Young Writers Society

Hi everyone.
Since I didn't attend a high school in USA (but did in Mexico), I don't know what class of students will works better for my story.

The story will have love, friendship, some traumas, sex, drugs and a pervert teacher (he got traits and is based on a teacher).
Obviously, the final will contains a message with moral attitude with solutions above those problems.
So, let me to know what students class will work better for my story, please. (fthe 9th grade, the 8th grade, or the 12th grade). (give reasons!).
P.s: It is going to be my second using "bad habits", but obviously looking for solutions on the end.

Also, please give me some facts, aspects and reference about "American teenager" in high school that are different from the college students.
P.s: I am a college student, I did high school in Mexico. I believe high school is very different in USA.

*takes post down as to not "offend"/bother anyone with opinions*

Very useful and great information! A lot of hugs because of your help.
I have other questions so far:
Do easily an Asian and Caucasian are friends?
Is possible an "Gothic" girl fall in love with a "rocker" boy?
Usually, how wild is a punk boy?
I'd decide the ethnicity of my characters. My main character is half Spanish and half Italian. His future girlfriend had grandparents from London.
The punk boy is Irish.
The punk girl, too.
And, the Asian boy is of course Japanese. He is going to be the most quiet of the group, he is a relax person.
It will works? All them become very friends ^_^.
I think that there is a lot about stereotypes on the American high school, don't it?
P.s: One could thinks that I am "Rocker" but I am not. I am who I am, isn't it good? xd



(I ask about your grade group and general).

...mostly, everything Monki said will work well enough. However, it's not the grade of high school that matters in the ending; it's how the characters are written. There is one thing I will disagree with Monki on, and that is taht teachers are jerks who wait around for their paychecks...I have to disagree with that. Almost every teacher I've ever met have been genuinely good people who teach not because of the salary (The salary of a teacher is actually not that great) but because it is a challenge to teach kids to learn in that kind of environment.

But do what you will, of course; I just thought I'd speak up in defense of all good teachers, everywhere in the world.

And as for cliques, which I noticed is something you asked about, well...it's not as divided as you might think. The two high schools I went had their cliques, and I hung out with the skater/trailer park trash at one school, but ended up hanging out with the fairly jock-esque guys at the other school. But I noticed one thing throughout it all: no one judged each other based on what they wore or what they listened to. Sure, there was plenty of name-calling and jokes flying around, but that was it. Everyone was friends regardless of whether they were in a stereotypical clique or not. I never was in one. I think kids put too much stress and emphasis on things like that these days.

It could be any of them. Just remember that freshmen generally get picked on by the upperclassmen and the seniors are thinking about what they're going to do when they get out.

2. At my school, and most high schools, you are required to take a health and gym class your freshman year of high school.
3. Freshmen don't get picked on nearly as much as everyone thinks they do. On the contrary, many freshman are quite popular and have friends that are older than them. (Example, I have sophmore, junior, and senior friends. And it doesn't bother them that I'm a freshman.)
4. Teachers tend to have less patience with freshmen.
5. The school administration hate freshmen.
6. It's hard for freshmen to be taken seriously when it comes to a lot of things.
7. Most freshmen are bigger than the sophmores, juniors, and seniors. xD

Wow you need to come to my school. We have to take gym at some point during our high school career and it doesn't have to be as a freshmen. We DO get picked on a lot. I know, I was one last year. My class was notorious for getting into fights and boy did we have a lot of them. The school admin does not hate freshmen. Freshmen are not bigger than upperclassmen. At least not here. There's plenty of that kind of thing at my school. PM me anytime if you want more info.

1. At my school, we have to have gym every year, and health freshman and sophomore years.
2. Freshmen are basically treated like anyone else, except there is a "Kick a Freshman" day which is basically just made up so the older guys can flirt with the freshmen girls or so they can kick other guys they don't like. lol.
3. At my school, there are a lot of pretty cool teachers because they certainly aren't working there for the money. Lots of teachers are easy to talk to and practically part one of us.
4. We're kind of a poor school. As in, there are cracks in the floors at some places and there ar emissing ceiling tiles. It's something we always make fun of.
5. My grade (10th) isn't cliche at all. We DO have a popular group, but it's not like three people, it's like half the class. And then it's not even something that's that difficult to obtain. I mean, it's sort of a hazy line.
6. There are a lot of racist jokes made, but mostly from people about their own race. Like my friend is from Napal, and she always makes jokes about being Asian... it wouldn't stop anyone from being friends with that person, though. At least not from where I'm from.

