Social Action Assignment #2

Assignment:Write a poem or song responding to a specific social problem/issue. Be detailed and specific. Also, write 1-2 paragraphs describing your process in writing the poem and what problem/issue it is about. Use "World on Fire" as a mentor text 


Two Voice Poem: Disabilities
CAPS = together
_______ = teen/person 1
BOLD = teen/person 2


I have autism.
I am blind.
I don't like being touched or I'll feel uncomfortable.
I can't see the world around me.
I CAN'T HELP IT.  

I don't know how to communicate with people in the simplest ways.
I don't want people to pity me.
I feel useless. 
I feel like I miss out.
NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.

I have temper tantrums.
All I see is darkness. 
I can't help it. That's just how I react to certain things.
I try to seek for the light, but I don't see it.


I FEEL UNNEEDED.
I WISH I COULD HELP, BUT I CAN'T.
I wish I could do things by myself.
But I'm not capable of doing so. 
And when I try, others try to help.
But I don't want help.
I WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT.


     I wonder what it feels like to live a life of a kid with disabilities. This thought has crossed my mind a lot. There are many disabilities in the world that I feel like aren't paid attention to that often. Although I know that there are many charities to support these disabilities, I really want to know how life would feel like to live a kids life with down syndrome, autism, blindness, deafness, dyslexia, and so on and so forth.
     In this poem, I tried to express the way a child with disabilities would feel about themselves and their surroundings. I imagined a blind kid living his/her life only hearing sound. This puts me in a melancholy mood.  I mean if I was blind, I wouldn't even know how the world around me would look like. I would probably always be frustrated with myself because I can't see what others are doing or how they look. I also wrote the second part of this poem through the eyes of a kid with autism. Autism is a brain problem that makes it hard for kids to communicate. They see the world in a different way than most "normal" people would see the world. Its hard for them to talk and express themselves. Sometimes they react to things differently then most of us.
     I think I did a pretty darn good job trying to express the way that both blind/autism kids feel. This assignment really allowed me to show how kids with disabilities would feel. It also made me do more research on both of these topics and it has taught me how kids with disabilities react to their surroundings.