English is my weakness. ... My mother has been with a number of men: my father, my brother's father, and now my step-father. ... Words have never been on my side, as people have always used them to establish my worthlessness. I could never use my words to express my dislike for the way my mother blamed me for her disfigured love life. ... I couldn't control the path I wanted my thoughts to take, and so I just continued writing random -- possibly irrelevant -- thoughts in my notebook. ...

• Word Count: 821
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.... The essay I wrote my freshman year of high school about William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet shaped how I write my essays. Writing for a Greek student life newspaper my freshman year of college changed my style of writing, and how I approached deadlines. ... " He goes on to say as well that, "I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library.... " Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" has influenced James Cameron's "Titanic," Nicholas Spar...

• Word Count: 1022
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School