Okemos High School

American Literature with Mrs. Reed

Students in American Literature in Mrs. Reed's courses

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.

American Creed Video Essay

Thoughts on American Creed as shown by robot.

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.

American Creed

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

Our Fiercely Unique Nation

An essay about our individualistic principles.

How the American Dream Has Changed

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

Our Historical Journey to America

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

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.

Immigration Stories

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

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.

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.

Impoverished Education

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

Core American Values

What are the values that we share as Americans?

Gen-Z

What is Gen-Z?

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

American Creed

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:

American Culture and Values

Creed

My grandpa's American dream.

Why Our Values Are Our Values

How we view the values of others.

Perseverance and Our American Creed

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

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 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.

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?

Education in America

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

Immigration and the American Dream

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

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.

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.

Privacy in America: How We Have Changed

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

American Teamwork

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

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.

To Be American

Poem

Family History

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

American Citizenship

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

Dear Grandpa

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

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.

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.

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.

Equality For All

Equality is arguably the most important American Creed, in this piece you will read about events that either represent equality or fail to.

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?

The Vitality of American Entertainment and Sports

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

My Great Grandparents Journey

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

How Does Education Connect to Our American Dream?

A Letter to our Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

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.

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.

Immigration Stories

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

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 Division

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

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.

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 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.

Discussion on Midterms and other subjects

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

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.

Inequality in American Education

In this article I discuss inequalities that plague American education.

What America could use

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

The American Creed and its Environment

Could concern for the environment unify the United States?

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.

Is the Immigration Ban Changing Our American Values?

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

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...

Immigration

A family's Immigration story.

Who's America Is It?

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

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.

More responses from Michigan

Surprise Me

Supporting America

A major part of being American is that you don't have to support America. In fact, this helps the country grow and change.

Who am I ?

My piece is about how where my parents came from, and the difference in culture has impacted my view of the American creed

A World Without Discrimination

In my American Creed essay I talked about discrimination and how it can affect certain people and why there should be no such thing as discrimination.

Language please!

My writing is about the importance of language within america and how it affects families and people.

The American Dream

The American Dream is Achieved by Hard Work

One Step Closer

As a second generation Indian immigrant in America, the push and pull of cultures has both defined and created conflict in my identity. My American Creed is about accepting all parts of myself and expanding that idea of celebrating diversity to the larger society.

American Creed: Cultural tradition and immigration

Do you have many different cultural traditions that your family may have brought over to America that are very important to you? Join me in learning how cultural tradition and immigration plays a role in elements of diverse Americans' identity

How Mental Health Affects the American Creed

This essay discusses the lack of mental health care available to Americans, and why it is vital for the American Governmental systems to provide adequate services to help all Americans, no matter how diverse.

The Country that isn't free...

My Essay shows the facts about our country and how African Americans are treated. My essay shows stats and gives an insight to our community and the challenges we face as a culture.

The Impact of Religion

Religion has completely changed our past, making our free exercise of religion one of the most important parts of America.

Inspiration in American

Americans have a history of being inspired by their own society, and the people around them.

A Legacy of Honor

My family has a history of serving in the military and it has engraved in me a high sense of patriotism. Each stanza in the poem is directed to a specific audience, friends and family, government, and fellow soldiers; also each photo relates in someway to each stanza.

More responses about "immigration" and "symbolism"

Surprise Me

Understanding the American Creed

Four people from the interview are compared in order to understand their ideals that are present in the American Creed.

Word, Rituals and Symbols

This is an essay that describes how words, symbols, and rituals really express our American Creed.

Opportunity for Immigrants in America

Gives an outlook of the opportunities that immigrants have in America.

What We Used To Be. What We Can Still Be.

I wrote about what my American Creed was and what I thought needs to be done in America. Most of these ideals I learned about when I was writing this OpEd and some of them are things that I have learned as I live my life.

Home of the Free Land of the Immigrants

My piece discusses the anti-migrant stigma that has re-developed in America.

Politics Brought Us To America

Trying to save our lives from the opposite party in Bangladesh

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.

How does your family & community history connect to your American creed?

My American Creed is about both sides of my family immigrating from both Italy and Russia.

American Creed

Millions of people have immigrated here and in the future millions more will try. On October 17, 1933, one man moved to the United States of America. It was just a normal day, and he was just one of hundreds of people to move here on this particular day.

The Patriot

My digital story is about the American creed and what it means for Americans.

The American Dream Was Worth It

The following story is realistic fiction.

The American Opportunity

This is about how my family shaped my American Creed through their story and beliefs of how they succeeded.

Immigrants and their Role in the American Creed

The United States has been called a "country of immigrants." Immigrants play a major role in our life as Americans and they have shaped our country over the past hundreds of years.

Our Struggle

This describes my family's ethnic origins and the struggles they faced that define my american creed. This uses evidence from interviews to illustrate how our American creed is formed from our family's struggles and hardships in life in America.

What does it mean to be American? Does anyone know?

This essay was originally shared with others students at youthvoices.live and explores questions raised by studying history and examine similar issues in present day America.

How Diverse Americans Understand the American Creed

Different cultures, although having different ideologies, interpret the American Creed as the right to pursue the American Dream. This allows a stronger communal bond to be formed within America, as we all are striving to achieve the same goals.

America: Religious Freedom is a Right

My American Creed is the importance of religious freedom. It is something America offers that gives individuals a sense of security.

A Not So American, American Creed

Through my parents' naturalization ceremony to become U.S. citizens, I was able to learn a lot about what it means to be an American citizen and what must be done to protect and uphold such a right.

Immigration

A family's Immigration story.

American Creed

My piece is about how I view America and what I think it is all about from my perspective as an exchange student.

My Family and the American Creed

This is the story of how my parents immigrated here from Cambodia and Vietnam and how the American Creed has affected their lives and stories.

My Mothers story

Your family's stories make up your stories, it's important to take the good traits from people and carry them on with you. My American creed comes from my mother's American Creed and that is an incredible thing.

The Italian Perspective

The Italian way of immigration. Through family experiences and other perspectives of Italians. What they went through and how they faced them and let it shape them to be who they are.

Entre Dos Mundos

A recount of my own family history, alternating between English and Spanish representing what it's like to be Between Two Worlds.

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.