While
youth is in the process of figuring out who they are; by either making their
own decisions or experimenting, Adults need to diagnose the difficult stage that
the youth is going through. Adults should provide guidance and have meaningful
talks with the youth that can help make better choices. In Rodriguez analysis
he discusses about Francisco’s situation whom was very smart but seemed to have
trouble staying in school. Rodriguez states “…although he had many things going
for him. What he needed to get through this situation was a unified collective
of caring adults who would hang in there with him… couldn’t be done when those
most needed to help him do so had removed themselves from an integral and
trustworthy place in the boy’s life” (73). Being that Francisco was raised by a
single mother because his father walked out of his life when he was young; he
lacked communication with adults he looked up too. Since Francisco was very
young he was hurt and often felt like he was alone he turned to gangs for comfort,
Francisco was associating with the wrong people and he was being categorizes
and often he was being put down and set up for failure by his own community. When
youth are at their weakest and they have experimented things that resulted with
negative consequences, like being involved with gangs, all they need is someone
who can support them to do better choices instead of being punished. When the
youth keeps being punished harshly and when they are being isolated form their
community they have nowhere to turn to but to the people that will be there for
them. Many can argue that the youth should know better because “they are old
enough to know better” but because they are in such a vulnerable stage in life,
where they feel like everything is good and sounds good at the moment, what
they need is an adult that will be there to support them and provide guidance for
them that can possibly guide the youth down the right path.
Natalie- This is a great start. Your paragraph is strong in that it has a clear point and relevant supporting information. I do have a couple of quesitons, however:
ReplyDelete1) What do you mean by "adults need to diagnose the difficult stage" that young people are experiences? What do you mean by that?
2) Is there a way that you can summarize the example of Francisco a bit more? The context you provide after the quote, about him coming from a single-parent household, this is something that you should introduce before the quote. But also, think about how you can simply summarize the example of Francisco. If you use the quote, then you need to explain what Rodriguez means when he says," what he needed to get through this situation." What is the situation? What did people do instead of supporting him? What were the consequences of that? As you can see, although your support is relevant, you need to provide more background about that particular example.
Good start, though.