Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

I am here to defend the name of teenagers. Here are a few thoughts of my own that I would like to share with you, to give you a better understanding of us teens; your recent article surprised me as I feel you misrepresent teenagers today. Your use of the opinions of Franzen, Louis Ck and Greenfield surprised me quite a bit as I strongly disagree with their opinions about teens and our use of technology. I disagree with these statements as they do not give a true reflection on how teenagers use this, as they only look at the negative effects of the use and not the positives, which there are many of!

First things first, I would like to set the record straight on the use of social media by teens living in the UK. I appreciate, understand and listen to what adults have to say about teenagers, although it always seems to be the same thing that these adults are talking about, which is ‘mischief’ or ‘chaos’ as you would stereotype it.

I believe that the reasoning for adults blaming teenagers for chaos is mainly because teens are an easy group to stereotype. Adults do not very often see children aged 13-19 because of education and when they do finally get to see us we may set a bad first impression of what your ‘typical teen’ is like. Extending on the unsavory first impressions that certain teens give to the general adult public, like witnessing teens causing so called “mischief” on the street on their way home from school. This is always tough; kids our age (13-19) want to express themselves when they finally get out of school and enjoy the rest of their day. This is often misinterpreted and perceived differently by the public and they just see teens looking to cause trouble which simply isn’t the case at all.

I myself have had an experience of a misunderstanding with the older generation, where I was in a supermarket, and an elderly woman had dropped some items from her shopping basket. As I saw this happen, I believed it was only right to follow my morals and help her pick the things up. As I approached her she looked up in disgust, her face screwed up as much as possible, as if I had instantly insulted her. The thought going through her head was that I was there to take her stuff. I tried to explain to her how I was just trying to help, although she was having none of it, and told me to walk on. I walked away feeling disheartened to say the least, but also terrific anger, that trying to do a good deed could backfire on me in such a way. I felt as if I had been isolated, into a place where nobody could trust teenagers or even socialise with them.

This may be the fault of social media. Teens are known for their ‘constant’ use of it and adults may decide to write an article like you have yourself to express how you feel about this. Louis Ck suggested that their children shouldn’t have phones as they are losing their sense of empathy. I do not believe this is true as there is a lot of emotion within teenagers and their use of social media helps them to express those feelings. These issues are not confined specifically to social media, but also in real life face to face confrontations. Also when adults are discussing a certain topic on social media (Twitter, Facebook etc) they may notice teenagers in the UK having certain conversations which reflect on most teenagers badly. Adults are surprisingly quick to jump to conclusions about this topic. I believe social media complements teenagers as a tool to help them socialise in our society and break down barriers. Greenfield suggested that the use of social media from teens was making society fall apart, although it is clear that technology has developed massively in this generation for a positive benefit.

Therefore, with the points I have given, I have to say that I would disagree with what you have said concerning teenagers. That being said I can understand where you are coming from but I see this as a misconception. Surprisingly enough, teens are not always looking for trouble and are not always on their phones using social media to connect to the world and communicate with their friends (which I don’t believe is wrong). I feel that this article shows you are out of touch with today’s teenagers.  Cigarettes – a 2010 survey showed 27 per cent of teens had smoked once in their lives, and five per cent smoked regularly. This compares to 53 per cent who tried smoking and 11 per cent smoked regularly in 1982. Binge-drinking among teens has also dropped by a third in the past 10 years. As for social media, Facebook’s has nearly 850 million active users. This fact proves that it is not only teens that have their eyes glued to their screens.

Teens are often called shallow, uncooperative, argumentative and even disorganised. This is simply not always the case. Obviously there are going to be times where these terms will be associated with teens, but I would like to express something that I have found myself (happening to be using social media). It reads “ D aring O utstanding N imble T alented S ensitive T actful E nergetic R adiant E xciting O pen T eachable Y outhful P olitical E nduring”. These kind words bring out the best in teenagers and show what they can really do when they put their minds to something (using social media). As we can see one of the words is “Political”. Many people may frown upon this, but I and many others have seen teenagers challenging members of parliament about certain decisions and opinions they disagree with, and the teens’ voices were definitely heard!

That is all I have to say. I hope that by reading this you may now have a different perspective on teenagers!

