“You may think your so powerful, ha-ha, well, this is MY DREAM!”~ Mickey Mouse, Fantasmic

I walked into Room MCA, nervous and wondering what to expect. I knew little about the teacher, except for her name. My book, Fearless: The Undaunting Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown, was under my arm. I received a plethora of comments about my book. I dream of becoming a Navy SEAL, and everybody wanted to stop that dream. I wrote a paper about the book, and suddenly, I was public enemy number one.

Maybe it was because I came in during lunch, free periods, and after school; or maybe it was because I put in a lot of effort to complete my work, but I had extra credit in the hundreds. My first writing piece was just okay, but as time progressed, it got better. The year kicked off with a unit on identity. I wrote reflected on my writing in fifth grade, up until the end of seventh. I wanted to do well, but I didn’t dream about being the best. I received my draft back, and found minimal corrections. I edited what was necessary, and turned it in. I was told, the whole class was required to submit it to a publishing company. That night, I submitted it, with the dream of becoming a published author, and two months later, my dream came true. Everyone else thought they had the power, well, HA-HA, that was my dream.

Looking back, at my first few weeks of school, the quote “You may think your so powerful, ha-ha, well, this is MY DREAM!” by Mickey Mouse fits perfectly. Everyone thought they were the all powerful writer, the best in the class. As time protruded, my ability continued to become better and better. I attempted to include more than the required amount of anything in my work. It was my dream to be the best of the best, and I would let nothing stop me, not even a super-hurricane or the end of a marking period.

After our unit on Identity, we studied Power and Change. These units intertwined because both were the concepts for the Frederick Douglass Experience Unit. The central idea of my writing piece was that “A still tongue makes a wise head.” This means that it is sometimes beneficial to stay quiet, instead of speaking out against the status quo. Again, I held true to my current reputation, and came in during Lunch, STAR, and after school to accomplish extra work. Time continued, and we studied units on Ethics, Awareness, and Perspective.

For the unit on ethics, I wrote about reasons that North Korea should not be permitted testing, or even possession of weapons of mass destruction. These include SCUD Missiles, biological missiles, chemical missiles, nuclear missiles, and radiological missiles. All are weapons of mass destruction which, a crazed dictator and his military should not be in possession of. This topic also carries into the awareness unit.

The awareness unit consisted of two projects, the Take a Stand, and Change in Time. For my Change in Time piece, I choose to write about a topic that happen more that one hundred years ago, the overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani, and the capture of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Many live unaware that merely one hundred years ago, Hawaii was an independent nation which was self-reliant. The United States came in, and took control of the island. The island became a territory, which means that the island chain belongs to the United States, but the people have no say in Congress. Sixty-six years later, the island became an official state.

Next, we came up to the perspective unit. We studied banned of challenged books. For my challenged book, I again stuck to my character. I chose No Easy Day by Navy SEAL Mark Owen. Personally, I loved the book, and I believe it is a book that should remain available to the American public. To start, the book was challenged because the United States Navy claimed the the author, Mark Owen violated a contract agreement that he signed when he first joined the Navy. I believe that this book should not be banned or challenged because it is unclear what terms the author violated. This means that as long as the terms of conditions of the contract stay secret, the book should stay available.

Finally, we ended the year with identity. The final identity piece is this piece that you are currently reading. The goal of this piece is to create a story showing how I have grown as a writer.