To prepare for Wednesday’s class, please read Chapter 9 of Ancient Rhetorics, which focuses on the classical rhetorical canon of arrangement. After you read this chapter, I would like you to apply some of its suggestions to your first essay on stress and the high school student and substantially revise your opening paragraph or two. That is, as our textbook suggests, I want you to urge your readers forward into your argument. Frame your introduction in a way that recognizes the stance of your audience more explicitly, as well as the kind of case you are making, whether that is an honorable, difficult, mean, ambiguous, or obscure one. (Please note: You don’t need to identify your case as such, but you should write to your readers in way that anticipates their stance and frame your introduction appropriately.)
To do so, you might consider using one of the topics for making audiences attentive and receptive, or using an insinuation to introduce your piece more effectively. Ultimately, the purpose of this exercise is two-fold. I would like you to demonstrate that you can put into practice some of the suggestions from classical rhetoricians, but also I would like to practice substantial revision. Even if you think your introduction is 100% perfect as is, I want you to try something different. You never know, you might discover something new by trying these suggestions.
Please post both your original introduction and your revision here as comment. I look forward to seeing how you revise your opening to this essay.
Have you stepped into the shoes of a student recently to experience our rigorous schedules and demanding curriculum? You, policy makers, seem to have no problem implementing new standards of education within our school systems and pushing us to limits that seem unattainable. High school students face SAT practice tests numerous times a year up until the test, general requirements of their schools every day, and the pressures of life outside the classrooms. How are they expected to balance these levels of stress that build daily from new assignments, sports games, applying to college, extra-curricular activities, and family life? In this New Year, make a resolution to help these kids learn ways to manage their stress levels and lessen the pressures they feel walking into school each morning. It’s time to make changes in our school systems because the competition between students is becoming destructive to their wellness. 2011 is an opportune year to make these alterations to the problems that are ever prevalent in high school student’s lives.
ReplyDeleteHave you stepped into the shoes of a student recently to experience our rigorous schedules and demanding curriculum? Wake up, go to school for six hours, meet with teachers or clubs after school, head out to sports practice or play practice, work for a couple hours, go home, eat dinner, start homework, study for more than four hours, and finally, hit the sheets for bed. When is there time to breathe anymore Mr. Hickenlooper? The stresses of high school that student’s face these days is becoming unbearable. Balancing this stress between new assignments, sports games, applying to college, extracurricular activities, and family life seems more challenging than walking on a tight rope. The rigorous schedules students face and rapid competition growth between peers is detrimental to any adolescent’s wellness. In this New Year, make a resolution to help these kids learn ways to manage their stress levels and lessen the pressures they feel walking into school each morning. Changes need to be made in our school systems! Take this opportune year, 2011, to make these alternations to the problems that are ever prevalent in our high school student’s lives.
The high school years are a time for the student to grow, learn, and experience. Although, growing, learning, and experiencing new things seems to bring on unnecessary stress during these years. To parents of students who are in the midst of their high school years, your child’s stress free, carefree life may now take a turn once they begin to feel the pressure of transcripts and college applications. It is part of your job as a parent to make sure you are not putting even more stress on your child because they already have enough from teachers, counselors, and peers at school. You must eliminate the stress you put on your high school student.
ReplyDeleteDear Parents of high school students,
The high school years are a time for the student to grow, learn, and experience, although, growing, learning, and experiencing new things seems to bring on unnecessary stress during these years. To parents of students who are in the midst of their high school years, your child’s stress free, carefree life may now take a turn once they begin to feel the pressure of transcripts and college applications. It is part of your job as a parent to make sure you are not putting even more stress on your child because they already have enough from teachers, counselors, and peers at school. This is a crucial time in your child’s life, they are in their high school years, some of the best years of their lives filled with lots of fun, learning, and growing up. If you, the parents, put too much stress on your child you could loose them maybe not literally, but mentally. College is right around the corner and if you loose them now by putting too much stress and pressure on them, than you may never get them back. Now, many of you may say this is a little drastic, there is no way I could possibly put that amount of stress on my child. Well, it is all about knowing your own child. By knowing how much your high school student can handle will help you determine the amount of stress they can handle, although if you don’t lay off the stress first in order to fully understand your child’s needs than it become too late. You must eliminate the stress you put on your high school student.
