challenges FINAL DRAFT

Cooper Feltes

English 8

Mr. Salsich

27 September, 2009

Challenges:

A look upon how challenges expose themselves in chapter one of To Kill A Mockingbird.


Challenges are a healthy part of everyday life. Challenges give us something to show ourselves what we're capable of, but when other people give us challenges, our reputation comes into play, and to make ourselves look good, we usually tend to accept challenges that we don’t necessarily want to perform. Challenges shouldn’t be accepted if you don’t want to perform them.




(TS)If you are given a dare that is not something that you want to do, simply don’t do it.(SD) A dare can be a very scary or benefiting thing.(CM) In the book To Kill a Mocking Bird, the character Jem is dared by his new friend Dill to go onto the property of a ghost.(CM) Afraid of getting killed by this phantom, Jem reluctantly snuck onto the property.(SD) Jem, before this event, had usually never shown reluctance to a dare.(CM) To keep up his reputation, he felt he had to do it.(CM) The only time he had shown unwillingness towards a challenge was when he jumped off the roof, and was afraid of dying.(SD) Dill should have put himself in Jem's shoes. (CM)Dill shouldn’t have given the dare because he probably wouldn’t have done it himself. (CM) Not having the guts to do it himself makes him a coward. Jem shouldn’t have performed a dare that supposedly put his life at risk.




Challenges show up in my life all over the place. School troubles especially give me difficulty. I am pushed to do better but I don’t see much improvement in my grades. I want to do better in school but there’s just too many things to handle like memorization, studying, sports, home work, test prep, quizzes, tests, worksheets, friends, family and hundreds of smaller problems that add to the struggle. Challenges with friends also pose somewhat of a challenge. I am at the time where I am finding out who my friends are, and I lucky enough I have those few friends that help me through the process. I also have a lot of challenges when it comes to family. My parents have been divorced since I was 2, and travelling between their houses has been hard. But through all I’ve been in, I love them both just as much. But through all the challenges that I face, I have learned to be smart about making choices to meet the goals to solve them.



Challenges come up very often in To Kill a Mocking Bird. Whether you’re on the sports field or in the classroom, challenges tend to show up around every corner. Challenges that we accept must be accomplished with pure will-power. Although accepting challenges make us look good, when the time comes to perform them, most tasks are much harder said than done.