As TIME magazine’s Sarah Gray recently wrote, “The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Feb. 14 left 17 students and staff dead — and replaced the 1999 Columbine High School massacre as the deadliest high school shooting in America.”
Students from the school have been vocal about their desire for change -real change to current US gun laws, speaking at rallies and with the President of the United States, and organising school walkouts and further protests.
Watch the video of student Emma Gonzalez’s speech “We Call BS”
(or read the full transcript at https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/17/us/florida-student-emma-gonzalez-speech/index.html)
You can read about further protests and speeches that students in the USA have planned, at http://time.com/5165794/student-protests-walkouts-florida-school-shooting/
Really, this is just here because I think it’s sad and important and inspiring and, uniquely, a real voice of a real teen living now. Not a teen actor in a film, or a teen character in a novel but a teen who like you, is in her last year of high school.
If you want to use it (because as far as speeches go it is incredibly well-crafted) – try writing some Comprehending-style responses based on the questions at https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/148128/English-ATAR-2016-Sample-exam-questions-for-Section-1_pdf.pdf
But, if that doesn’t feel right, free just to read or watch, and to think about your personal response, whatever that might be.
