Final Exam Part One

How is Billy's World a news piece?

1.
8 of 10
Studies show that, at the time of their release, more than eight in 10 prisoners are certain it will be easy to stay out of prison in the future and steer free of crime. The Youth Commission's re-arrest rate after a year is about 56 percent.

100
There are more than 100 occupations in Texas for which an applicant can be denied a license to work if he has a criminal record.
— 2007 Texas Public Police Foundation study

2.
Timeliness: "Lancaster lays out the prosecutor's offer: If Billy pleads no contest, he'll be sentenced to 45 days in jail. But because Travis County jails are overcrowded, inmates get two days of credit for every one served. Billy's month in jail gives him more than enough time served."

This excerpt from the story, made me as a reader realize the significance of days in jail, and how you can use previous time that you served as current time too.

Impact:"Schools have an incentive to drop no-show students: They drag grades and test scores down. "It's not fair to the teachers who keep giving them zeros and then get blamed for it because their class averages sink," says Sammy Seijas, Travis' dropout intervention specialist."

This excerpt can have an impact on myself and other high school students, because many students choose to skip class, ruining others opportunities.

Oddity:"Billy's mother says he began stealing at an age when many kids are learning to read."That was when he figured out bad attention was better than none at all," Ruth Evans says. "It's never stopped after that."

This excerpt was a little odd to me because I didn't realize that kids started stealing at such a young age.

Conflict:"On the way to a counseling session, Billy gripes about how his brother and stepfather have been fighting. He admits to smoking pot, and reminisces about the good old days — no responsibilities, coming and going as he pleased — before heading in to the appointment."

This excerpt is about Billy's step-father and brother fighting.

Human Interest:"Charlie and Billy knew each other from middle school, but she never gave him much thought. Until one day when he was over at her dad's house visiting her brother and she did a double-take: He was pretty good-looking, especially his green eyes."

This made me very interested, because I thought it was cute.

3.
"I can't afford a baby sitter; I'm just stuck at home," Charlie says one November morning, sitting in her living room with her mother while Aaliyah stumped around the house and watched TV. "I want a job. I don't want to be dependent on anybody."

This quote is good because it shows the struggle of being a teenage mother.

Sample Question: "What do you do all day?"