My Research Paper

     In my English Composition class we have to write a research paper. We had to decide on a topic that was related to school in some way. I decided to write about sex education in high school. I know that the high school that I went to only focused on abstinence and not sex education. During high school I knew so many people who got pregnant and had a baby at a young age. I think it is important that teenagers in high school get the real lecture on sex education because I do believe that once teenagers have sex that they are not ready to deal with what comes after that.
     While researching and writing my paper I plan to find out many things. I want to know why most schools do not teach sex education to their students. The opinion of parents about the school teaching their child sex education if the school taught that program. And I would like to find out the pregnancy rate in teenagers and their contraceptive usage rates, because that could be correlated with the education that students get in school.
     I do not know much about the topic. What I do know is that a lot of schools in America don't teach about sex education to their students. More teenagers are having children at a very young age. Teenagers now are not open to discussion about sex to their parents or other people, and most do not use contraception. It seems like more and more people are getting STDs and getting pregnant and that all could be prevented.
     In my research paper I plan to argue that schools in America should teach sex education to their students. The current curriculum, in my opinion, is not working. There are increased rates of pregnancy and STDs. Most people I know or who are friends of mine either know someone who has a STD or a child. If the schools taught sex education in schools this could all be prevented and people would be better educated about the topic.

Summary of the blog "In the Words of Spongebob, I'm Ready" by Jennifer O'Connor

     In the blog, "In the Words of Spongebob, I'm Ready" written by Jennifer O'Connor she wrote about how she graduated from high school and is now ready to go to college. She was a writer for the Times Union High School Blog. Jennifer was also part of the BOCES New visions Journalism and Media Studies program. She is starting college soon and is very excited to see what life is like after high school. She is ready to start her new beginning and has been ready for graduation since the first day of 9th grade.
     Every Wednesday, the New Visions program would have to "produce, direct, shoot, and edit" (O'Connor 4) their own videos at the college. The program gave her class a preview of the college's campus. She liked the college and knew she would be going to school there.
     Jennifer started the program knowing exactly what she wanted to do in life. She wanted to be a journalist and a photo journalist. After the program started, she has changed what she wanted to do. After switching career paths a couple of times, she has settled on PR and advertising as her major. Jennifer also wants to minor in graphic design. She knows that she will change her mind on her major many more times, but what she does know is that she wants to work in communication.
     There is only a few weeks left of summer and she has a lot of growing up before college starts. She still needs to get a lot of things done. Jennifer still needs to get her driving license, find a job, and move all of her stuff into her apartment that she will be living with her sister in.

Here is the link to the actual blog entry.
http://blog.timesunion.com/college/page/4/

Works Cited

O'Connor, Jennifer. "In the Words of Spongebob, I'm Ready." Timesunion Blog. timesunion.com, 19

     July 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2012