Grammar Notes For High School Students: Fill & Download for Free

What screams “I’m in high school?”Well…ahem.Braces. Ah yes, those metal orthodontics that you have to wear throughout your years in high school. You wore them because you need to fix the alignment of your teeth, but in the end, it’s definitely worth it.Uses Instagram and Snapchat. A LOT. Most high schoolers (not all) will use Instagram to post seductive poses or even memes on Instagram. For Snapchat, well they use it as “Streaks” or even “HMU I'm bored” (Hit-me-up I’m bored), “TBH” (To be honest confession) and “Rate?” (Rate me out of 100.)Teenagers in high school sure love to hear hip-hop and R&B music a lot and out loud with their speakers. like 6ix9ine, Drake, XXXTentacion, Kanye West, Lil Peep, Cardi B, and others.(Image: 6ix9ine Debuts in Top 5ive on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart)As Lil Pump would say, eskkkkeit.Then 6ix9ine would interrupt GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG…Others listen to pop music or other kinds of genre. From Ariana Grande, Marshmello, Maroon 5 to My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco.Dank memes and Relatable memes on Reddit. Most high schoolers who are into dank memes or dark humour goes on Reddit frequently. I mean, Reddit does have some good memes.Some high schoolers use dead memes. R.I.P to the past memes that are now no more relevant.Using teenage slangs. For example: lol, tbh, rate, streaks, yeet, we’re gonna dip, rn, WRU, ATM, IMYSM, miss ya, IMO, spill some tea! (meaning tell me some juicy deets), etc.Some even dabs. The hand movement…Considering at drinking bleach. Because why not?Vulgar language. They shout, say or even whisper vulgar language like Sh*t, F*ck, D*ckh**d, h*e, etc.Doing stupid internet trends ( _____ challenges, Tik Tok, etc.) For example, high schoolers sure love filming their cringe on Musical.ly, doing the Tide Pod challenges, filming themselves in Tik Tok bullying videos,(Video: Pewdiepie)Plays on Steam, Fornite, Overwatch, League of Legends often. Most high schoolers play games on Steam or other gaming platforms, like Overwatch, LoL (League of Legends), Jackbox, etc. very often.(Screenshot: their website Epic Games' Fortnite )Watches their favourite Youtubers. There are many. Here are a couple of examples: Pewdiepie, Jacksfilms, Jacksepticeye, h3h3 productions, LaurDIY, TheOdd1Out, grav3yardgirl, Jake Paul, Logan Paul, Ricegum, Phillip DeFranco, and much more.iPhones. This can be applied to everyone but most high schoolers tend to have the latest new tech of iPhones.School uniforms. I am aware that some high schools don’t wear uniforms, however, there are some high schools that wear high school uniforms.Speaking of school uniforms, some high school girls roll up their skirts/kilts above the knee length. I think you know what I mean.Some wear the latest new shoes from Nike, Vans, Air Jordans, Converse, New Balance, Reebok, Adidas, etc.Wears Herschel/Jansport/Pink/Parkland/High Sierra school bags. It’s all about the trends, baby.Hanging out in large groups, usually at the mall or fast food courts. You can hear them from a far distance.Some high schoolers don’t read books for classes — instead, they read a bunch of chapter summaries from online sources. like Sparknotes/Shmoop/Cliff Notes/etc…For essays, some high schoolers use Grade Saver, Cliff Notes, Shmoop and Enotes. I mean some students are quite lazy to search for meaningful quotes.Some teens don’t know how to calculate math, instead, they use math apps to help them cheat their way out.Cheating. Some high schoolers cheat in high school — either on tests, exams, orals, projects I don’t really know. High schoolers can get away with cheating sometimes.You use Turnitin and/or Grammarly. Teachers don’t like plagiarism nor grammar mistakes…(Image: What is… Turnitin?)High schoolers hate writing a bunch of essays. Essays are the worst in high school. Essays are long and tiring to write.Prom/school dances pictures, with friends or your date. Self-explanatory.Attending a school event. Like a school home sports game or something you know. Support your school!Joining a club.High school senior prank. Hehehe, ’cause why not prank the entire school with your graduating class.Signing yearbook messages. “Ah, I am going to miss you, Liz!” I think I will look back to my high school memories in 10 years from now.Eating school cafeteria lunches. