Six Six-Word Stories

The kite was carried by the wind.

Balls of fire crossed the sky.

Jerry’s life flashed before his eyes.

Mother wept driving to the hospital.

The orange-stickered limos filled the streets.

She saw Jerry’s picture and cried.

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

What exactly is a "hero"? Everyone has their own variation of the definition. Heroes do not have to be extraordinary creatures with superhuman powers. In reality, heroes appear in everyday life. My personal definition of a hero is a generally courageous person who is willing to make sacrifices for the greater good of the people around them. In Act IV of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Proctor decides to not confess to witchcraft, even though he understands that doing so will lead to his hanging. This makes him a martyr. By doing this, he show others that it is dishonorable to throw others under the bus for an act that they do not commit. On page 1356, Proctor proclaims the wrongdoings of many of those accused with the lines “I have three children — how may I teach them to walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends,” and “…I blacken all of them when [my confession] is nailed to the church the very day they hang from silence”. According to Arthur Miller’s perception of the Salem Witch Trials, everyone that is accused of witchcraft simply blames anyone against whom they have a vendetta. This causes the panic and dishonesty within the town. By choosing the opposing option to not wrongfully accusing anyone else, John Proctor keeps his integrity and proves that sometimes it is worth doing the right thing, even if the benefits of having ethical values hide behind severe consequences.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Today, we came across people from a distant land. They have skin the hue of clouds and speak a language that is clearly from far away. It is important that we carry honor and show hospitality because we never know what the future may bring. They seem very powerful, as they have many advanced weapons and boats. In a sense, they appear to be Godlike. Hopefully, the Europeans will recognize our kindness, and we might be able to establish a trading system. If we can maintain some of their weaponry, we might be able to defeat our enemy tribes in wars for years to come. Hopefully, they will also aid us in building our civilization and vice versa. Sure, it is possible that these odd people may have ill intentions, but that might be a risk that we, as a civilization, may have to take: by killing them, we could pass up multiple possibilities that could help us progress in the future.

———A few years later———

Here is a tip for the next people that come across Europeans: fight them or run. Accepting these monsters into our community was possibly the biggest mistake we have ever made in our tribe’s history. We have lost many of our tribe due to an epidemic, 36 in the last year and almost a quarter of that in the last two months. We have to take initiative and assume that it has something to do with the Europeans. Life was fine until they came. They were friendly for the first month or so, but they quickly started to disrespect nature and our culture despite our complaints. They have completely taken over our lives, even forcing us to convert to Christianity! Even worse, they treat us as if we are inferior servants. There is no point in revolting, as they are too powerful and authoritative. Bringing them in was not the best idea. Perhaps we should have tried to kill them when we had the chance.

Centuries ago, Native Americans were experiencing many of the negative aspects of cultural diffusion. A modern example of an unfortunate clash of cultural diffusion is the ISIS, or Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, conflict in the Middle East. One of ISIS’s main missions is to destroy the Iraqi government. This jihadist militant group is massacring mass numbers of people at once just because of clashing political views.

Me

Hello, reader! Welcome to the uncanny world of Jazmyn Scott! There are plenty of things to know about me, from my favorite color to some of my most humiliating stories, so hopefully this can give you a head start on getting a chance to learn about the real me.

Let me start with the basics. I. Love. Food. My favorite food is pasta (especially since I absolutely love alfredo and vodka sauce). My favorite color is purple because I cannot decide between red or blue. In my opinion, I have one of the best birthdays imaginable. I came into this world on the date of September 9, 1999 (aka 9/9/99). I believe that the best sport in the world to play is volleyball, but I would rather watch basketball over anything (#BallIsLife).

A little background information about my education is that I started off my academic life as a little preschooler in Pritzker, but later that year, I transferred to Alcott. I got accepted into Skinner for kindergarten and stayed there until the end of sixth grade. After applying for Whitney’s academic center program and not getting in, I continued my education as a student in the Lane Tech Academic Center (LTAC) program until the end of elementary school. I had the time of my life as a Lane student believe it or not, but I got accepted into Whitney Young as a freshman. So here I am, one of the hundreds of Whitney’s new freshmen.

There are hundreds — maybe even thousands — of words or phrases that could be used to describe me, but I think that all of my friends and family would agree on these five: brutally honest, crazy, caring, trustworthy, and most of all, clumsy. I am possibly one of the clumsiest people that one could ever meet. I would have to say that my most embarrassing moment was tripping over one of the seatbelts on the coaster floor when I was trying to climb into my Viper seat. I practically fell on my face. It was so terrible that there was not even any point in trying to play it off whatsoever.

I understand that I have a complex personality and that I can be very hard to read to some people, but hopefully, this bio will make things easier for you to get the chance to know me a little bit better.