Okemos High School

American Literature with Mrs. Reed

Students in American Literature in Mrs. Reed's courses

Dear Grandpa

Years after my grandfather passed away I have written a letter to him explaining how his stories have changed my life.

Was Every Man "Created Equal" ?

The Declaration of Independence says that "all Men are created equal". Looking at the treatment of minorities during and after of which it was written, that statement says otherwise.

American Creed Video Essay

Thoughts on American Creed as shown by robot.

Immigration Stories

The story of three different immigrants, and the reasons why they came.

Impoverished Education

How does your community's wealth affect the quality of education?

Interview with exchange students

I’m an exchange student from Germany and I’m really happy to be here in U.S., but I was wondering was other exchange students think about the U.S. and what they experience are compared to their different background and their different countries.

American Creed: The Significance of Immigration

I had to put the images into chunks so it can show up more clearly. However, there can be words that are still not clear. My poster is basically about immigration. My explanation and reason why this is significant to American Creed is explained below. Please enjoy.

American Division

We always say we want to be The UNITED States of America. But how true is that?

The American Creed and its Environment

Could concern for the environment unify the United States?

Perseverance and Our American Creed

This explains how perseverance is a key topic in our American creed.

How do Traditions, Customs, and Holidays Change Through Immigration?

American Creed

An American Medley (Poetry)

Composed by Mia Colony and Sydney Stephens. Poems Used: "We Leave To-Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and "Growing Up" by E.H. "How Would You Describe America?" is an original poem by Mia Colony and Abe Frank.

The Vitality of American Entertainment and Sports

Exploring how entertainment is a vital part of the United States of America and her culture.

Core American Values

What are the values that we share as Americans?

Roots

This work is a narrative describing the story of my Great Grandpa Lewis J. Minor and how he and his family came to America from Ireland in order to live the American Dream.

American Teamwork

Our piece talks about teamwork in America, unity, and how it should be more valued in our country

To Be American

Poem

Our Fiercely Unique Nation

An essay about our individualistic principles.

American Creed

This essay is about politics and media in the United States of America.

Just world

This piece is about the American dream of equal opportunity. This work is specifically focused on the just world hypothesis and how it leads to the misconception that is the American dream.

Immigration and the American Dream

Immigration to America changed throughout the decades and this is how.

American Citizenship

We researched the process of naturalization through the lives of our family members and other people with similar stories.

What is the American Dream?

In this project, we interviewed 3 different age groups to see each age groups perception of the American Dream, and how it related to other age groups.

American Culture and Values

Immigration and America

I decided to craft an American Bald Eagle, since it often used to represent America. On it, I put snippets of stories from people who have immigrated to America.

Discussion on Midterms and other subjects

7 friends have a discussion around the recent midterm elections and their effects on the US moving forward

The Immigrant Dream

Immigration has been an integral part of american history since its conception. Although immigration has taken many forms immigrants have always had the same goal, to seize opportunities in order to lead a better life and fulfill their american dream.

The Scape Goats of America

We often focus so much on what is the American Creed or dream when in reality this one dream or creed is made up of every citizen's individual dream. This is an in depth look at the Jewish people's view on life in America.

America from an Immigrant's Perspective

For our American Creed project, we decided to interview our parents, who are immigrants, and showcase their ideas around what it is to be American.

Immigration Stories

These immigration stories are supposed to see the point of view of immigrants. It's supposed to help you understand their struggles.

The Lost Dream

The United States has lost its common luster known as the American Dream. Through my essay, I explain the problems caused by the parts of the American Dream that have been lost and how those parts affects the American people today.

How is American Creed defined by its members?

A narrative of how my immigrant mother overcame hardships to become American, relating to Gone with the Wind and the Great Gatsby, defining what American Creed is, defined by those whom belong to it.

My Great Grandparents Journey

My grandparents made a great journey to the U.S. to better their lives.

Why Our Values Are Our Values

How we view the values of others.

Privacy in America: How We Have Changed

How has American people's value of privacy been affected by our new technological age?

Land of the Free as Symbolic as Can Be

Symbols show up on our lives everyday. America has many objects and items that represent the nation and they all have their own meanings and history.

