FORMATTING DIRECTIONS FOR SUBMITTING YOUR PAPER:

General directions

1. Use Microsoft Word or a generic.

2. Use 8 ½ x 11 size paper.

3. Keep a margin of 1 inch (on all 4 sides of the paper). Normal.

4. Use 12-pt. (except for the title) and Arial font.

Title

5. Put your title in 14-pt. Bold Arial Text.

6. Center the title; do not underline the title.

7. Capitalize all first letters of each main word in the title and subtitles (nouns, adjectives, verbs are capitalized). Prepositions are not capitalized.

8. Double space from the Title to your name and block #, using 12pt. and 1 ½ spacing.

9. Double space from your name and block # to the 1st paragraph, also using 12pt. and 1 ½ spacing.

Body

10. Use 1 ½ spacing throughout the body to the end of the document (including the

references if required).

11. Paragraph Indentation: ½ inch.

12. Put one space after a period (full stop) (.), colon ( : ), semicolon ( ; ), question mark (?), and exclamation mark (!).

13. When using quotation marks, place all periods and commas inside the end quotation mark (examples: .” ,”).

14. Make sure the body of your paper is left aligned and not justified. (With left aligned text, the left margin forms a straight line and the right margin is ragged. With justified text both the left and right margins form a straight line. In other words, flush left, creating an uneven right margin.)

15. Number your pages at the bottom of the page – centered.

This is Your Template

Al Faraone: Block 6

I hope this template is helpful. I wish my teachers in The Bronx had been as helpful. I had one great English teacher who encouraged me and a Latin teacher who taught me kindness even though I flunked his course. All the rest of my teachers either wouldn’t or couldn’t help. They were mostly negative. One teacher was sure I wouldn’t amount to anything. Another called me a criminal. I don’t know in his eyes what crime I had committed to warrant being called a criminal.

One day in gym class I was competing with another gym rat on the pommel horse. We would both clear the height and the gym teacher would crank it up another notch. It went on and on. The gym teacher was getting annoyed. He was not into rewarding effort. He was into moving on. I grabbed the pommels when it was my turn again and clearly vaulted over the horse. He called “touch.” Contest over. I didn’t touch. He just wanted to end it and drag his sorry ass home.

I often ended up in “goon” classes. I think they knew I was smart but they wanted to punish me for all sorts of things that I didn’t think mattered back then; attitude; attendance; studying; respecting authority; and homework. I met some very nice people in goon class. When they put me in goon math class I sat next to this guy who couldn’t add a nickel and a dime. I did all his homework for him and he cheated off me on tests. Years later I was a ticket taker at the Loew’s American movie house and I looked up from my work position and watched as a cop was ticketing my car. I rushed out to try and talk him out of the ticket. “Don’t you remember me?” he asked. It was my friend from goon math. He couldn’t stop writing the ticket so he just added a bunch of letters and numbers to my license plate and the ticket got swallowed up in the system.

There was a bright spot. I was always placed in English honor classes; the only subject I would do well in. I found the Bronx girls in English class much more attractive than the thugs in the “goon squad.” Even the goon-girls were hard, harsh, and could easily take me in a fight. One looked at me once and I fainted. That’s a lie but I needed to get down to here and end this template (hopefully) with a laugh. (424 words)

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