High School Prompts Archives - Page 9 of 21 - Writing with Sharon Watson-Easy-to-use Homeschool Writing and Literature Curriculum

Jesse Owens Proved Him Wrong

Adolf Hitler, chancellor of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, believed that Black people were inferior. He thought they were savages and had less intellectual power than white people.

So when a super-fast runner named Jesse Owens proved him wrong and won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Hitler and his Nazi followers were infuriated. He said Blacks should be banned from the games because they were primitive.

Despite all the struggles Jesse Owens had with other people because of his skin color, he wrote in his autobiography,

Personal Narrative: Not Quite How I Remembered It

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Have you ever visited a house you used to live in or a place you used to visit as a child?

Does it seem smaller to you or different in some way?

In this passage from “Remembrance, Ohio,” Ray Bradbury describes what it’s like to go back to a familiar place after a long time and find that it is not quite what you had remembered:

National Park Service Centennial High School Writing Prompts

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Have you seen the presidents on Mount Rushmore? Walked among the giant sequoias of Yosemite National Park? Stood on the precipice of the Grand Canyon? Explored an underwater shipwreck as a Junior Ranger?

The United States’ National Park Service turned 100 in 2016, but even before it was formed, 35 national parks and monuments were already in operation. We can celebrate a rich heritage of forests, deserts, mountains, sweeping landscapes, historical sites, and other treasures saved for our education and enjoyment.

Doctors and Assisted Suicide

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

You are a doctor, and you have been told that you must assist a patient with their suicide. If you don’t you will be breaking the law.

Doctors in some American states, in Quebec, and in some Scandinavian countries are facing this increasingly ethical dilemma: Help patients kill themselves or be punished.

In fact, doctors in Quebec, through Bill 52, are given a kit with three medicines designed to calm their patients’ anxiety and then stop their breathing, according to the Church Around the World.

Brittany Maynard, a vivacious 29-year-old woman dying of cancer of the brain, committed suicide in 2014 with the help of her physician. You can read her story here.

J. J. Hanson, a Marine Corp veteran, learned that he, too, is suffering from the same inoperable brain cancer that Brittany Maynard dealt with. You can read his story here.

Edgar Allan Poe and “The Bells”

MIDDLE SCHOOL PROMPTS

Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809. Though that is over 200 years ago, we still read his work today.

He’s famous for his short stories and for poems like “The Raven.” (You know, that “Nevermore” poem.)

In an essay, Poe explained how he was very careful to choose just the right words for how they sound and for the effect he was trying to achieve. You’ll see that he was very successful in his poem “The Bells,” which is rich with writer’s devices.

Violence and Martin Luther King Jr.

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for racial equality in the 1950s and early 1960s before he was assassinated, but he did not advocate violence as a means of reaching this goal.

Read the following excerpt taken from Stride Toward Freedom, written by him in 1958:

The Call of the Wild and Description

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

From Sunny to Frigid

Buck is a dog who grew up in sunny San Diego, California, but suddenly finds himself thrust into the frigid world of the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon Territory, Canada, in the late 1890s. You can read about him in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.

Here’s Buck and his first encounter with . . . well, I’ll let you figure it out:

New year, New Chance

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
-Oprah Winfrey

You remember Samson of Bible fame? You can read about him in Judges 13-16. God kept giving him chances to get it right, and Samson pretty much blew it every time by focusing on himself instead of on what God wanted.

But you don’t have to be Samson to feel the regret of missed chances or the frustration of personal failure. To be human is to know the gut-punch of remorse.

Maybe you feel as if you failed in something last year. Maybe you wish you could do something all over again, only this time you’d win. You’d do the right thing. You’d have the courage. You’d succeed.

Poignant Christmas Memories

SHARON’S BLOG

Do you have Christmas season memories you hold dear? Here are a few of mine:

The year my mother saved her hard-earned cake-decorating money to buy a sewing machine for me when I was a college freshman. Little did I know that I would use that machine to sew little outfits for my firstborn son and to teach my daughter how to sew on it. In fact, she has it now, and she is teaching her daughters how to sew.

The year we skipped Christmas.

A Christmas Carol Born from Pain

HIGH SCHOOL PROMPTS

Henry was a poet and a literature professor. He had a wife. He had children. He had a solid reputation, and his poetry was popular.

And then his world caved in.

One spring, his country became embroiled in a civil war. Families were split apart. Bands of thieves roamed the country, ostensibly to fight but really to steal from civilians and kill them. Emotions ran high; it was painful for everyone.