Reflection Of Nathaniel Hall

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Nathaniel Hall one of the kids in the book True notebooks that were in Mark Salzman’s class stood out to me to me the most because he was showing signs of changing, but he is also manipulative and shows signs of not changing at all, the juvenile system was not effective enough at supporting Nathaniel’s change it failed to bring him up to his high potential, if he had stayed in the juvenile spending more time with Mark at the writing workshop and not transferred to the penitentiary he would have probably turned out to be okay. Nathaniel is so high-spiritedness even though he is obviously struggling with his past life he lived when he was on the streets. It’s like he is hiding something through all his rhymes and high spirit. He kind of confuses me because he sometimes talks about becoming a new person and how the writing has changed him then other times about going back to his gang once he gets out because that’s the only life he can relate to describing it as real. Nathaniel Hall, as brilliant as he may …show more content…

After getting to know the lives and minds of some of the boys in jail, I truly believe that the prison system is the worst way to go on the journey to healing these kids. It may be most physically safe, but it will also produce a society that has not changed before and after going through the system. One of the most astounding discoveries I made, however, was realizing how rarely I thought about incarcerated youth, simply because it never seemed to crop up in my life.Never thought the system would be so tough on them and unforgiving as they were in the book. I believe that the best way to change the system and prevent youth from being tried as adults is to do exactly what Mark has done, provide an insight into the true soul and nature of youth, regardless if incarcerated or not, and fully understand their ability and

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