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are not tasty.Having a school detention, or suspension. Poor you.High school parties are all about getting drunk on alcohol, having possibly sexual intercourse, hanging out with friends and lots of lip licking. Or the contrary, a sleepover or a videogames night. Depends on the friend group.Having crushes or are in a high school relationship. Because why not be in a relationship.Watching high school movies and t.v shows (mostly Netflix). I know many female teenagers have seen Mean Girls literally many times. Some teenagers watched Riverdale, Games of Thrones, Big Mouth, Stranger Things, 13RW, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters, The Walking Dead, —well anything on Netflix.(Image from Netflix)Listens to music on Spotify or AppleMusic. Spotify is the latest trend for teens nowadays.Some teen boys are obsessed with luxury cars.Stay up late. Watching a movie, talking to your friends, smoking pot, playing games on Steam, filming cringey Musical.lys or Tik Tok… I don’t hella know what most teens do nowadays.Only cares to pass the class, instead of learning the material. It’s true, most high schoolers only care to pass high school.Attention seeker, especially high school dramas. I really hate high school drama, it’s stupid and funny. Some teenagers make a huge deal on these dramas.They have dangling Apple earphones on their neck or shirt. I once had a teacher that told to all their students to remove their dangling earphones out of their shirts and put away their earphones. lol.Gum chewing. Even though in most of my classes we are not allowed to chew gum in class, some students still chew gum anyway.Some high schoolers have been to 4Chan or some weird sites… I think this is self-explanatory. But beware of 4chan, it’s an adult content site.High-end wear. From Fashion Nova to Pink to Nike to Adidas to Lacoste to Gucci and Louis Vuitton, many teens wear fashionable clothing from a high-end brand with the latest fashion trend.Getting your driver’s license. I mean lots of high schoolers want to learn how to drive, so they can impress their friends and drive around town.Not getting enough sleep. RIP to a high schooler’s sleep schedule. It will get even worse later on in College and University.Complaining about almost everything. High schoolers, man.A high schooler’s best friend: Procrastination. Eh, I do not want to do my homework. I will procrastinate my time by playing Fortnite.Smoking Marijuana, Juul, Cigarettes, or drugs of some sort. It’s cool to smoke Juul or Marijuana and get the feeling of being high.Spending a crap ton of money on food or stuff.Asking pencils or pens from your classmates/friends. Hey, do you have a spare pencil to lend me? Some teenagers in high schools sure don’t come prepared with pencils.Teachers roasting a student in class and vice-versa. What a great laugh.The entire class teasing the substitute teacher. Sometimes when your teacher is not there, you take the opportunity to fool around in class.Having to study AP Exams. They are literal heck. But worth it at the end I guess?Going through your “before and after” phase in high school.Reading relatable high school memes.Making a Youtube channel. I mean why not? It’s most likely about games or some sort.Doing the OK symbol with your friends —I’ve seen this everywhere in my high school yearbook! I swear! its everywhere!Your phone is your best friend. High schoolers are on their phones all the time. I had once a teacher that screamed in my entire class this: “THIS IS A NO PHONE ZONE. I REPEAT A NO PHONE ZONE. PUT AWAY YOUR CELL PHONES.” LOL.<that was true in my class.Some teens in high school put their Instagram caption as Thank you, next.I don’t know what to write at the end.Welcome to the high school world. There are plenty of more characteristics, but I only named a few obvious.—Cheers,Britney Vu ♥︎, was once an awkward, shy and bubbly high schooler.Edit: thanks to User-11989209094443421045 for the edit! I don’t listen to rap and hip hop music so I actually thought Lil Pump and 6ix9ine was the same person, but I guess I was wrong. I’m more a Soft-Pop and Pop music person, in case you’re wondering. So, sorry if I screwed up between the two—especially their lines.me, earlier: *sips my green tea at a café shop, doing my essay homework**a random high schooler walks by me saying GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG, GUCCI GANG*

As a college freshman, what are some signs your high school didn’t prepare you for college?This is a phenomenon that is occurring more and more frequently, sadly. Here are some of what I consider to be the most obvious signs a high school did not prepare you for college:You are unable to pass the placement tests for at least one (if not more) subjects - our local high school has about a 10% college-readiness score, and as a result, many students who graduate and end up going to college end up having to take “college prep” courses before being able to place into even the most basic of intro classes because they basically fail their placement tests (seriously, WHO fails a placement test? Kids who aren’t ready for college, that’s