And I guess that's it. There are groups and cliques but none of them are like REALLY exclusive. It's sort of just casual, I guess. And if there's like perverted teachers and sex and stuff, I would go with an older age than 8th grade. Any of the others aren't all that different, though.

Krup: So, no every teacher is a "ogre", don't it? Thanks but also may I put some teacher whose work because of money. May I write about a well-hearth teacher.

Horserider: Oh, in Mexico the lower (or newbie) have always a lot of students. Thanks for the note.


KailaMarie: Thanks, the Irish boy from my story would be a good joker about his own ethnicity.On the other hand, poor of the freshmen because are kicked a day. T_T

People, thanks very much for the information. Any question that I have, I will ask you.

As a fellow college student who went through the American high school system, I think your story would be much more believable if you used 11th graders (juniors) than 9th graders (freshmen), if only because as a freshman, you are generally not as respected or open to new things as you are when you're older. Plus, as a junior, you're coming up to your last hurrah before graduation, so you try and take advantage of everything that comes your way to ruin your life. A lot of my friends didn't start drinking in high school until their junior year.

Also, to address Monki's points (as a music education major in college):

1. Teachers don't become teachers for money. If they did, they're stupid, because teachers get awful pay compared to most other, more respected positions.
2. I think all high schools require some sort of PE credit for graduation.
3. Freshmen get picked on a LOT. Especially by seniors. And only because the seniors were picked on a lot as freshman and are just returning the favor.
4. Teachers have less patients with everyone, because the standard of education has been declining since forever. I can't think of any student who actually tried in high school past the first couple of weeks of freshman year.
5. The school administration doesn't hate anyone. Freshmen just don't have many opportunities because they don't NEED any opportunities. If anything, the school administration doesn't like ANY grades, because many of the rules don't make sense to anyone except the administration.
6. Freshmen don't need to make sense, because no one wants them to make sense.
7. Says you. The freshmen class that came to my high school my senior year had an average height of five feet, three inches.
8. Colleges don't look at GPA. They look at extracurriculars, volunteering, and ACT/SAT scores. If they look at anything academically, they look at the last half of a student's senior year, to see if their grades take a dive. If they do, the college has a right to withdraw the acception.
9. Not all schools are built the same. There's a school near me where the only diversity is three Asian kids.
10. High school isn't about self-esteem. High school is mostly education and college prep.

Just thought I'd clarify something: I'm basing all of my tips for Rakun off of what I know from my high school. Not all high schools are the same, I know. But, my high school I guess is just different from others then, because everything I said in my first post is true for my high school. I will say though that I had absolutely great female teachers in middle school, and that we became so close on a personal level that we are still in touch to this day and we still "hang out" and talk on the phone frequently. It just seems to me that a lot of the teachers (well, mine at least) in high school as opposed to middle school really don't care. My teachers last year (middle school) cared so much, I knew that they were there because they loved to teach and that they really did truly care for us. I loved them to death. There were two that I had a really hard time leaving to graduate on to high school and I was actually depressed for six months because of separation anxiety. They're like second mothers to me now. My point is, teachers in high school are harder to relate to and harder to "get along with" than teachers that I had in middle school. Maybe it's because they really don't know me like my previous teachers did and that these teachers just think of me as some "delinquent" like a lot of teens are considered. I really don't know, and I'm not saying that I'm right about everything. A lot of things I say are based on opinion and I'd hate for people to take what I say the wrong way.

Rakun > Actually, ethnicity really doesn't seem to be a problem at my high school. (I'm Irish and I dated an Asian guy. ^ ^)

And yes, there is a lot of stereotyping at my school as well.

(Also, I know that teachers have a horrible, horrible salary. They deserve much, much more than they get because they are providing an education for potential government officials, police officers, lawyers, etc.. They put up with so much crap, but get so little in return. It's ridiculous and makes me feel bad for them. I'm actually part of a petition type of thing that is about the horrible salary that teachers receive. We hope to make some sort of impact.)

Monki wrote:
A few facts:
1. The teachers don't care about anything but their paychecks they receive every two weeks.

Don't believe this, Rakun. It depends on the teacher.

Monki -- don't make generalizations about a whole group based on a few personal experiences. I myself have had wonderful teachers as well as awful ones.

