In my AP Language class, after reading Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, we conducted research on Social Justice issues of our choice to create argumentative papers and creative tasks. For my topic, I chose to focus on the coping and grieving aspects that are caused by school shootings because our society needs to focus more on how we can prevent this issues in the future and not get stuck on what has happened in the past. Throughout my research, I discovered that one of the best ways to grieve and cope with the tragedies is through Activism. The most interesting thing that I found was that a gun is fired on a school campus in America nearly twice a week as seen in The Guardian, Guardian News and Media . We were also visited by Natalyn Archibong, our Atlanta City Council Representative who shared some insights on how these issues are affecting our city and what is being done about it.

After research was concluded, we wrote in depth argumentative papers on the subject. My final position for the paper was activism is one of the best methods for coping and moving on from these tragedies because it not only helps you but also the future generation of students to come. The paper was very interesting to write, and the most challenging thing was finding specific statistics about gun violence school shootings.

To complete the project, we were tasked with creating a STEAM product that represented the concepts in my paper and my position. I chose to create a woodworking art piece because I enjoy working with wood and this allowed me to express my opinion. I first brainstormed and sketched out some ideas and discussed the concept with my peers. After their feedback, I made sure to include elements of rhetoric and metaphors. In my final product. The purpose of the ocean wave is to symbolize the hardships and stages that we get stuck in while coping, but through methods such as activism we will get through it. I incorporated STEAM skills by using art and used my skills learned in my visual art class to express my position on my topic.