who!). That is definitely NOT a good thing, to have to waste college tuition on what amounts to retaking high school classes. It’s become such a huge issue that the state has come down on the town to do something about these abysmal college readiness rates. We’ll see if anything changes, but so far, nothing has.Failing/doing poorly on your intro English composition classes - even non-writing/English kids should be able to effectively communicate their ideas through writing. That is one of the most basic things a high school should teach their students. So if you cannot get anything better than a middle-of-the-road B in your intro writing courses and you are actually putting an effort into your work, your school failed you. Honestly, a student who has been properly taught how to write should be able to do well in an intro writing class. But as an example, a student I tutored for English 11 Honors was working on a paper on The Great Gatsby and I asked her to recap the book for me. She said, “Oh, we don’t have to read it. The teacher gave us notes on what we needed to know for our paper.” - did you catch that? She was in 11th grade HONORS English and the teacher was SPOON-FEEDING them the information for their paper - they didn’t even have to READ the novel! Working with this girl, it was clear she didn’t even have the basics of sentence structure and grammar. My 5th grade daughter writes more clearly and eloquently than this supposed-11th grade Honors student. After about an hour of me trying to help her write even the vaguest of thesis statements and get some corroborating examples from the book, she grabbed her stuff and said, “I think I’ve got it.” I CRINGED because it was an absolute wreck of a paper! But two weeks later, she excitedly came in and told me she got a B+. She showed me the paper - it was word for word the information the teacher had given her, some not even in full sentences! B+. There you go, ladies and gentlemen, and then you wonder why our high school has a 10% college readiness score!You do not know how to study - Ok, so this is sometimes not the school’s fault. Some really smart kids are able to get by in high school without learning effective study skills. Then they get to college and don’t know how to even begin studying as the work piles up. That was me in college! It took stepping back and spending two years at a local community college to learn how to actually break down the material to study. BUT the reason why I count it here is because high schools have been increasingly inflating their students’ grades so that students can do the bare minimum of work and still get As and Bs - that will NOT happen in college, especially larger state universities. You don’t do the work, you get a bad grade. Additionally, a LOT of schools are doing away with homework. A student who does not learn to work independently outside of the classroom and turn in this work for a grade will be a TRAIN WRECK in college!!! Kids who want to go to college MUST LEARN TO DO HOMEWORK AND STUDY OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM or else they will NOT succeed!You have literally no idea where to begin when it comes to choosing a major - now I get it, making a life-dominating choice when you’re 17 years old is really scary and hard! But believe me, if your teachers, advisors, and guidance counselor aren’t at least getting you to think about potential majors, your school is failing you. Too many kids are going into college with no idea what they want to do, or if they would even NEED a college degree (as opposed to a trade certification, a 2-year degree, or an apprenticeship). So they spend their first two years taking classes more or less at random, hoping something sticks. Some of these students will figure it out, but many will find that either (a) they waited too long to figure out a major and now will have to spend an extra semester or year getting the right prerequisites and/or find a major whose prerequisites they are able to meet, even though it wouldn’t be their choice otherwise, (b) their major has virtually no chance of finding them gainful employment upon graduation, or (c) they don’t like college anyways and quit school to go do a trade or apprenticeship, except now they have to find a job to pay off the debt that, due to dropping out, they will have to begin paying off. Either of these will result in a massive waste of time and money and could have easily been avoided if the schools had done their jobs and asked the right questions before they encouraged the student to embark on such a risky and expensive endeavor.There are a few others that come to mind, but these four are the ones I consider to be the most prevalent signs that a high school has not done its proper job in preparing a student for college.