American Creed Interviews

For my American Creed project I interviewed people of different races and genders about the issues that America is having today. I made sure to ask everyone the same questions, so I could see the difference in answer. I turned these interviews into a scrapbook:

Our Historical Journey to America

Nick Balesky and I compare and share our grandparents adventures from Europe to Michigan today.

Inequality in American Education

In this article I discuss inequalities that plague American education.

American Education

American education is essential to achieving the American dream and it molds our American values into what they are today. Getting a good education helps get you a better job and better quality of life. American education makes us into who we are.

American Creed in Communities

American Creed is found in individuals and in their communities. The values for each group of people is different and unique but all of these values still affect the people around them and create a united country.

Who's America Is It?

An interview of a family member and a reflection on who runs the country.

The American Dream Fulfilled

The following work talks about the important values of American creed that exist to this day. There is no doubt that the values written in the nation’s documents are still in use today. By reading this piece, you will discover how well America has kept these values throughout these years.

Gen-Z

What is Gen-Z?

American Creed Interview

Inspired by the American Creed documentary, we decided to make our own version by interviewing people of different ages, races and gender to get the diverse views of students at our high school. We found many commonalities and many differences among Americans.

How the American Dream Has Changed

A video on how the American Dream has changed over time.

Immigration

A family's Immigration story.

The Future of America

What is your dream? How do you plan to achieve your dream? Do you believe your dream aligns with the American dream?

Becoming a U.S. Citizen

This passage is about the process of becoming a U.S. citizen and a specific perspective of that process from the eyes of my parents.

What America could use

A few things America could use to make the country a better place overall.

Creed

My grandpa's American dream.

Dear Grandchild

I created a scrapbook which is composed of pictures and letters. I wrote these letters to myself as if I were my grandmother just after moving to the United States. I composed this because in the film, American Creed, Condoleezza Rice said, “It doesn’t matter where you came from, it matters where...

How Does Education Connect to Our American Dream?

A Letter to our Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

Family History

To make this paper and further my understanding, I decided to interview my Grandpa to complete this task.

Our American Creed

I decided to make my poem about my parents and what it took for them to come here. How they see us (my siblings and I) as Pakistani Americans and their perspective on America and what it holds for us.

American Values

This is a piece by a high school student on the core American Values and what his views are on the subject. And it shows how the values affect people, and what experiences have led to the values.

American Values in the Political Climate of 2018

This is a video conference with teens across the country examining how today's political climate has affected our lives and American Values.

Is the Immigration Ban Changing Our American Values?

A letter addressing the immigration ban and how it affects our American values.

Education in America

Why education has been and is still a strong aspect of our American culture.

My Identity Story

This is my identity story on how my ancestors came over to the United States. I'm showing how I ended up where I live today and showing how we all can come from different places and still end up at the same high school.

The Failure of Our Affirmative Action System

In the United States, affirmative action is used to promote diversity in universities. Universities take race into consideration during their admissions process. But how exactly did we get here? What have people done about this? And should we even keep our current system?

More responses from Michigan

Surprise Me

Traveling is My American Creed

I love to travel. Having opportunities to travel and getting to experience new cultures and environments have made me who I am. I wrote about two life changing and amazing experiences that i hope to remember forever.

The Freedom of Speech

Why the right to protest is the American Creed.

Our American Creed

I decided to make my poem about my parents and what it took for them to come here. How they see us (my siblings and I) as Pakistani Americans and their perspective on America and what it holds for us.

American Values in the Political Climate of 2018

This is a video conference with teens across the country examining how today's political climate has affected our lives and American Values.

What Does it Mean to be Me? { An True American}

My poem is a letter to you all. Althoug it's pretty short it touches on several things in america. I used Repition in this poem because the rhyme and rhythm is important to me. I just think you'll feel it relatable and etc. I hope you enjoy!

I AM AMERICAN

This is my poem about the everyday life of being an “Black American”

What's to Be Done?

In America, there are those who are affluent and those who are not. I am just one person but I speak for many when I say I lived a less affluent life as a child, and will likely experience being impoverished again when I am older. Knowing this, I ask myself, what can be done?

