Today is April 20, and it's been 12 years since Columbine. Before I came to Lincoln, I never realized how much this one event had changed me--it essentially thrust me into the world of being a grown-up, much like September 11 did two years later. But being away from it and having people always ask me about it whenever I was asked where I was from, made me confront my feelings about it, and I ended up writing about the experience a lot in my English classes. This helped me understand my feelings, express them, and remember.
One of my favorite classes I took was Women in Literature (or a title close enough to that). I loved everything about the class--the books, the teacher, even my fellow students--and it was one of the few I really felt comfortable enough in to actually participate in class discussions. We read many great books by women authors, and one of my favorites was Paper Wings by Marly Swick. This book is about a girl in the 1960s and how her life was changed after the JFK assassination. The following is the response paper I wrote for that class after reading the book.
English 215J
Swick Response Paper
April 13, 2006
One of my favorite things about this class is that I am able to start every response paper with “I really liked this book.” Each book that we read has made me think in a different way, which is exactly the reason that I like to read so much. O Pioneers helped me realize what my life in Nebraska has come to mean to me. American Indian Stories provided a new perspective of what life was like for Native Americans, and gave insight into the beliefs and ways of life that have since been lost. In The Awakening, I was able to see what life was like for women in the 1900s. This work especially opened up my eyes to the roles women have in society today. Their Eyes Were Watching God gives us a strong female character to relate to, while The Color Purple really helped me see a completely different life.
But out of all the books we have read, Paper Wings was a book that I was personally able to relate to more than any book I have ever read. Since I was able to relate to this book so much, I would like to do something a little different for my response paper and look at the major similarity between Suzanne’s life and my own. I feel as though the lifestyle I have lived, and the experiences I have had are a more clear similarity to look at.
I grew up in a neighborhood similar to that of Suzanne’s, and like Suzanne, I had a best friend from my neighborhood. Bow Mar had an illusion of perfection and safety. But like Suzanne, this image was shattered with one event.
On April 20. 1999, two students opened fire at Columbine High School, about 1 mile from my house and middle school, killing 13 people and themselves. Twenty-four others were injured on that day, which was also the day that my generation was essentially forced to grow-up. Our illusion of perfection was shattered, just as Kennedy’s assassination shattered the image of the perfect family in the 1960s.
Like Suzanne, I found out about Columbine at school, but was not sent home early. In fact, we were released to our parents 30 minutes after we were supposed to get out. It was the only day my Dad ever picked me up from school; we normally just walked home. I remember going home and watching the news for at least four straight hours. While we had more than three channels, there was only one story on all of the stations, and I flipped from channel to channel, essentially taking everything in. We were under lockdown for about three hours, completely clueless about what was going on. I think that this explains my need for information after I got home.
After Columbine, nothing and everything changed. Despite the sheltered life I had before, I learned that bad things do happen, and impact you in ways that you don’t necessarily understand. I know that for me, personally, it took leaving Littleton to realize how much Columbine really impacted me. When I’m there, it’s as though nothing happened; when I’m here, everything comes rushing back to me every time I say where I’m from. It brings back this feeling of guilt, essentially, to even be impacted by something that really had no direct impact on my life. I knew no one who was killed or injured, and I never attended Columbine. But it also brings back a feeling that I have come to realize is similar to fear. I remember what it was like to be there, at my middle school, clueless about what was going on and scared. But I also remember the sense of community that happened after: the memorials, the support system, the little things that people did to remind everyone that there is good in the world.
I think that Columbine, for me, and Kennedy’s assassination, for Suzanne, are very similar, because I see them as events that have marked our lives. I think that I would have become the same person with the same experiences if Columbine hadn’t happened, or even if I wasn’t so close to it, and I think the same thing for Suzanne. The realizations we had to come to in order to grow up would have happened eventually, I think, but because these events happened, we have something to stick them to. These events didn’t essentially cause our lives to change, but simply serve as the exact time we started to grow up.
After Columbine, I remember my best friend’s mom saying that this would be an event that would shape us, her children’s generation, just as the Kennedy assassination shaped her generation. She said that anyone who was alive during Kennedy’s assassination would always be able to tell you exactly where he or she was during the assassination, and that it would be the same for our generation and Columbine. I know that I will always remember where I was during the Columbine shootings, and I know that I will continue to learn and grow from the experience, much like Suzanne learned and grew from Kennedy’s assassination and the events that followed.