A great deal has changed in half a century.Fifty years ago, high school students were regarded pretty much as “young adults,” with some immaturity about them, a lack of wisdom, but not as children to be managed, shielded and protected from the world. It was not unusual for boys to come to school in coats and ties and girls to wear hose and heels; indeed, many high schools forbade girls to wear trousers or pants unless it was part of a uniform or costume—such as a band uniform, i.e. Dress codes extended to hair styles, facial hair on boys, even to female makeup in some schools. The aim was not to instill uniformity or conformity but rather to establish an atmosphere of formality and respectability, similar to the adult world.Classes for girls included Home Economics, Typing and Shorthand, and other instruction designed to prepare them for life as adult women, such as it was defined at the time. Boys took courses in woodshop, metal shop, even automotive and appliance repair, for the same reasons. PE classes were strictly separated by gender. There weren’t many organized team sports available for girls—basketball, usually, softball, sometimes, or field hockey, for the most part. Boys played all sports, including baseball. Both genders participated in track and field, however. Varsity sports were pretty much restricted to boys.Open Displays of Affection (ODA) were forbidden on school grounds and certainly inside the buildings, but “steadies” were commonplace. Girls wore their boyfriends’ oversized letter-jackets (letter sweaters in a previous era, usually given only to varsity athletes) and senior rings, often made to fit by adding wound dental floss and then sealed with fingernail polish, as a kind of pre-pre-engagement signal that they were “taken” or at least somewhat committed. (“Lettering” in a sport was a huge deal in the fifties and sixties; by the mid-sixties, letters were also awarded for other extracurricular activities such as music (marching band, choir), chess teams, and dramatics, etc.; when lettering became possible for pep squads and just about everything else, the system was devalued.) It wasn’t uncommon for commencement ceremonies—a huge event with lavish gifts bestowed on graduates—was often followed by a wedding ceremony a few months or a year or so later, with many marrying their high school sweethearts as a matter of course. (Note: Divorce was still stigmatized in the era; a divorced person was not well regarded socially, so most of these marriages, for better or worse, tended to last.)Romance was not stymied, no matter what. Proms and other social events such as banquets and mixers were carefully planned and strictly chaperoned. Alcohol was strictly forbidden, although it was often in evidence. Smoking tobacco, while almost always forbidden, was winked at for the most part, with light punishments doled out to caught offenders. “Smoking in the Boys’ Room” was a huge hit song.Indeed the music of the era—rock and roll, country and western—reflected the maturity of high schoolers in the fifties and sixties. Folk music was also popular, indicating a kind of abstract concern for humanity and the world. Love songs, torch songs, laments for secret romances, unequal romance because of economic class or social standing or even reputation, unrequited or unreturned adoration populated the charts, as did a huge array of dance tunes. American Bandstand set a standard for dance and music, and everyone watched it. The .45 rpm record, introduced in 1949, reigned.The schools themselves were wide open to the public. Access was open and easy, and school grounds were almost never fenced off or restricted to anyone. In many communities, high schoolers left campus for lunch. Some went home and some gathered in local drug stores (where there were lunch counters), soda shops, or hamburger joints near the campus that catered to young people. It was an automotive-centered culture; cars, old and new, were the measure of status; automobiles were both modes of transportation and full obsessions, and most every boy knew more about engines, transmissions, and vehicular power, whether he owned or had access to a car or not, than he did about civics or biology. In some states—Texas, i.e.—one only had to be fourteen years old to have a full driving license, so many students had their own cars or drove their parents’ vehicles to school, even though they lived in walking distance. Some were veritable junkers transformed into hotrods and sleek stock racers; some were beat-up and worn-out jalopies; some were sleek new models with all the latest options and features. Speed and power vied with beauty and design for primacy.On the whole, schools were positioned to be neighborhood institutions, substantial symbols of order and progress and greenhouses in which the future fruits of the nation were emerging. Most school buildings were vintage, many dating back to the previous century; there usually was an attached gymnasium, sometimes a swimming pool, an auditorium (capacious enough to hold all of the student body or to double as a civic auditorium, if needed), a baseball and football field nearby, a cafeteria, often, and sometimes