Term Paper on "Learning & Teaching, LSJ Expecting"

Quoted Instructions for "Learning and Teaching, LSJ Expecting" Assignment:

Denise M. Acevedo

WRIT 121

CRN 22961

Summer 2005

Essay 2 (you add either /1 or /2, pending which draft this is)

You will write an analytical/expository essay of 800-1000 words based on the Lansing State Journal’s article, “Students Can Do More” (see article below). Utilize critical thinking skills to analyze (analytical) and explain (expository) your thesis and supporting ideas et al. To utilize critical thinking skills you will summarize ideas, analyze the focus and subordination of ideas, recognize and evaluate various methods of development and the effectiveness of support.

Be sure to use content – the selection, focus, and development of topic – that are at college-level and that analyze and interpret experience, observations, knowledge and/or class reading assignments. Write your thesis to clearly express the main point of your essay (remember to ask yourself what the purpose of your essay is) and topic sentences which clearly focus each paragraph and support the thesis.

Next, to ensure that the structure is organized to fulfill purpose, include a well-defined introduction that sustains a succinct body and conclusion. Place your thesis statement effectively, based on the purpose of the essay and your audience. Logically sequencing your paragraphs will allow you to better connect ideas between your sentences and paragraphs.

Utilize correct style by selecting an appropriate point of view (p.o.v.) and effective words for tone and level of usage. Write clear and concise sentences by incorporating your p.o.v. to support your thesis and topic sentences. Your opinion is welcome, but be sure to support your opinion with facts.

Finally, be sure to use correct mechanics to write an essay that has no or few errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation et al. At least three (3) outside resources (at least one resource must be from print; i.e., book, journal, etc.) are required for this essay and all resources must be cited, so be sure to use correct MLA style with parenthetical references and a Works Cited page.

(THIS IS WHAT MY PAPER SHOULD BE WRITTEN ABOUT)

“Students can do more: U.S. adults shield kids from tasks that teach”

Issue: School performance

by Dorothy Rich, founder and president of the nonprofit Home and School Institute, MegaSkills Education Center in Washington, D.C.

Lansing State Journal, September 25, 2005.

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We talk about teacher and parent accountability. But what about the accountability that students have for their own education. We adults can teach our students and teach and teach them, but it's the children who have to do the learning.

When you ask what students are accountable for, answers you get include get the top test scores, make all A's, get into a good college. And that message begins in the elementary grades.

This is too narrow a version of education: it's choking the learning life out of a lot of kids.

If we really cared about education, we would expand our thinking about the educational process. It doesn't all happen in the classroom and no matter how good our classrooms are, students have to want to learn and to take responsibility for their learning.

A first grader visiting my home recently, after an afternoon snack, left the dishes on the table. I asked him to go back to clear and clean them. "I don't have to do that at school or at home," he answered.

"Well, here you do," I said, and he did.

You may argue with me, but I call that education. Do we expect enough of our students in a broader educational sense beyond competing to make top grades? Our children need more and wider ways to show what they can do and learn to do. This builds the dignity and respect they need for themselves as learners.

When I visited Japan, I saw young students required to help clean their schools every day. Why not? Why should adults keep children from giving back, from participating, from being involved in their education? It is a gift, and they need to know and recognize it.

Bulgarian college students visiting the United States this summer were startled to see how many American children, who could walk very well, being pushed in strollers. There is an old joke about this. A devoted mother is carrying her grown son. A neighbor stops and says how terrible it is that he cannot walk. "Oh he can walk," answered the mother, "but why should he?"

In a sense that is what is happening in many of our schools today, from low- to high-income neighborhoods. Adults are doing what children need to do. I visited a kindergarten classroom the other day. I love to see children's artwork, even the scribbles. All I saw was teacher work.

And it made me sad.

Student accountability gets harder and harder as kids move forward in the grades because they get so used to adults doing it all. I would like to see older students asked to think through school issues, including their schedules and how subjects get covered. I want students to have a say and a responsibility for how to make better things happen, how to make the school work better.

All through the grades, children can and need to take a more active role in their education. Elementary graders need to go, whenever possible, to parent-teacher conferences. They need to listen to what adults say and respond to it, taking away from the conference what they have to do to improve their own education. Just as we have learned that in medicine, patients have to be involved, when it comes to education, so do children.

We have compulsory schooling. Yet, there is no way to legislate compulsory learning. That comes from inside of us, from our experience, both in and outside the school walls.

Basically, we are all still self-educated. The greatest teachers, the greatest books, the greatest facilities - they all help. But, the bottom line is that children have got to want to learn on their own. That is why we have to work toward student, as well as teacher and parent, accountability.

KRT News Service

Graphic

Los Angeles Times Syndicate