cancers we know. I'm not sure how much longer you have to live." Shock came over him like a massive tidal wave in the Atlantic Ocean. He couldn't believe his ears.

My family was notified a day later. We all were blown away. Catching my breath I exclaimed, "How could this happen, Mom?! He's the healthiest 80 year old I know!" "I'm not sure, sweetie", my mom said back to me sniffling. Before I knew it, we were off to the hospital to visit Grandpa Roger.

When I walked into his hospital room, I gasped. “That can’t be grandpa,” I said to my sister, Bethany. My grandpa sat on the bed with huge purple welts all over his body. He could barely open his drowsy eyes that would soon be falling into a deep sleep. My aunts and uncles surrounded him, each taking turns saying that we loved him. When it was my turn, I went up to his hospital bed and said, “I love you so much, grandpa.” Since he was on so many meds, I knew that he wouldn’t be able to say anything back.  Except faintly, I could hear him say, “ I love you too, Christina”. That made me start bawling because I knew I wasn’t ever going to see him alive again. It was time to say goodbye.

In the end, cancer took my grandpa’s life. It hurt me so much losing a loved one. Although, I learned an important life lesson: we can’t always take things for granted. Sometimes you have to stop everything you’re doing and realize what you already have in front of you.

Sometimes Volunteering Will Help

Author's Note: In this piece, I express the different cause and effects I see in the book called The Hunger Games and relate it to something in my own life.

In The Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers for her sister, Prim, in the reaping. She did this because she knew Prim wouldn't know how to survive due to it being her first year involved. Katniss also knew many survival skills because she was frequently in the woods hunting for food: she wasn’t sure how she was going to win, but she wanted to win for Prim. Survival is a strength that is required throughout this book and also in both my aunts lives.

This affected in Katniss having to participate in the Hunger Games, coming close to encounters of death. Volunteering for Prim also caused Katniss many battle scars, such as her injured leg that eventually healed. If Katniss hadn't volunteered for her younger sister,  Prim most likely would have been dead due to her lack of survival skills. It would have had a whole different, depressing effect on the story if an older sister didn't stand up for her younger sister.

I can relate Prim and Katniss' situation to my own life. My Aunt Bonnie and my Aunt Jane are very close sisters that were inseparable. They would do lots of things together, until one day when something occurred to them that they hadn't been expecting. My Aunt Jane had been diagnosed with cancer and was only given a couple of months to live. Aunt Bonnie stood with Aunt Jane no matter what, even when she had hard times and didn't think she was going to live through the day. Aunt Jane also developed battle scars over the course of time during her cancer treatments.

Both of these examples show the dedication and the hardship that each sibling had to experience and express. Each encounter got more difficult as time went on: Prim, Katniss, Aunt Jane and Aunt Bonnie never gave up. They continued to push forward even when the pain was unbearable. This shows how strong one human being can be and how they can completely change their perspective when they set their mind to the outcome being positive.

Among the Hidden

Author's Note: This is a piece I wrote about the book Among the Hidden. Pay attention to how I show the conflict and resolution throughout the story. 

In Among the Hidden, it's against the law to have over two children because the society is going through a famine. Luke is a third child, so his parents have to break the law and keep him hidden away from the Population Police. Due to this so called "hide-and-seek", Luke hasn't been outside since he was a little kid. He runs into some encounters with the police, but he manages not to get caught by them. 

Since he can't do much else, Luke looks out a certain window every day, at the same time, with a view of his subdivision. He remembers seeing movement in his next door neighbor's window. To free his curiosity, he breaks into that house and discovers another third child, a girl named Jen. Turns out that her dad works for the Population Police, but is undercover trying to help third children. 

In the end, Luke decides to break free from his sheltered home. He builds up enough courage to step foot outside, to see what the real world is like without his normal routine. Luke goes from being a third child, to an impostor who outsmarts the society because of Jen’s dad who was able to create a fake I.D. for him. With the fake I.D., he is able to live the life like he isn't a third child. Instead, he lives the life of someone else and it's not as risky getting caught by the police when he's undercover. He has to say goodbye to his family, who is tough enough but the options that are at stake are gruesome: either he lives the life of someone else and hopes he doesn't get caught or he is always worrying he will be caught as a third child and be shot at any waking second.

Luke decides to take the safest route. He goes from being in a stuffy room while forgetting what the outdoors smells like to five course meals and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The fake I.D. that Jen's dad created for him was the handiest thing he could have done . It was a hard choice parting from his family, but it paid off for him in the end.

Book Ad: Twilight

Author's Note: This is a retelling piece about the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. 

A girl is sent to live with her dad in Forks, Washington, a rainy city. She desperately wants to move back with her mom in Arizona because it was such a dramatic change, until she meets a guy who saves her life from being crushed by a car in the school parking lot. She risks everything she has when she finally finds out who he really is and how difficult it will be for her to be around him.