a music rehearsal room. Most had little or no air conditioning, although heating was generally common, since school dismissed during the hotter summer months and there was no reason to cool the buildings. Most older schools had large windows that could be opened on warm days in the autumn or spring. The buildings themselves were landmarks, exuding solidarity and tradition, containing trophy cases and award plaques of previous student triumphs; many had full quads or campuses associated with them, and most were weighty, impressive buildings a community could be proud of.Inside many, things hadn’t changed much in a century. Desks were wooden, one-piece affairs, attached in permanent rows, some still with inkwells from a period before ballpoint pens were common; pencil grooves remained even with modernization. Most were etched deeply with pin-knife carved initials and graffiti of various kinds, some profane or obsene. Blackboards were actual blackboards requiring chalk and dusty erasers. Films were views on 16mm projectors. Maps pulled down from roll-up containers. No one had calculators, but learning to use a slide rule was mandatory. Internal doors were high-transomed affairs, windows double-sashed. Other furniture was institutional, hard, and uncomfortable, as were paint colors. Floors were generally hardwood and reeked of wax and linseed oil, and most classrooms were connected to the Principal’s Office by a wired speaker over which would come announcements or possibly a voice leading the “Pledge of Allegiance” every morning. Class starts and ends were signaled by a bell that would ring in the hallways and sometimes on outer walls.On the whole discipline wasn’t a problem in most schools, although its application could be severe. Corporal punishment was usual, mostly by administering a few swats with a wooden paddle, and while this was sometimes abused by excess, it was seldom questioned by parents who tended to take the side of teachers in matters of their children’s behavior. Even so, recalcitrant “juvenile delinquents” or “J.D.s, as they were sometimes called often found themselves frequently subjected to harsher and harsher paddlings, sometimes resulting in serous injury. Girls were also paddled, but not in all schools; often they merely had their hands spanked harshly with a ruler or strap. Teachers were not restricted from laying hands on a violent or disruptive student; suspensions and expulsions were commonly applied for serious offenders to school rules or legal violations. These last punishments often stigmatized a young person in the community and could prevent him or her from finding employment.Grading was tougher than today; there was little forgiveness and no such thing as “grade inflation” or “social promotion.” An A was excellent, and a C was average; a D would get a student through. An F was failure and meant the repeat of a course or summer school; too many Fs usually meant permanent suspension. As a result of this and other things, a much smaller percentage of young people completed high school then than do now. Many dropped out as soon as they turned sixteen, or whatever the minimum age was for leaving without being truant in a given state, to get married or join the army or merely to go to work; eighteen was considered “of age” in many states, although voting privileges had to wait until one was twenty-one; ditto legal purchase of alcohol. Pregnant girls were not allowed to continue in high school, nor were married students of either gender. College-bound students were not in the majority in many areas, and there was little curricular distinction between one group and another, although most schools had, by the end of the 1960s, begun to channel those with college ambitions into more advanced and difficult classes.Indeed, high school curricula were changing by the end of the sixties. Calculus replaced trigonometry as the class to take after geometry; lab sciences became more complex and technical; foreign language requirements modified (Latin or Greek had been dropped in the early fifties; “romance” languages continued to be required for a long time.) “Senior English” or “Senior History” were electives offered for college-bound students. The common thing to say was that history was “coached,” as so often coaches were assigned to teach these survey classes. This began to change in the early seventies, and by the late eighties, the requisite qualifying collegiate degree to teach, the B.Ed. was either phased out or completely cut from most college programs. It had never been a substantial degree, in any case; evolved as a result of a wide-spread state requirement that teachers be “certified,” it had never offered much of substance, and it displaced academic area courses that teachers increasingly needed to keep up with expanding knowledge, particularly in science and technology.Students in the sixties, though, were given solid foundations in mathematics, science, history and geography, literature, English language and grammar, civics, and usually had a good deal of exposure to some form of the fine arts. The focus was on the high school diploma, not on some kind of college-preparatory