Junior Theme- Part 1: The Search

    I don't know if any other high schools do this, but NTHS has this thing called the "junior theme" which is, essentially, a big research paper that every single junior in the entire school has to write.

    Now, there are different ways to go about doing said paper. Some teachers assign specific topics to children, some just have set boundaries, and some just make it a free for all. My teachers, for whose class I am writing this blog, decide to come up with their own criteria as well. 

   They said that we had to pick a current issue, relate it to a historical event, and come up with a proposal in the form of a "why" question. We also have to read an entire book and interview an expert in the area of our reproach.

   It's a lot, and so this week, before our spring break, my entire class is in the library researching potential topics, which will be due Wednesday. 

   I was checking out some online databases that the librarians provided and I found a couple of cool topics. I looked at the page on minimum wage, but I wasn’t able to come up with a "why" question for that. I also checked out the page on marijuana, which was cool, but again, it was hard to come up with a "why” question since the facts were already so laid out for me. 

    I then clicked onto two pages about mental disorders/illness, which intrigued me, for personal reasons. I also found a page about the Obama Administration and I looked up the wage gap in terms of gender, which I thought could make an interesting paper.

    After I had found these topics, I had to come up with potential "why" questions.

       The wage gap was pretty easy. I have tentatively deiced on asking "why do women in the U.S. still make 18% less than men when we are supposed to be the epitome of independence and equality?” The Obama administration intrigued me because it mentioned how Obama had been accused of of being socialist after he instated Obama care and the stimulus package. So, after I mentioned it to one of the teachers, he gave me some suggestions, and I decided on maybe asking "Why is it such an insult to call Obama a socialist when, in fact, countries that follow socialist economic policies tend to have better welfare and education?” 

      The mental health question stumped me am little because I find the subject so fascinating, but it’s also so broad and complex. I am still debating, but I think, for now, that my question is, "why do some kinds of mental heath treatments get covered by insurance and not others, why do insurance companies have the standards they do?"

  Sorry for this monster of a post, there’s going to be a lot more about these, but hopefully none this long. Also I apologize for any typos I may have missed.