Essay 5, Your Final Research Paper Worth 150 Points: Chapter 4 “How We Learn” from Acting Out Culture (Choose One Below)
First Option
In a 5-page essay, not including Works Cited page, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the assigned selections from Chapter 4 evidence that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.
Easy to convert into a Thesis
The selected essays in Chapter 4 make a convincing case that education is less about empowering students and more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control.
Second Option
In a 5-page essay, not including Works Cited page, support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s argument from “Degrading to De-grading” that the American grading system is a travesty of education that kills learning, compromises teaching, and entails other kinds of abuses.
Sample Thesis
Kohn's argument to end grading as we know it is a cheap piece of propaganda evidenced by his pandering to upper class Americans who are less interested in teaching their children real life skills but wish to shelter them with touchy-feely, pseudo-liberal ideas of "inclusiveness," "equality," and "friendship," qualities that, in the context of education, are a mishmash of worthless New Age Speak.
Third Option
Kohn writes about the need to move a school “from a grade orientation to a learning orientation” (pp. 239, 243). What do you think he means? How, according to Kohn, does grading make it harder to focus on learning? Write an essay in which you discuss the characteristics of these two orientations. Do you think it’s possible to have an educational system that emphasizes both?
Sample Thesis
Kohn's over simplistic proposition that we can either grade our children or educate them is a fallacy that informs all the other nonsense of his argument evidenced by ______________, ______________, _______________, and __________________.
Fourth Option
According to Rizga (252), the primary factor responsible for designating a school as "failing" is our current reliance upon standardized tests. Write an essay in which you evaluate the validity or usefulness of using standardized tests to rank the performance of schools. Do such tests offer a fair, accurate, or helpful measure of a school's performance or not? How? If you were charged with revamping the system for evaluating school performance, what kind of standardized test (if any) would you utilize? Why?
Sample Thesis
As Rizga's essay and John Oliver's video show, standardized grading is a scandal that has abandoned school's commitment to children while re-focusing its efforts on lining the pockets of the standardized test publishers and their corrupt minions.
Fifth Option
In "Against School" John Gatto accuses American public schools of not teaching critical thinking skills and instead mindless consumerism. Should schools teach critical thinking that would teach us values and consumer habits based on those values as evidenced in the John Verdant essay "The Ables Vs. The Binges"? Does such "value teaching," as evidenced in the Verdant essay, contain an implicit political point of view that makes "value teaching" inappropriate? Why or why not? Explain in a research paper.
Sample Thesis
The stark contrast of the intelligent Ables and the dysfunctional Binges complements Gatto's assertion that public schools have abandoned their mission to teach critical thinking and real-life skills to children in favor of social control and exploitation.
Sixth Option
Read "The Coddling of the American Mind" and argue if an educational institution that protects students from microaggressions is either creating an optimum learning environment or is transforming young people into overly fragile narcissists.
Sample Thesis
Not all microaggressions are alike. Some are stupid and trivial. Others are racist and ignorant. If there is to be value in the teaching of microaggressions, then we need to develop a Hierarchy of Offense that establishes what is superficial nonsense and what is truly offensive. While phony microaggressions are characterized by __________, __________, and ____________, authentic racist aggressions are evidenced by ________________, ________________, _____________, and __________________.
“Against School” by John Taylor Gatto (271)
Here is the essay online.
One. In the essay’s opening, we see that boredom is synonym for all sorts of horrible things. Give a list of things boredom stands for.
Learned helplessness
Resentment or mutual loathing (everyone blames everyone else for the problems at school)
Recurring cycles of futility, which brings up Einstein’s definition of insanity
Monotony
Lethargy, the fatigue and enervation from being mired in a problem with no apparent solution for so long
Lowered expectations
Dysfunction, settling into the idea that “this is how it is” and “nothing can be done,” so I’ll just “ride this out.”
Two. Who does Gatto blame?
All of us. We are all responsible, according to Gatto’s grandfather, to entertain and amuse ourselves.
We have all been responsible for the apathy and tolerance to brain-dead mediocrity.
Three. For Gatto, what is the difference between education and forced schooling?
He argues that “mass compulsory schooling” is not associated with success if we look at history.
The goals of “mass compulsory schooling” were defined, we read during 1905 and 1915 and they focused on the following:
One. To make good people.
Two. To make good citizens.
Three. To make each person his or her personal best.
For Gatto and H.L. Mencken who Gatto quotes, education is a form of indoctrination in which we brainwash students to fit with the system, be mediocre, and conform into the same type of safe person. This conformity is to the model of the mindless consumer who is obedient to marketing and advertising in order to insure a robust economy.
We further read that schools base their operations on indoctrination, not critical thinking.
Obedience to authority, conformity to norms, learning the “correct” social role, labeling the students according to perceived rank (tag the “unfit”; promote the desirables), pass on elite power to younger generation of the elite and to hell with the rest of them (276).
In contrast, a teacher serves his students well if he gives them critical thinking skills:
Learn how to think for yourself by establishing informed or considered opinions, not habitual, inherited, adaptive, or peer-driven ones.
Learn how to read critically.
Learn the difference between causation and correlation.
Identify logical fallacies.
Grow and flourish as you become an adult and independent thinker.
Writing Prompt
In a 5-page essay, not including Works Cited page, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the assigned selections from Chapter 4 evidence that American education is more about protecting private business interests, maintaining class bias, and asserting mass control than it is about promoting real empowerment such as critical thinking, independence, and freedom.
Sample Thesis
The essays in Chapter 4 make it clear that American schools are rigged to help the rich and neglect the poor, to maintain business interests, to maintain class bias, and to maintain control over the masses.
