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No Longer Breathing Easy
Each year, the Department of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Writing at Slippery Rock University holds a contest for the best essays produced by students in the required Rock Studies course Critical Writing. Named after English Professor Emeritus Dr. James Strickland, the contest awards scholarship monies to students whose professors submitted their final essays as the best-of-the-best. Here is one of the three honorable mentions for the 2023 Strickland Scholarship contest. By Hayden Fritz Dr. Seuss’s book “The Lorax” is a classic from many people’s childhoods. It follows the exploits of the character named Once-ler as they build their business empire from the humble beginnings of chopping his first truffula tree…
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Eating Disorder Recovery on Social Media
English instructors of first-year writing select the very best student essays produced for that class and submit them to a scholarship competition named and evaluated by SRU English professor emeritus, James Strickland. In selecting this easy for an honorable mention, Dr. Strickland notes, “Grace Buckley, in Eating Disorder Recovery on Social Media, examines the disturbing controversy surrounding the health risks of eating disorders as portrayed on social media sites such as Tik Tok, Twitter, and Tumblr. Grace presents a shocking exploration of potential triggers and dangers for those suffering from eating disorders, including postings by pro-ana groups who escape detection and censorship (that is, normalizing the disorder point of view,…
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Nationwide Access to Paid Parental Leave
The Department of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Writing at Slippery Rock University hosts an annual scholarship contest, the James Strickland Award, for the best essays to come out of our first-year writing course (English 102.) Below is one of the honorable mentions for the 2021-2022 academic year. In selecting this essay for recognition, Dr. Strickland noted, “everyone, I am told, assumes that any program that would improve the lives of our citizens would be too expensive and too much government overreach. Jaden Boyle makes the case that Nationwide Access to Paid Parental Leave would actually have a positive impact on our economy. Jaden’s argument is so well presented that it is…
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Lifting a Financial Burden
The Department of English at Slippery Rock University hosts an annual scholarship contest, the James Strickland Award, for the best essays to come out of our first-year writing course (English 102.) Below is one of the honorable mentions for the 2021-2022 academic year. In selecting this essay for recognition, Dr. Strickland noted, “Melanie Putt’s essay is a well-reasoned argument in favor of providing a universal basic income for every United States citizen. Melanie offers the benefits and drawbacks of the plan and to those who find the concept unbelievable, she presents examples of how it has successfully worked in Alaska, California, Kenya, and Canada.“ By Melina Putt Money. It is something…
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The Feminist Movement: The Needed Shift for Women in Their Careers
Each year the Department of English selects outstanding essays from ENGL 102 Critical Writing as entries in the James Strickland Award in Writing scholarship contest. RockScissorsPaper is proud to publish these pieces in our summer edition of the website. Below is the second-place winner for 2022, Sasha Jantsch. Dr. Strickland writes: “Sasha Jantsch’s essay on the necessity of the feminist movement in 2022 is a powerful argumentative essay in the traditional research genre. Not only is the feminist movement not superfluous today, but Sasha also argues it has established and protected the rights of women in the workplace, rights that would have never been realized otherwise. Her essay reminded me of a…
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The Voice in Silence
Story by Hailey Joslin Photo by Carson Denney Dear friend,Please take caution in beginning this work. I have shared a story that is deeply personal,but may also be traumatic to some readers. Please take caution if topics surroundingsexual assault, rape, and/or suicide trigger you in anyway. I hope you enjoy. At sixteen I walked around without a chip on my shoulder, head held high. With apassion for life, music, and friendship. I strolled down the hallways with hope of a bright andsuccessful future. My junior year was similar to many others, uneventful yet full of drama. Thegossip of who slept with who, the latest fight, and why the power couple…
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The Blending of Cultures in Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich narrates the story of June Kashpaw through the lives of her immediate and extended family. In addition to telling June’s story, Love Medicine demonstrates how the traditional Chippewa way of living has survived in contemporary America. In Erdrich’s novel, June’s and the Chippewas’ story brings the reader into the lives of everybody June has affected. Modern versions of the traditional Chippewa trickster, Nanabozho, appear throughout Love Medicine to communicate how Native Americans, particularly the Chippewa tribe, created a synthesis of ideologies to survive in contemporary America, while still walking in beauty to some extent. The religious differences between the European Immigrants and Native Americans clashed…
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Access Now
Getting around in today’s society can be difficult, especially if you have a disability that hinders your mobility. You really don’t pick up on how inaccessible places can be unless you know someone with a disability or experience it yourself. Fortunately, Maayan Ziv created an app, AccessNow, that allows people around the world to discover the accessibility of different locations and can add details about the accessibility of places themselves. They stated that their main goal “…is to map as many places as we possibly can…we want to find ways to create access where there is currently none,” (AccessNow). I personally think this is a fantastic program, as it can…
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Walt Whitman’s Courageous Expression of Homosexual Love in “Leaves of Grass”
Homosexuality has been viewed as unnatural and immoral throughout history. When Walt Whitman first published his 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, over a hundred years before the society even considered accepting homosexual behaviors, it included the “Calamus” sequence that describes his romance with another man. Reviewers called his poetry “obscene” and “that horrible sin not to be named among Christians’” (Schmidgall). His boss even fired him from his job as a clerk. Whitman admirably chose not to censor his poetry to fit society’s hateful ideologies as he expresses his beautiful relationship with another man. This bravery communicates a message of self-love and a sense of oneness between every person…
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Slade House: Embrace the Frustration
There comes a time in every reader’s life when you come across a book at precisely the right moment. That is the case with David Mitchell’s Slade House. A twisted blend of horror and sci-fi and detective fiction, Slade House challenges narrative conventions and plot structure in a way that entices you read the next chapter, and then the next one as you search for answers about this mysterious Slade House. In order to fully appreciate the story Mitchell is telling, it is necessary to throw all preconceived notions of what a novel is out the window. Otherwise you will set yourself up for disappointment, because Slade House doesn’t work…
