Reem Zaitoon

Preparatory assignment 1
Topic: The effects of the Syrian refugee crisis on Syrian youth



This topic interests me because of the sheer amount of deaths and human
rights violations that rose out of it. The Syrian refugee crisis has taken its toll in a
horrendous amount of deaths of innocent lives that had nothing to do with the
conflict within Syria. In addition, the countrys infrastructure was shattered and its
economy and education fell into regression. This topic particularly interests me
because I have always had a deep compassion for youth and how the places and
situations that they live in affect their lives. The Syrian refugee crisis has
undeniably resulted in the destruction and the total obliteration of the childhoods of
many children. I chose this topic to learn more about the change and the effects that
the Syrian refugee crisis had on Syrian children in terms of their education and
overall lives.

The genre of this essay will be narrative and informative. I want to include
information that would inform people who maybe didnt know about the crisis.
Informing people about this humanitarian crisis would be extremely important to
me and so I want to have an informative genre intermixed in the essay. I also want
to combine a narrative genre into the essay so that I can include my own voice and
opinion into the paper. I find it very effective when writers use voice in order to get
an audience to care about the topic that theyre talking about, so I hope to do the
same and use my voice through the narrative genre.

The research that I have done so far is comprised of gathering information
about the effects of the crisis on childrens lives. I have gleaned that the conflict in
the country has physically and emotionally displaced children from their homes and
their lives and has forced them to seek safety elsewhere. The research that has to be
done now is how the Syrian war started and why it escalated to the extent it is at
today. In addition, research on the tensions and the current political status of Syria
has to be gathered in order to better understand the reasons for the civil war.

This essay is important because it is what is now known as the greatest
humanitarian crisis of our time. Human rights violations are something that I have
always been passionate about and I want to share that passion with the audience
that reads my paper. It always bothered me that I could have a fulfilling life here in
the United States but another person across the world might not be given the same
privileges. Therefore, its very important to me that I share the information about
the Syrian crisis with others.

The audience that I have in mind is other youth that are my age because to
my great displeasure, many people my age dont even know that this humanitarian
crisis is happening, and thats something that highly bothers me. I hope to reach
people who are my age so that I can inform them about this issue. Therefore, I hope
to use vernacular that I would use everyday in order to effectively reach them.