Another Sample Thesis
John Taylor Gatto and other writers in the Education Chapter accurately diagnose the corruption of school by pointing out that it is not designed to educate us to be our better selves; rather, public education is about indoctrinating us to be malleable slaves to mediocrity and conformity evidenced by _____________, _____________, _____________, and ______________.
Thesis That Disagrees with the Above
While American schools are clearly mediocre, class-biased, and often corrupt, one can, with ingenuity and ambition, use the school system, as bell hooks did, to climb the economic ladder and achieve the American Dream.
Thesis That Disagrees with the Above
While some, like bell hooks, achieve upward economic mobility in spite of the obstacles of America's class-biased school system, their rare success stories do not absolve the American public school system for its egregious failure to serve all Americans but only the upper class.
Thesis That Disagrees with the Above
The above writer suffers from a socialist delusion of equality, which collapses under the Darwinian laws that govern America's tales of success and failure.
Thesis That Disagrees with the Above
To rely on Darwinism to defend America's public school system is a heinous and morally bankrupt rhetorical strategy tantamount to the imbecilities spewed by that cantankerous nincompoop Donald Trump and that self-professed priestess of self-reliance and pompous demagogue Ayn Rand.
Your Essay Must Have a Thesis Statement That Is the Engine of Your Essay's Body Paragraphs
A thesis statement is an assertion that can be demonstrated with logic, reasoning, and examples.
We read in US & World News Report that, "Among millennials ages 25 to 32, earnings for college-degree holders are $17,500 greater than for those with high school diplomas only, a new study finds."
The above is not a thesis; it is a fact. We could use such a fact or study to support a thesis.
A thesis from the above would look like this:
While college costs are punitive and oppressive, especially to those with modest financial means, going to college for most people is worth its steep investment when we consider gains in lifetime income, networking with diverse populations, developing literacy, and creating a legacy of higher income for future generations.
Thesis statements or claims go under four different categories:
One. Claims about solutions or policies: The claim argues for a certain solution or policy change:
America's War on Drugs should be abolished and replaced with drug rehab.
Two. Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that a person, thing, policy or event caused another event or thing to occur.
Social media has turned our generation into a bunch of narcissistic solipsists with limited attention spans, an inflated sense of self-importance, and a shrinking degree of empathy.
Three. Claims of value: These claims argue how important something is on the Importance Scale and determine its proportion to other things.
Global warming poses a far greater threat to our safety than does terrorism.
Four. Claims of definition. These claims argue that we must re-define a common and inaccurate assumption.
In America the notion of "self-esteem," so commonly taught in schools, is in reality a cult of narcissism. While real self-esteem teaches self-confidence, discipline, and accountability, the fake American brand of self-esteem is about celebrating the low expectations of mediocrity, and this results in narcissism, vanity, and sloth.
General Punctuation Rules Including Comma, Semicolon, and Colon
Semicolon Rules
Use semicolon for two related sentences:
Dark chocolate is my second favorite dessert; my first favorite is Costco-purchased Ghirardelli Triple-Chocolate Brownies.
When I was five years old, my parents moved us into the Royal Lanai Apartments of San Jose, California; by the time I was seven we had advanced to a large house in the nearby suburbs.
I used the Jack Crazy Man Ripped Abs Training Program for six months; it proved worthless: I'm as fat as ever.
Use semicolon for two related sentences separated by a conjunctive adverb:
I didn't get the pesto pizza; instead, I chose the zesty feta cheese with Greek olives.
I won't loan you a thousand dollars; however, I'll pay you $50 to wash my car.
Torrance is a good place to live a sedate, stagnant existence as you grow old in your elastic waistband Dockers; in contrast, Santa Monica is more snappy and urbane for aspiring hipsters.
I won't break up with you for cheating on me; nevertheless, you must now live with the guilt of knowing that I will forever feel like a rusty claw just ripped into my chest and tore out my heart.
Use semicolon to clarify a list:
Planet Earth was saved by Superman, the Man of Steel; Aquaman, the Creature of the Deep; Batman, the Caped Crusader; Captain America, Fighter for Justice; Wonder Woman, the Goddess of Crime Stoppers, and Thor, the Hero of Fury.
Without the semicolons, you would think the world was saved by 12 heroes when in fact it was saved by only 6.
Colon Rules
Use a colon to introduce a list:
My favorite desserts are the following: triple-chocolate brownies, cherry pie ladled with Italian vanilla gelato, fresh apple jelly donuts doused with powdered sugar, German chocolate cake, and cinnamon butter pecan coffee cake.
I decided to hire you for several reasons: One, you are reliable. Two, you pay attention to details. Three, you appear to be someone of conscience. Four, you appear to have a hard work ethic. And five, I'm hoping you can set me up with your sister. And perhaps throw in a few good words for me.
Use a colon to emphasize further explanation:
I feel like an old, beat-up dollar bill: Just as an old dollar bill is never accepted in the Coke machine, I'm never accepted by mainstream society.
I remember the first thought I had when my first girlfriend told me she loved me: Oh my God, I need to find a way to get out of this.
Use a colon to precede a quotation, a summary, or a paraphrase:
Paul Fussell explains that X People supremely discard middle-class values and mores: For X People, Fussell explains, the good life is experiencing the Now in all its richness, not groveling for some pathetic social status.
In the masterpiece memoir Muscle, author Samuel Wilson Fussell contemplates his growing paranoia and pent-up emotions: "The threat wasn't just from without; it also came from within. The fright I'd felt on the streets of New York I also felt deep within myself. Who was this man who cried not just at graduations and weddings but during beer and credit-card commercials? Who was this man terrified of his own rage, his own anger, his own greed, his own bitterness? Who was this man who never head a compliment without hearing a subtextual insult, who never said 'I love you' without resenting the other fact: 'I need you.' I couldn't deny it was me, or could I?"
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