Mr. Evans,
As my AP Lit teacher, you undoubtedly know that I greatly enjoy your class. Joyfully writing essays, devotedly devouring literature, and intently completing homework assignments, I do everything in my power to maintain a high grade and prepare for the AP test. However, I fear you have simply taken it too far with the satire essay assignment, and I will not be able to complete it.
After my three-hour practices on weekdays—often not returning home until past 9:30 p.m.—I rush to eat, shower, and get into bed, hoping to lessen the guaranteed exhaustion caused by waking early the next day for another practice at 6 a.m. Despite falling asleep in record time, I groggily drag myself out of bed (when the sky is still pitch black) and fight sleep while my coaches push me to my limits yet again. Clearly, doing my work at night is out of the question if you want to avoid 2nd period becoming my nap time rather than an effective lesson. Before you suggest writing prior to practice, I have to report to my swim instructor job immediately after school, and I leave my shift with just enough time to throw on some athletic wear and rush to practice. As you are aware, my trip to nationals removed me from school for four entire days, leaving me with mountains of work to catch up on. Don’t you think adding a satirical essay to my already unmanageable to-do list seems unfair?
Given that sports consume all of my time outside (and sometimes inside) of school, I propose the only viable solution: you excuse me from the assignment. Although I know it may seem unfair to the other students who worked tirelessly to craft ironic, sarcastic pieces, I ask for full credit with humility and graciousness despite my failed competition of the assignment. You see, as enforced by the school’s athletic director to ensure that the “student” in “student-athlete” prevails, I must maintain a certain GPA in order to continue participating in my sport. Furious when my teammates fail to make grades, my coaches heavily stress the importance of keeping up with school work, but simply can not afford to have any athletes missing out on valuable practice time for homework or studying. The coaches won’t hesitate to punish athletes for selfishly cramming for their finals instead of arriving on time for warm-ups; I have even heard their grumbling directed toward my most dedicated teammates. “She’s being so unreliable. Why don’t these girls understand that they need to be here for practice? No excuses,” they say. I hope you empathize with me when I express my unwillingness to experience my coaches’ wrath upon taking time away from my sport to complete the satire assignment.
While I am commonly referred to as a “student-athlete”, my athlete responsibilities seem to overpower those of my student title, meaning the phrase should be swapped, and teachers should really give us athlete-students a break. You, Mr. Evans, can take the first step in easing the stress of athlete-students everywhere by accepting my lack of a satire essay and gracing me with a 100%, as well as excusing me from any future at-home writing assignments.
Sincerely,
Kendall Albrecht
Welcome to The Shield’s annual satire section. Writers use satire to improve a problem in society. Sometimes readers misunderstand the satire as they do not recognize the hyperbole, irony, rhetorical questions, sarcasm, and understatements. A great satirist will also address counter-arguments (the non-satirical solution) with great mockery and sarcasm. Readers may mistake the satirical solution for the actual solution that the writer proposes. The ideas in these satire stories do not necessarily represent the opinions of The Shield or Westmont. If one is confused about satire, please contact a friendly neighborhood English teacher.