Terrible grades freshman year- will this ruin my chances of getting into grad school?

Most colleges ignore freshmen year altogether, and even those that don't still give more weight to sophomore and junior year. You should be fine assuming you bring your GPA up during your next couple of years in high school.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.