Exploration Three: Literacy Events and Opposing Issues By Brandon Smith

When I was in junior high school, I didn't like to read or write because I found it meaningless. I didn't think that my view was ever going to change on this topic either. In fact, I still thought this way into my senior year. Then something in my life made my views on writing change. My cousin who had been like a brother to me since the day I was born got into a very bad habit and he changed as a person. The person I had known my whole life was nonexistent and had diminished from my life all together.  I never really knew how to take it all in until it was time to write a paper in English class about an event in our life that changed us. Since I couldn't find a way to express my feelings, I used this paper as a way to let everything I had been holding in out. This was the longest paper I had ever wrote and I actually made my teacher tear up as she handed the paper back to me. After it was returned to me, I took this paper to y cousin and made him sit down and read it. He said he has never felt pain like this in his gut in his whole life after reading my paper. Two days after reading the paper he went into rehab and has been clean for 8 months now. This literacy event has impacted my life and I will always look back and remember how this effected my life and my cousin's life.

Some issues that are of great importance to me are the legalization of marijuana, abortion, the corruption of welfare, and the use of executive orders

There are a lot of different issues in our government that can be debated, but one issue that is very important to me is the legalization of marijuana. I think that marijuana is not a good thing to legalize in the U.S. because it is not goo for you no matter what people say. It kills brain cells in people that smoke it. If you look at people who smoke it, you will almost always notice a difference in the way that they talk. They are usually slower and seem somewhat at a lower intelligence. It makes people less likely to react quickly in certain situations because it delays the reaction time of the individual who uses it. This could be a possibility for car accidents and more deaths on the roadways. Another thing that marijuana can lead to, is the use of more harmful and dangerous drugs because they have a better high and some are cheaper than marijuana. It is a fact that a lot of people who smoke marijuana go on to do more harsh drugs. So I think that even though the government may benefit from the tax revenue that the marijuana would bring in, it would harm the U.S. citizens. This would mean that it would a bad idea to legalize the drug even with the benefits to the government in some ways.