Yours Sincerely

Josh Ali

In the poem Belfast confetti the narrator is describing a conflict which he is not participating in. This poem is orientated around conflict but not in a patriotic kind of way, the purpose of it was not to show their love for their city but to rebel against the authorities such as the police and the government in this example. This was

Why is the poppy used to remember the English war dead?

In the poem Out of the Blue, certain language techniques and structure is used to show pathos, which is a strong emotion. The pathos in this poem is desperation. In stanza three, lines one to 4, the person in this scenario, which is written in first person they say “And when will you come? Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs or pegging out washing”. There are a few reasons why i have picked out this stanza. one of these reasons is the use of enjambment between line 2 and 3, “Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs”.

The poem centres around the hawk. The hawk has been portrayed as not even a hawk, but almost as mankind. The hawk and humanity have many similarities in this poem as I think Ted Hughes has tried to show the power of humanity and the hierarchy of our society today. We can see this in the last stanza when the hawk says “I am going to keep things like this”. This shows that the hawk is dominant on his home turf, his territory. I think this also shows the prerogative the hawk has. This is similar to something like a dictator, in somewhere like Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe was in control of his country, but in the hawks case its about territory. Also, Mugabe killed many of the people around him, just like the hawk, killing living creatures that are trying to obstruct his path.

The use of enjambment has been used twice in the poem i believe. stanza 2, line two and three

The poems ‘Belfast Confetti’ and ‘At the Border,1979’ are poems that are both based on conflict and what feelings they bring up about a location. Ciaran Carson is a poet who has shown conflict in Belfast, Ireland. Choman Hardi however, has chosen the border of Kurdistan and Iraq. This partly autobiographical poem focuses on the Iraq conflict not only within the country, but the individuals conflict also.

In ‘At the Border 1979’ there is a conflict which is focused on civil conflict. This is clear to see as in the poem Hardi speaks a lot about family and citizens, and how the families have gone through very tough times. Analysing the poem, i can also see that there is a clash of cultures between Kurdistan and Iran, which was where the war was located. In the seventh stanza of the poem, “A man bent down and kissed his muddy homeland.” This suggests the fact that the war has ended and that there is finally peace between both countries. The second text though, in this case Belfast confetti, looks at conflict related to political and religious beliefs. These two beliefs had clashed families, siblings and friends to fight against each other.

The poems ‘At the border’ and ‘Belfast confetti’ are both written in first person but this does not mean that they are the same. In belfast confetti, the style of first person is used to make the reader feel like they are in the conflict and they are experiencing the same thing as the person in the poem themselves. However, in At the border, the poem is still in first person and referring to the conflict but is presenting the conflict in a past tense as if to say that the conflict is over. I can see that the conflict is over from the lines in the seventh stanza “We waited while our papers were checked, our faces thoroughly inspected. Then the chain was removed to let us through.” This demonstrates the importance of the homeland to the citizens and them being able to return home. This is also interpreted “A man bent down and kissed his muddy homeland”.

Belfast confetti has seemed to be written to show what the impact of a civil war can have on a country and how everything has been shut down in a madness however at the border defines the importance of homeland to the civilians instead of being refugees and facing many troubles along the way, such as language borders and cultural clashes which were mentioned earlier. So when the people being effected during the war finally get peace and happiness and are able to finally go home they feel an array of emotions such as obvious happiness but also excitement to reunite with their family members and friends. On the other hand, I believe that Belfast confetti has very different emotions. There is a feeling of confusion and also a feeling of helplessness within the people of Belfast that have chosen not to be involved within the conflict.

1. The death of Vaudevue has been set in the first of the eight stanzas, and there is an atmosphere of loneliness. We can see this as the author uses the word alone, and also the fourth sentence used is “Her fingers tap the ground, she is alone”. This does not just only represent the emptiness of the area, but also that there must be nothing to do, as tapping the ground with your fingers is often a sign of boredom.

2. There are certain features in this poem that suggest a futuristic feel. An example of this is the second stanza, where the words ****and this is when i was kicked out of the class for something that wasent my fault****

The Right Word is a poem which I believe  looks at mainly conflict and violence. I also think that this poem is in relation to the 911 terrorist attacks as it mainly looks at the wrong descriptions and interpretations of people. An example of this is when a terrorist lurking in the shadows is the way that this person is perceived just because of their appearance. The predominant mood of the poem changes in every stanza. We can see this in the first stanza, where Dharker uses the word terrorist as the describing word for the person. In the second stanza we see a freedom fighter. This pattern continues within all eight stanzas with the fourth to last being described as “a child who looks like mine”.

