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In grade school I had a friend named nick. Teachers would always call him out because he was scared to read in front of the class. From the beginning his self confidence was low. He was very shy and didn't talk to many people, and if someone new tried talking to him he would take a long time to feel comfortable with them. Nick had a stuttering problem. Whenever he was in front of a large group of people his voice would lock up and he would shut down. His self confidence was destroyed in the 8th grade when a teacher made him stand up in front of the whole grade, all 225 of us. He was alone and he shut down completely botching his graduation speech. I talked to him afterwards and he said he had never felt so sick before in his life. His confidence was no longer existence, he shut eve the people who were closest to him out.

People with speech impediments and other problems with speaking and writing have severe problems with their self confidence. They feel as though they are not normal. But what is normal? Is there a direct definition that labels these impediments as not normal? Normal is defined as standard, usual, typical or expected. But how do we define normal? Society's normal is, if people are all the same they are normal. Any defining feature or change to their personal, or physical appearance warrants them to be “not normal.”  There is a story written by Mike Rose called “I just want to be average,” And that is a direct quote from the story that points out how people who are not seen as normal feel about their surroundings. People who are not “Average” or “Normal” can feel like somewhat of a group of outcasts. They are separated from the mainstream classes and put in their own “Vocational Track” which means d-level learning which does not help. In d level classes you are not treated as a human being, and you are certainly not respected by the people who are teaching you. This very easily make these students feel like they do not matter. This is why many of them act out or show off, in an attempt to get the attention that they so desperately need. If people took their time to sit down with these students and try to help them, they would not feel the need to act out and do bad things to get someone's attention.

My older cousin Nicky had a speech problem when he was younger. It was hard for him, he was teased and put in a special learning class. A teacher sat down with him one on one and walked him through how to cope with stuttering. He told me it was one of the hardest things he has ever done, but having a teacher to help him and calm him down when he got annoyed or angry with himself, helped push him through the problem. Today he is an officer in the United States Navy, and has no problem whatsoever with speech.

With proper learning strategies and help, people with speech problems and other disabilities can feel like they are part of this so called normal society.

I decided to make some major changes to my slide. When critiquing my slide, many people told me that my image that I used was pixilated and a little to difficult to see. Looking back on my slide, I agreed with what they said. I also thought that my slide had too much blank space in a way that did not look appealing to the eye. I decided to just get rid of my image altogether and replace it with a new one. To keep my slide from looking too empty but still not cluttered, I decided to make an image my background. The image still pertained to my passion, which is reading. I changed the color of my words from red to white so that they would contrast better with the image as suggested by one of the sources we had. The source said to have a color palette that contrasts, which is why I had white words on top of a darker image. I stilled used kerning to fit the words “my passion” on top of the “read” section of the word “reading” in a way that is visually pleasing. I also slightly moved my words so that they did not touch at all, since that was one concerning to some viewers. The rule of thirds still applies because I  positioned my slide so that the image catches the viewer’s attention first.

Pictures that covers the whole slide, makes it less eye catching. When it’s a big picture, it takes away the main focus. On my slide itself, I felt like it was a bad picture to put as a slide shows. So instead of making it a plain picture, I changed to texture of it.

I changed the color of the fonts and I also changed the positioning of the word “photography”. I kind of had made it follow along the line at the top of the building and then moved the words “me magazine” to a different area. The last thing I did was taking out my name.

After receiving criticism from my classmates I found that the size of the chocolate picture made it hard to make out, to fix this, I made it bigger. Also, the picture of the butterfly turned out pixelated because I had to widen it to fit the slide, so I made it longer to balance out the alterations. The title of my original slide was “ The Wonderful World of Waverly”, but after consulting with my peers I found that the inconsistency in words beginning with “W” caused a subconscious discomfort. In response I changed the title to “Waverly’s Wonderful World” to eliminate the unpleasant vibe. I’m happy with my edited slide and think that the little changes made it all the better. The next time I see a sign I will be able to appreciate all the planning, science, and critical thinking behind the advertisement.