To the graduating class of 2027: are you feeling hopeful for sophomore year after surviving the CHANGE project? Well, too bad! Because Irvington loves to be “not like other schools”, you’ll begin sophomore year with another benchmark: the World Issues Project, or more commonly known as WIP.
You’d be dead wrong if you think high school is about to get any easier. Staying on top of WIP will be your most important commitment this school year. So, what should you know as you begin the sophomore year benchmark project?
There are a variety of global issues topics as research options for this benchmark, one of which you will be covering throughout the year. Of course, you don’t get to choose. For those assigned Climate Change, congratulations! Researching this possibly world-ending threat will give you an existential crisis and not much else (so much for character growth). As residents of California, we’re practically experts on Water Contamination and Scarcity, so you’re set for the rest of the year if you’ve got this topic. To students appointed to researching Food Insecurity, don’t bother looking for articles on ProQuest. Instead, just stop by our cafeteria! And for the rest of you, good luck (you’ll need it).
Google will be of no help to you, providing only the most convoluted journals and research papers. Any article with even remotely useful information will be 10 years outdated, so you can kiss that source goodbye! Instead, spend hours and hours annotating long articles for your source checks that you’ll barely reference in your essays. Even after completing both the CHANGE and WIP benchmarks, you still won’t remember how to cite in MLA format. But be not afraid! Purdue OWL is here for you.
Maintain a good habit of procrastinating all your WIP assignments until the last minute and printing out physical copies the morning of the due date in the library. Remember that you’re not alone in this, and by that I’m referring to the violent and fierce competition for the computers in the library. Come to school half an hour early to fight your way to the singular printer in the library or show up empty handed to class. Even if you get a copy on time, your shins will be just as bruised as your ego.
If you turn in your assignment on Google Classroom but forgot to submit it on turnitin.com, don’t worry! Just spend the next week arguing with your teacher for credit and earn nothing but a bad reputation. Know that turnitin.com will consider your assignment as plagiarized regardless of your quotes and citations, so be ready for all the redos!
Regardless of whether you absolutely dominate your fall and spring socratics or barely get a single word in, your grade will be completely irrelevant to how much effort you put in and will be obtained from a random number generator. Let’s hope for a low 90%!
After much blood, sweat, and tears, you’ll end this year feeling stress-free, knowing you won’t have a benchmark project next year. Congratulations! We hope you’re ready for junior year, because it’s coming for you.