One of my favorite classes I took was Women in Literature (or a title close enough to that). I loved everything about the class--the books, the teacher, even my fellow students--and it was one of the few I really felt comfortable enough in to actually participate in class discussions. We read many great books by women authors, and one of my favorites was Paper Wings by Marly Swick. This book is about a girl in the 1960s and how her life was changed after the JFK assassination. The following is the response paper I wrote for that class after reading the book.
English 215J
Swick Response Paper
April 13, 2006
One of my favorite things about this class is that I am able to start every response paper with “I really liked this book.” Each book that we read has made me think in a different way, which is exactly the reason that I like to read so much. O Pioneers helped me realize what my life in Nebraska has come to mean to me. American Indian Stories provided a new perspective of what life was like for Native Americans, and gave insight into the beliefs and ways of life that have since been lost. In The Awakening, I was able to see what life was like for women in the 1900s. This work especially opened up my eyes to the roles women have in society today. Their Eyes Were Watching God gives us a strong female character to relate to, while The Color Purple really helped me see a completely different life.
But out of all the books we have read, Paper Wings was a book that I was personally able to relate to more than any book I have ever read. Since I was able to relate to this book so much, I would like to do something a little different for my response paper and look at the major similarity between Suzanne’s life and my own. I feel as though the lifestyle I have lived, and the experiences I have had are a more clear similarity to look at.
I grew up in a neighborhood similar to that of Suzanne’s, and like Suzanne, I had a best friend from my neighborhood. Bow Mar had an illusion of perfection and safety. But like Suzanne, this image was shattered with one event.
On April 20. 1999, two students opened fire at Columbine High School, about 1 mile from my house and middle school, killing 13 people and themselves. Twenty-four others were injured on that day, which was also the day that my generation was essentially forced to grow-up. Our illusion of perfection was shattered, just as Kennedy’s assassination shattered the image of the perfect family in the 1960s.
Like Suzanne, I found out about Columbine at school, but was not sent home early. In fact, we were released to our parents 30 minutes after we were supposed to get out. It was the only day my Dad ever picked me up from school; we normally just walked home. I remember going home and watching the news for at least four straight hours. While we had more than three channels, there was only one story on all of the stations, and I flipped from channel to channel, essentially taking everything in. We were under lockdown for about three hours, completely clueless about what was going on. I think that this explains my need for information after I got home.
After Columbine, nothing and everything changed. Despite the sheltered life I had before, I learned that bad things do happen, and impact you in ways that you don’t necessarily understand. I know that for me, personally, it took leaving Littleton to realize how much Columbine really impacted me. When I’m there, it’s as though nothing happened; when I’m here, everything comes rushing back to me every time I say where I’m from. It brings back this feeling of guilt, essentially, to even be impacted by something that really had no direct impact on my life. I knew no one who was killed or injured, and I never attended Columbine. But it also brings back a feeling that I have come to realize is similar to fear. I remember what it was like to be there, at my middle school, clueless about what was going on and scared. But I also remember the sense of community that happened after: the memorials, the support system, the little things that people did to remind everyone that there is good in the world.
I think that Columbine, for me, and Kennedy’s assassination, for Suzanne, are very similar, because I see them as events that have marked our lives. I think that I would have become the same person with the same experiences if Columbine hadn’t happened, or even if I wasn’t so close to it, and I think the same thing for Suzanne. The realizations we had to come to in order to grow up would have happened eventually, I think, but because these events happened, we have something to stick them to. These events didn’t essentially cause our lives to change, but simply serve as the exact time we started to grow up.
After Columbine, I remember my best friend’s mom saying that this would be an event that would shape us, her children’s generation, just as the Kennedy assassination shaped her generation. She said that anyone who was alive during Kennedy’s assassination would always be able to tell you exactly where he or she was during the assassination, and that it would be the same for our generation and Columbine. I know that I will always remember where I was during the Columbine shootings, and I know that I will continue to learn and grow from the experience, much like Suzanne learned and grew from Kennedy’s assassination and the events that followed.
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