Overall, my opinion on this poem is that the way that people are perceived will influence and make an impact on what they do in their life and what they bring to the table of society, if a person is branded the name of the terrorist, hostile militant or even a guerrilla warrior why should you be surprised if these people commit such crimes and terrorist activities?

The Death Penalty should be Reintroduced as a Punishment for Certain Crimes.

The death penalty is a punishment that is very controversial and is a punishment that was previously used in the UK but was abolished completely. I believe that it should be brought back as it can be a powerful deterrent to a range of extreme and dangerous crimes.

In addition, the death penalty can give closure to the victims’ families who have severely suffered for many years. It is apparent that the death penalty provokes many strong anti opinions but these must be challenged. Amnesty International is an organisation which believes that executions should be abolished, no matter what the circumstances. They are working to remove the death penalty altogether, claiming that they will work relentlessly to abolish the punishment in all countries around the world. Amnesty have also expressed their opinion about the effects of the death penalty and how they believe this does not deter crime. However, facts and statistics show that this is clearly not the case. We can look at Japan and see that the only two crimes that are punishable by the death penalty are in fact murder and treason. An amazing and a real eye opening fact about Japan is that there is only 1 execution per 18,067,952 people of their population. This fact really does underline my point about the death penalty deterring crime.

It is clear to see the death penalty is definitely a deterrent to someone who is planning murder. Without this put in place, murderers may not be punished as they deserve. We can also see in news reports that when murders are committed, the majority of views always seem to believe that the amount of time the murderer was given in jail as a punishment was either not enough or that there should be an alternative punishment, the obvious one of course being the death penalty. There are many reasons why I agree with this particular opinion, the main one being the amount of money that will still be spent on those prisoners who’ve deliberately planned to take away the life of another human being. A truly shocking fact that I found was that when court costs, police and other steps are taken into account, £65,000 is spent on the prisoner. An even more eye-watering fact is that an average of £40,000 is spent yearly on the inmate. So on average, a 25 year sentence in jail in the UK will cost £1,000,000 to cover. And guess who pays for that? The taxpayer. These murderers have killed a person and are given a place to live and given food, all for free. To me that just doesn’t seem fair, and that’s a big reason why I think these monsters should be punished via the death penalty.

Currently 1 in nearly 100 American adult citizens are in prison. As of 2014, the United States of America has an estimated population of 318.9 million, so you can only just start to imagine how many prisoners are in the USA’s system. A 2011 study has been revealed by the U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics stating that 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in US federal and state prisons. Having the death penalty put in place for all premeditated murder cases would definitely cut down the amount of prisoners and also save the costs of services for the taxpayers.

When a murderer takes a life, there is an inequality of justice when the convicted killer is incarcerated. Why, you may ask, is there an inequality of justice? Robert Macy, a district attorney of Oklahoma expressed his opinion on the death penalty and its purpose. “In 1991, a young mother was rendered helpless and made to watch as her baby was executed. The mother was then mutilated and killed. The killer should not lie in some prison with three meals a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need to die.” The amount of pain, grieving and depression that the victims’ families go through just to find out this is extraordinary, and this is why I believe that the death penalty gives not only retribution but also a sense of equality and balance in justice.

I understand that there are people who believe the death penalty is morally wrong as there have been cases of wrongful execution. An example of where the death penalty has had a miscarriage of justice is the case of George Stinney, where this 14 year old boy was wrongly convicted of murdering 2 girls, both under the age of 12. He was given the death penalty and was killed using the electric chair. Although this may seem like a disadvantage for the death penalty, I believe that these mistakes happen very rarely and there will always be mistakes in a system containing criminals. Moreover, for the greater good of society, even though mistakes have been made, this system is justified in order to protect citizens.

To conclude, I believe that if a person deliberately kills another person, they should be sentenced to death. This gives consolation to families who will have to find a way to live their lives without those who were so close to them, and they will never be able to see those lost loved ones ever again. Another reason is the fact that it frees up space and saves money in the prison systems around the world, and most importantly it cuts down on the amount of deliberate murders in the short term and long term future, and cutting down on the grief for those families.