Assignment/Activity Title Autonomous Essay Year Sophomore

Skill Writing, Creative, Research Portfolio Competency Social Awareness

The last significant writing project we did for English class was our Autonomous Essay. It was a
new project that Ms. Fillman introduced this year where we chose our own topics for an argumentative
essay and then planned how we were going to do it ourselves. It was a project that was steered mainly by
ourselves, which was a lot different than the essays were used to writing. I wrote my essay about the
faults of the foster care systems in our country, targeting the lack of funding and the negative effects it has
on the children who go through it.

The Autonomous Essay was not an easy task to tackle. The foster care system is not a simple
system, and there are many layers that contribute to its failure. The negative effects of the system that I
included in my essay only skimmed the surface, there is so much more research on teen pregnancy,
unemployment, homelessness, and mental health repercussions among people who were in the foster care
system than what I included in my essay. I actually had to delete one effect, incarceration, from my essay
because it was already getting too long and I hadnt expanded on that issue yet. Learning about all these
issues made me feel bad to delete it, because its an important effect that I believe is worth including, but
I knew that I didnt have the time or mental energy to research deeper into it. For my funding section, I
ended up looking through the state and/or governor budgets for each of the four states I decided to focus
on to find out how much funding the departments that house foster care receive, and that was a tedious
process as state and governor budgets are not easily organized.

In the end, Im really proud of the essay I wrote, which ended up being more like a research paper
which was trying to make a point. I learned a lot about the foster care system, the necessity of it, but also
how its failing to do its job. Having cousins who were in the foster care system in Kansas makes this an
issue thats close to my heart, but I never had the opportunity to actually learn more about it. This essay
gave me that opportunity and Im so glad I did. Ive seen what spending months in the foster care system
has done to people, and learning about what it does to children who spend years in it makes it all the more
important to me. I know that now that I know more about the foster care system, I will raise awareness
about it and make sure to reach out to state legislatures to ensure that the faults of theses systems are
addressed.

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Student Signature (Print here: Kiran Kochar McCabe) Date
 6/14/17
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Teacher Signature Date