An Immigrant's Journey

The story of my grandparent's journeys to America and the freedom they found here.

Anyone Can Find Potential

In our class we had to express our beliefs or belief in an I Believe essay. My belief was that I believe anyone can achieve what they put their minds to. This partly explains the American creed in my eyes, the ability to dream anything and make it a reality.

Problems in America

America is a great country, but with problems that need to be fixed. Luckily many Americans are aware of the problems in America like police brutality, high incarceration rates, low ill-maintained education system, etc.

The American Dream

The American Dream is Achieved by Hard Work

Expressing American Creed

How does music express the thoughts of diverse Americans on what it means to be American?

More responses about "equality"

Surprise Me

Actions Speak Louder Then

This is a poem about the actions I can take to express my American Creed

Quality of Equality

A short poem about how I feel about intolerance in America.

Ethnicities' Ethical Creeds

America is chock full of different nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures, and these different ethnicities that make up our country understand the American Creed differently based on their unique backgrounds.

How my family and community connects me to the American Creed

My piece is about how my family and where I live have showed me that the principle of equality plays a big role in America. Everyone is given equal opportunity.

American Creed

My poem is about civil rights, individuality, and capability as people of our nation.

My American Creed

My Google Slide presentation is about how America is defined by our diversity, equality, and opportunity.

My American Creed

America is portrayed as the land of the free but not many people get the freedom they need. Many groups of people are challenged in the U.S and struggle to better their lives, I believe that everyone should be given the same opportunities .

American Evolution

Our final paper for Senior year (2018), my thoughts on how to improve or somewhat improve the conditions of American lives, by increasing communication.

Equality as the American Creed

Our project symbolizes complete equality through all aspects of America. Equality is spelled in different languages to represent how language and ethnicity should not cause discrimination. The other words demonstrate what separates people from having respect for one another.

American Creed

Talented educated people are stuck living in a place where they are not able to take opportunities that will benefit them for their own good. They are not able to take their talents to better themselves because they are too poor to move away and take the opportunities.

What America is...

America to me is freedom, expression, diversity and equality. I made these words in the shape of an eagle to represent what America means to me.

Social Issues in America

People are ignorant of many of the social issues that are still happening today. Through these drawings will help you be more aware of these important issues.

American Dream?

My essay is about the american dream and what it means to all different types of people.

My American Creed

This is an expository essay about what it feels like to be an American.

College Struggles

This piece is about the struggles of college admissions and scholarship money for minorities.

Home of the Brave

This is a masking project of an eagle filled with the words Justice, Freedom, Equality, Unity made in Photoshop to show the values the American Creed.

A Country of Immigrants

Through the experiences of talking to my mother, who was born and raised and Ukraine, I came to learn an important lesson on what it means to be "American".

Just world

This piece is about the American dream of equal opportunity. This work is specifically focused on the just world hypothesis and how it leads to the misconception that is the American dream.

What Does it Mean to Be an American?

What it means to be an American to me.

The Creed of The Past, Present and Future

As we have wrapped up our unit on the American Creed, we wrote an expository essay in which we wrote what the American Creed means to us personally. I wrote that the American Creed encompasses our past, the present, and the future, as well as everything America was meant to be.

Shattered Glass

During our American Creed project, we all made a digital story to represent our personal idea of what the American Creed means to us. I saw the American Creed as a representation of Patriotism, Equality, Unity, and Freedom.

Being An LGBT American

This is about the growth of being a member of the LGBT community in America in 2018.

Privilege

Privilege

Eclipse Glasses

Colored storms meets the catastrophic miracle.

Writing Our Future: American Creed is part of the National Writing Project’s family of youth publishing projects, all gathered under the Writing Our Future initiative.

Writing Our Future projects are designed by educators for educators and the young people they work with. Intended for use in schools, libraries, and other educational settings. All projects are COPPA compliant and educator-managed. NWP is committed to supporting young people’s writing and civic participation by providing a safe and supportive environment for youth writing, media creation, sharing, and publishing.