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just pointing out that that's a stereotype.

Flemzo wrote:As a fellow college student who went through the American high school system, I think your story would be much more believable if you used 11th graders (juniors) than 9th graders (freshmen), if only because as a freshman, you are generally not as respected or open to new things as you are when you're older. Plus, as a junior, you're coming up to your last hurrah before graduation, so you try and take advantage of everything that comes your way to ruin your life. A lot of my friends didn't start drinking in high school until their junior year.

I actually agree with this.

Don't believe this, Rakun. It depends on the teacher.

Monki -- don't make generalizations about a whole group based on a few personal experiences. I myself have had wonderful teachers as well as awful ones.

Well, had you read my second post, I specifically stated that this is information that I'm giving Rakun from things that I know from my high school. I never said that all teachers are like that. I've had brilliant teachers, two of which are like mothers to me now; I don't regret any tips I've given Rakun, being that I said they are from my personal run-ins with certain teachers and certain experiences I've had. I simply stated that the teachers that I have this year seem to not be as committed to teaching as previous teachers that I have had, in middle school and even some in elementary school.

So, please, before you go and try to humiliate others for trying to help out a fellow YWSer with a few tips that they have from their own personal experiences, you should really think about how you word things, because you can really offend people, just by how you phrase the things you say. (And the emoticon didn't help matters at all.)

It just seems to me that a lot of the teachers (well, mine at least) in high school as opposed to middle school really don't care.

This, funnily enough, is the complete opposite of my educational experience. I didn't start meeting teachers who were truly motivated and in love with their subjects, and, more importantly, wanted to share their knowledge with students and help students learn, and explain it in a cool manner, until I entered high school.

But blehh, I'm not an authoritarian source because my high school experience is somewhat different than most others'...I absolutely hated junior high, which has probably influenced my view of high school because I love high school, (almost) every second of it. Mostly because (at least this is what I think) high school students are more mature and much less idiotic than junior high kids. I'm only speaking really for the take-all-AP-classes-play-the-GPA-game kind of kids, though. O_o Don't really know much about the "average" student's experiences.

Also, my experience is somewhat different than most people's because in my district, the freshman year was attached to junior high and high school is tenth-to-twelfth grade. So my school has no freshmen in it (and still manages to have upwards of 2000 students...).

Well, my high school experience was different from some others too, as we had three on one campus, but there's still some general things I could say.

1. My school was diverse, but there was quite a bit of de facto segregation, both racial and other categories. People tend to hang out with others who are like them, whether it be ethnicity, social class, "popularity" or same activity. However, because I went to such a big school, mixing happened often enough. E.g. my freshman year I took health and sat at a table with a junior cheerleader and a sophomore goth girl who'd just moved from California. Also, it couldn't be super-cliquey just because it was so big (over 6,000 kids).
2. Once again due to the size, there was a lot of anonymity...I can look at my class picture and honestly say I didn't know the majority of them. This would be different in a smaller school where the kids have all been in class together since grade school. So keep the size of the school in mind when writing your story (Based on what you've said, a medium-to-large suburban school would probably work the best).
3. About the freshman thing...they didn't get picked on directly at my school (eg Kick a Freshman day) but I certainly stereotyped a few in my day. Short, annoying, loud, think they're so cool...not saying all freshmen are like that, but the freshmen on my bus...ugh. Getting my license was amazing for that reason alone. But for the most part, I got along well with upperclassmen as a freshman/sophomore (this was a good thing because I had quite a few upper-level classes).
4. Once again, based on the details you've given, I'm thinking junior year would be best. It's a high-pressure year (this coming from an AP-class taking grade-grubber) because it's the one colleges look at the most. Social groups are well-established by this time and kids are more mature than freshmen, but still pretty dumb. Also, there's less required classes and more electives, so students have more of an opportunity to choose their own path.
5. About the teachers-not-caring thing...it depends. I've had both wonderful and horrible teachers. Generally though, the higher-level classes tend to have better teachers than lower-level.

So there's my two cents.

I agree with niteowl on the point that upper-level classes tend to have better teachers. I'm in Honors and in middle school I had been in AP classes and the teachers were absolutely amazing last year. This year... eh. Guess I might not be giving them much of a chance, being that my teachers last year were so great that I now compare every teacher I have to the two awesome ones last year. :}