The word “necessity” often brings up the three basic needs of food, shelter and water in one’s mind, and from the word “luxury,” items can bounce from new shoes to a week-long vacation. When these two words are put together, thoughts of college begin floating around.

A necessity is something needed to survive and prosper. Normally, these are reachable for the average person. Luxuries are harder to grasp, and if it is something humans can live without, many people do not make it to them.

College is beginning to come hand and hand with living as humans are now born and raised to learn how to talk and walk, and then they are immediately sent into schools where they learn to socialize, and above all, they are told every decision they make will affect their future.

According to College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the last school year was $31,231 at private colleges, such as New York University, $9,139 for state residents at public colleges, such as Kent State University, and $22,958 for out-of-state residents attending public universities, such as the University of Miami.

Kent State University has their undergraduate tuition for Ohio residents on ksu.edu listed as $10,012 without room and board for the 2015-16 school year. If this price did not change for the next few years, it would end up costing a current student $40,048 for a four year education.

Looking plainly at the huge numbers strikes the topic of what else on which money could be spent.

According to charitywater.org, it costs about $20 to provide water to one person for 20 years. With the price of college at KSU for four years, over 2,000 people could receive clean water for those 20 years.

While providing water seems to be a really spaced-out example, there are many products that put the price of college in a new perspective.

College prices often shy students away from the experience. A minimum-wage job does not provide enough money for a student to pay his or her way through college.

When the $40,000 price is displayed, it scares students, especially when the price does not include living arrangements, meal plans, books and extra-curricular activities, such as sports equipment.

The prices of college has huge margins, and if they were lowered, so much money could be saved for students and their parents. As well as saving money, people would, in the end, experience less stress without having to worry about abundant student loans.

The price commitment acts as a leash for students, and that is no way to excel in college.

By Kyla Zeigler

Weekends are days where students can sleep in and relax. The only problem is homework can get in the way of those relaxing days.

Homework, whether during the week or on the weekend, is something most students are not looking forward to doing. Getting home from a seven ­hour school day to look at ­two hours of homework a night can be a drag. While most students dread homework over the weekend, it is also okay to bring school into students’ lives outside of the classroom.

Unfinished projects or papers sometimes need the extended time a weekend offers. Some students work after school or are involved in extracurricular activities, so they are not able to get what they need to get done during the week. It is true in which some students have events that take the entire weekend and homework over those days are added stress, but those are not very often. On top of that, most teachers are lenient on giving extensions for unplanned circumstances.

While it can not be helped, homework should not happen all the time over the weekend, only when it is necessary. Most students do not mind doing a little bit of homework sometimes, but when it starts to get in the way of their family and social life, then it starts to become a problem for them. Students would much rather go and hang out with their friends then do homework, but there are times where students have to sit down and get work done.

It is not a bad thing for students to bring home work from school but some students believe that school work should stay in school. Although this is understandable, there is not enough time during the school day to finish all that needs to be learned. Going home and doing some school work helps students remember what they were taught in school. It also allows them to get help from older siblings or parents if there is something they do not understand.

Though most students would disagree, having homework over the weekends is not as troublesome as they think.

It is normal for movies to add or take parts out of books to make them more interesting or to shorten the movie length, but parts of the original plot can be lost in the process.

Many of the recent movies targeted toward teens are based on popular young adult novels, such as The Divergent Trilogy and multiple John Green novels. When it comes to books turned into movies, it can be a hit or miss situation, especially with the teen audience. Today’s teens are often judgmental and opinionated when it comes to their favorite movies. Many movies today come from books from many teens’ childhoods as the books helped many through rough times.

Many movies did well in the box office and others were a flop. Books like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and The Fault In Our Stars were instant successes, while others like Percy Jackson, A Series Of Unfortunate Events and the Twilight Saga did not do as well in the industry.

There are several things that make a good book to film adaptation. The most important consideration when making a book-based movie is the novel chosen has done well on the seller’s list. Nearly all the books picked to be turned into films were at one point on the New York Times Best Seller List. The books are usually not made into films if they do not do well in the industry.

The only exception would be classics, though the book would be circulating for such a long time it would be well-known and popular in a completely different way.

Another way for a book-based film to be successful is to be done well. If a movie is poorly made and doesn’t follow the storyline, it usually doesn’t do as well in the box office. When young adult novels are made into movies, many teens are very picky about how it is made. There are a large amount of teenage girls who read books in the young adult fiction genre who spend a lot of their time on the internet expressing their love for the books. These girls are often described as fangirls. The best way to make the movie and please the audience  is to keep as close as possible to the plot of the book.

In many ways, what makes the movie are the actors. The actors make or break the movie. If it’s a bad actor, the movie won’t give off the right vibe. All the fans have different views on what the character should be like. When casting the characters, the casting agents look for qualities in an actor that fit the character being casted.

If there is a bad actor, then the movie could not end up the way it could be if there was a better actor portraying the character. Teens expect the same image that they got from the character while reading the book and they have very specific ideas.

Book to movie films are a big part of the movie industry in today’s world as every age group enjoys the newest and best movie out. They are go to movie ideas when the industry notices that the book was a big hit, though sometimes it may take years for the book to become a movie. Though a movie could not turn out as well as it could, there is always a chance it could be the next Harry Potter.

By Tristan Ange

Mr. Stratton is an iconic role model for a all students wishing to progress in English.

He offers classes comprised of Honors English 10 and Enriched English 11. Both classes contain an ethic that is far beyond the expectation of the student, creating an adequate preparation for upper class and college courses.

Guaranteed novels to read for his tenth grade class are “1984” by George Orwell, “Othello” and “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas and “Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury. Novels in eleventh grade consists of short stories from a class literature book and “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Discussions among teachers and classmates are a common norm in an educational setting, but Stratton takes it further by providing in depth, elaborate answers and asks questions that most teachers would not dare to ask.

A constructive mind is a must for this class, and if not, do not worry for you will catch on fast. Intuition and a bright tumultuous vocabulary will be apprehended within the first few weeks.

Cheating: do not even think about it. Cheating is on Stratton’s long list of no’s for he always requires students to write their essays in class. A tactic such as this is a prominent tool for the crafting of young students; rehearsing the mind to become responsible, self-reliant and incredibly independent. Websites such as Schmoop and Spark Notes are constantly checked and documented, creating assurance for his students that there will be no easy way out. Working hard and crafting thorough one’s work is a primary goal for Stratton.

The facts remain structural for his many years as an English teacher at Stow High School provide sufficient and well rounded evidence. Many teachers go to this man for help and advice to achieve for their students the same outcome and incentives he displays in his own. He is a legendary icon here at Stow High.