I have recently been looking more deeply into the stress in high school students that comes from different sources of pressure and I decided to write you a letter because I know you are one of my closest friends and you were very overstressed throughout high school. I know that it is too late to help you through your stress but maybe it can help you with your stress throughout college. If not, I think that this information can be passed along to future high school students through you and me to help them.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever thought about just how much stress bogged you down during high school? Or how unstressed others were? You could have had that same experience if you had known some of these things that I have been learning about. Stress was something that plagued you throughout high school. It is too late to help you through high school, which is what many of the articles I read focused on, but I think that you can take some of these suggestions and put them into practice in your college life. I urge you to think about this situation because it can really help you to bring light to your past issues with stress and any current issues or issues in the future that you may have with it.
Dear Parents,
ReplyDeleteA recent issue has been brought to my attention about the excess amounts of stress pertaining to high school students. Each and every one of us can attest to the negative effects of stress. Yet while knowing the extreme consequences that are caused by stress, we continue to push our kids to succeed. These young teenagers are stressing themselves out by trying to reach our expectations as parents. Parents only want the best for their children, but are our expectations realistically achievable for a 15 year old? As parents, we tend to blame teachers, homework, and the curriculum for the stress our kids are undermining, but have we ever stopped to think that is us who raised our kids to be this way? You want nothing more than for your child to succeed and attend a highly selective university and be well off later in life, but high school is a time for so much more than good grades and homework. Parents play a dominant role in the lives of their children. The person they grow up to be almost always mimics the attitudes and work habits of their parents. High school students will encounter stress at some point in their life, but now is not the time. There are much more stressful events in life these children will encounter than high school assignments. Our overwhelming high expectations for our children are creating unnecessary stress in high school students.
A recent issue has been brought to my attention about the excess amounts pertaining to high school students. Each and every one of us can attest to the negative effects of stress. Yet while knowing the extreme consequences that are caused by stress, we continue to push our kids to succeed. These young teenagers are stressing themselves out by trying to reach our expectations as parents. Are teachers, homework, and the curriculum really the problem here? Or as parents are you blindsided by the fact it is you who raised your children to be the way they are? In recent years, publications like the New York Times has reflected critically on the stress that high school students face and has suggested that parents are the route of the cause. Parents play a dominant role in the lives of their children. The person they grow up to be almost always mimics the attitudes and work habits of their parents. There are much more stressful events in life these children will have to face besides high school homework assignments. Teach your child to handle stress the correct way. Our overwhelming high expectations for our children are creating unnecessary stress in high school students.
After I read the debate article about the high school student’s pressures in the U.S. , it reminds me my experience in my high school in China. That is a period of life that I would never forget it. Therefore, I want to write something to the high school policy maker. I want you to think about our education system and also think about how could you do some change for it, please.
ReplyDeleteThe article about the high school student’s pressures makes me relate it to the high school system in China. This system is a good one for student to knowledge themselves, and also it is a good system to train students to follow the rules. However, this system has something that need to improve, such as the size of classes and the relationship between students and teachers. Therefore, I hope my suggestions for you, the policy maker, could help for let our high school systems be more successful.
In today’s society everything comes down to numbers, whether how high or how low, everyone has a number. It may be your credit score, mortgage, or if you’re in high school, your GPA or Grade Point Average. One of the main factors affecting your GPA is the amount of A.P. (Advanced Placement) or honors courses that you take. Students stress over taking courses like this to improve their number, so they can get into a respectable college, so they can grow up to be successful. This is detrimental to any child’s youth because instead of focusing on what a normal child should be doing, having fun. Children as young as 12 are seeing stress related illnesses because of school, and the problem only gets worse by the time they reach high school. The reason for all this trouble is to pad the GPA, increase class rank, and get into college. Students are succumbing to un-needed stress at a younger age which later goes onto prove worthless.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, high school students only had, to worry about a few things; such as dating, sports, dances, and maybe the occasional midterm or final. Today, children as young as the age of 12 are seeing some serious stress related problems induced by the workload at school. While the problem lays mostly with teenager’s age 14 to 18, younger students are feeling the pressure now more than ever. So what could possibly be such an issue to cause middle and high school students so much anxiety? The answer is simple; the workload that students undergo today is far more intense and rigorous than ever before. With so much pressure to be valedictorian, receive a high ACT or SAT scores, and get into Harvard, children are taking more difficult classes that they show no interest in. Driven by parents, teachers, and themselves, students are doing less of what they want to do, and more of what they think they need to do.
