Hi Blog, I am currently writing this during my dedicated in-class essay writing time. Let me explain. This past week Willemse and Hughes gave us a surprise midterm essay to write. We got the prompt Thursday afternoon and it had to be completed by Friday at 3pm. The topic was to explain why terrorism happens using examples from the present day Palestine and Israel conflict as well as connecting that to previous terrorist attacks that we had discussed. 

At first I was worried as I felt I didn’t understand the conflict in Israel well enough and the majority of my research had been on the impacts of terrorism rather than why it happens. However I managed to swing the question to fit my thesis. I decided to argue that using violent forms of terrorism to achieve liberty was a flawed concept and that in reality all it does is more damage to the cause and increase casualties. I made a craft card to be my essay layout, linking to all my notes and resources which made writing the essay super easy the next day. I woke up on Friday (the day I’m writing this) and wrote my essay at my bedroom desk during my morning spare. Having true quiet and a setting where there is guaranteed to be no distractions was super nice to. I felt I would be less stressed and produce a better essay by starting in the morning rather than freaking out about trying to cram my essay writing into 2 hours during class. 

I feel very proud of my work and think I made valid arguments, and got strong enough evidence to back my claims. Having this midterm was actually pretty fun for me as this is the kind of work I plan on doing in post secondary. Researching heavy topics about sociopolitical events, taking notes, and then writing a sophisticated essay are all parts of school I really enjoy. This unit is really helping me figure out what I am passionate about and what I want to do with my future education.