instruction. There were no AP Courses or college-credit courses, although some students did sign up for correspondence courses with nearby universities; they completed their work by mail and received college credit for it.Many, though, were channeled into “professional schools” such as dedicated, private schools that taught accounting and business practices, skilled labor instruction in such fields as welding, appliance repair, plumbing, electrical work, all providing a certificate at the end of about a year of specialized instruction. Nursing and other technical medical fields had programs of their own and usually were attached to “teaching hospitals,” not to colleges or universities except, perhaps, through loose association. On-campus career counselling was not very effective, with many large high schools having but one counsellor of questionable credentialing on staff, often a teacher of some subject who for one reason or another was deemed incompetent to conduct a class. Most schools functioned with only a single chief administrator, the Principal (usually a man), with Vice-Principals only occurring in particularly large, urban schools.In most of America, athletes ruled in high school. Football and basketball players emerged as the principal stars of the schools, although they competed in popularity against those youths who had more political ambitions on student councils and similar clubs of governance. Popularity was the main measure of success. Cliques and clubs, even fraternal organizations were common, some of them with darker intentions than were obvious. Bullying was common, and it was viewed as an ordinary part of high school experience, traumatic and tormenting as it often was. There were always social divisions based on socio-economic class and, after integration, race, and, as sexual awareness became more and more evident in popular culture, sexual orientation. Few kids, though, entirely escaped some form of torment, either social, emotional, or physical during their high school years. If it didn’t escalate or develop into serious physicality, though, most adults regarded it was just one of life’s lessons it was important to learn.For most of that generation and certainly for the previous generation, a high school diploma had great value both vocationally and socially. The words, “High School Diploma Required” was a familiar line in any classified advertisement for any sort of professional or skilled work employment, and many people said with pride that they were “High school graduates.” It was a rare thing to find in the nineteenth century; and for the first four decades of the twentieth, it remained somewhat special to say, “high school graduate” of someone. Images of high school students in the 1950s and 1960s depicted them as young men and women, not as children. Interestingly the word “teenager” was coined in this era; it was not known previously. In a nation where an eighth-grade education had been pretty much the American average at the end of the 1930s, the post-World War II generation elevated the status of high school in the 1940s through the 1970s to a high regard, something that would, in the 1980s, be more typical of the status enjoyed by undergraduate college students, then in the 1990s and forward by graduate students and those in professional schools for medicine or law, for example. For much of the nation’s history, though, high school was regarded as a kind of “finishing school,” a place where the young were prepared both intellectually and emotionally to be fully responsible adults.Today’s high school students are principally seen as oversized children, delicate and sensitive, in need of social and parental guidance, of protection and shielding from the grimier aspects of real life. The openness of campuses is gone, and the looseness of regulations regarding behavior, dress, appearance has encouraged a galvanizing of childhood through late adolescence. Many high school graduates don’t have driving licenses, let alone their own cars; most have never held a genuine job, even part time; few have much real-life experience to draw on as they emerge from public school. The mythology today is that high schoolers have no sense of personal responsibility, are hormone-raging embryos incapable of adult feelings and sensibilities, responding only to primary urges and emotionally charged reactions that are usually unwise. Much of the adult society in America deny that their teenaged charges have emotional depth or good sense when it comes to sex, drugs, crime or any sense of how to make their way in the world, let alone hold a job and have responsibility even for themselves. There might be some veracity in that, given that any group of individuals tends to rise no higher than the expectations society puts on them. But the more objective reality is that many of these young people if not most of them are capable of making more mature judgements and commonsense decisions than they are given credit for. The almost manic desire in American society to keep them in the role of dependent children in need of nurturing and guidance is somewhat perverse and may, in the long-run, be counter-productive.