Dear Parker,
ReplyDeleteI am writing you this letter to inform you of the danger of high school stress (which you had a lot of). Throughout high school you were the perfect student with straight A’s, school president, and the class mom. You wanted to be involved in every club and play on every sport team possible. You’re schedule in high school was packed from 6 am to 6 pm. Not only did you never miss school, you attended extra help sessions, and not once turned in an assignment late. Parker, your drive to succeed was higher than anyone else’s a I know, and you are very good at it, but your stress level was over the top. Some days you would have unnecessary breakdowns over a simple paper or math assignment. Since your schedule consisted of school, sports, and leadership positions; you broke down very easily when given a simple task. I think you put way too much on your plate at one time, which resulted in break downs. Your mom always wanted you to be the best at everything and to have a resume that would grant you an acception to any college of your dreams. Yes, to be a well rounded student is a positive but when you are doing too much, it becomes a negative. As I read many articles on the stress of high school students I felt like I should share some of the statistics with you.
Dear Parker,
I am writing you this letter to inform you of the danger of high school stress (which you had a lot of). Throughout high school you were the perfect student with straight A’s, school president, and the class mom. You wanted to be involved in every club and play on every sport team possible. You’re schedule in high school was packed from 6 am to 6 pm. Not only did you never miss school, you attended extra help sessions, and not once turned in an assignment late. Parker, your drive to succeed was higher than anyone else’s I know, and you are very good at it, but your stress level was over the top. Some days you would have unnecessary breakdowns over a simple paper or math assignment. The day I specifically remember is when we had a short English paper on The Great Gatsby, and you stayed up all night perfecting a 3 pages paper. You knew the material and had read the book, so the amount of effort and stress you made from the assignment was excessive. Since your schedule consisted of school, sports, and leadership positions; you broke down very easily when given a simple task. I think you put way too much on your plate at one time, which resulted in break downs. Your mom always wanted you to be the best at everything and to have a resume that would grant you an acception to any college of your dreams. Yes, to be a well rounded student is a positive but when you are doing too much, it becomes a negative. Being well rounded shows drive, determination, and the want to succeed, but once these activities become your entire life, people tend to change because they have no time to express their true self. Their lives are controlled by the activities and personality and individual thoughts are not as apparent. As I read many articles on the stress of high school students I felt like I should share some of the statistics with you. These statistics might make you realize how stress negatively effects your body and change your ways.
Parents live vicariously through their kids. They want what their children accomplish for themselves, which is a method that is set up for disaster. Life 45 and 50 years ago was definitely harder, but when speaking in term of competitiveness, things were a lot easier. Getting into college has become one of the most difficult things in this time period. The competition for getting into college is overwhelming and overbearing. Colleges have become very prestigious. Even getting into college is an amazingly incredible accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteParents live vicariously through their kids. My parents do, my friends parents do. Parents want their kids to accomplish things. Even though they aren't allowed to admit it, they want them to accomplish things that they want them to. They will usually be supportive, but behind it all there are things parents want their kids to do. Although it seems inevitable, this needs to change. All this does is set up kids and parents for disaster.
Original Intro
ReplyDeleteLet me tell you a little secret. There’s an abundance of stress that some High School students face that may not even be necessary. In fact, it can be easily avoided. The buzz word is Advanced Placement classes: classes of college rigor and difficulty that are taken at high school. Students are supposed to get college credit for taking AP classes and passing with an AP test score of 3 or more (the higher the score, the more college credit received). According to Christopher Drew, “The College Board created the first exams at the behest of elite preparatory schools, which wanted to convince colleges that their best students could dart right into advanced work.” (Drew 2) Nowadays, these tests have been filled with more and more information, creating more work for students, as they have been required to cover more information in the same amount of time that they had before (Drew).
New Intro
I know there may be some disagreements on this issue. Here’s my side of the debate. Some high school students are feeling unmanageable amounts of stress. I feel that it’s not primarily due to students interacting with other students. It’s due to students signing up for way too many AP Courses. AP stands for Advanced Placement, and they entail grueling amounts of work. If students sign up for too many of these courses, they may find themselves in too deep.
Parents place a lot of stress on their kids. Almost every parent does this to their child. Parents want their kids to be successful in life and to be happy. Often, parents do not even realize the pressure they are placing on their kids
ReplyDeleteParents place stress on their children because they want them to succeed. Almost every parent does this to his or her child. The reason they want them to succeed is because they want to watch them have a superior life. The parents have seen in their lifetime the people that have not succeeded and do not want this to happen to their children. The opportunity for success pushes them to put added pressure on their kids in ways such as job searching, and most importantly finding a well-respected university. A lot of the time parents don’t even realize the amount of pressure they are putting on their kids.