A typical downshift might look like the following: An objective statement of the author's idea (perhaps including a short quotation), an objective explanation of that idea, a statement of your idea in response, an explanation of your idea in response, and evidence and detail that supports your idea in response.
Above all, watch your tone. Don't characterize the author's idea. Refute it with facts and evidence.
Blog your response by Thursday at 5 PM. We'll talk about your paragraphs in class on Friday.
BTW, in response to requests by several members of the class who have been ill, I'm postponing the due date of the paragraph portfolio until Monday. If you haven't posted previous paragraph assignments, GET THEM POSTED. You may also include this assignment in your portfolio if you wish.
Singleton argues in his essay that college students have to take basic courses that cover material they should have learned in high school. He states that this is because “they never learned those skills.” However, many college students must take basic course not as result of never learning but rather because they did not meet the required college level. The college level of English and mathematics’ knowledge exceeds the standards needed to pass a high school course in the same subject. For instance, to test out of English at Ohio Wesleyan, a student must receive a four or five on the AP English exam. This fact does not necessarily imply that all students who receive a three or lower should not pass their high school English class. Basic college courses are not a bad thing. They simply show that colleges want an enhanced comprehension, which is above a high school level, of certain subjects.
ReplyDeleteSimpleton’s argument that giving out more F’s to increase the quality of the education system should work because he states that teachers will have to teach with better quality and students will have to put more effort in. He cites that the teachers will begin to care more about their student’s grades if more fail because it directly reflects how well they can teach, and most students do not want to fail. However, Simpleton does not recognize that some teachers will still choose to not fail students. Some teachers knowing that their job would be in jeopardy if too many students began to fail would rig their grades to ensure fewer students began to fail. On the flip side, teachers that teach well and care deeply about what they teach can be stuck with a class with students who do not care about their grades and will put forth minimal effort. Those teachers would be punished. Judging for whether teachers are in fact teaching well would have to go by an individual basis. Simpleton’s claim to give out more widespread F’s, is an idea that I agree with, but not to that extreme of an extent.
ReplyDeleteSingleton argues that by giving out “F”s the quality of the education students receive will greatly increase. This isn’t true in reality instead of raising quality this would just raise the number of drop outs. Right now in any given high school there is a group of students who are working as hard as they can to get by with no intentions of going to college, their only goal is to graduate, and by increasing the number of “F”s distributed your robbing some of these students of the opportunity to graduate from High school. Sure on the one hand you might motivate slacker students to work harder, or they may just decide that they hated high school before and it’s harder now, so why bother? Do we risk making high school harder, and ruining the lives of the already misfortunate or should we simply find another option.
ReplyDeleteIn his article, Singleton states that hardening the grading scale would “Require us to demand as much of ourselves as of our students.” He believes that in order to make the grading scale more challenging, teachers will need to raise their standard of teaching to guarantee that a failed student did not fail because of them. However, I do not see this happening. Many teachers believe they are being underpaid as it is, so they are not going to agree to put in more effort without a salary increase. Every year in my town, teachers march in the Fourth of July parade voicing that they deserve to be paid more. In this economy, school systems are fighting to stay afloat with the money they have and salary increases are just not an option. Teachers who truly care about the well being of their students will raise their standard, but it is inevitable to end up with a massive quantity of failing students with lazy teachers.
ReplyDeleteSingleton argues that giving students F’s will greatly improve the American education system because the students will be forced to learn and fully understand the material. What Singleton doesn’t understand is that giving student’s F’s can also have a very negative impact on the American education system. The students that receive F’s in their classes will have a harder time getting into college or graduate school because F’s will lower their GPA, or put them on academic probation. Colleges and graduate schools will in turn have to lower their expectations and GPA requirements or fewer students will be able to receive a higher education.
ReplyDeleteSingleton argues that more F’s would cause teachers to be more critical of their teaching methods and thus perform better as he says, “we [teachers] could not…conscionably give F’s if we go home thinking… it might somehow be our own fault.” Singleton is suggesting that as teachers hand out more F’s it would improve their teaching because even at the heart of giving more F’s, no teacher wants to fail a student. Hence, teachers would examine their teaching methods so that most students succeed while knowing it is not their fault if a student deserves an F. But Singleton’s theory is not sound and fails to conceptualize the realities of an average classroom. Teachers although they do not want to give F’s are biased as are most people and so while F’s should be given to those that deserve them often teachers see stereotypes of students, such as a lazy jock. And so, they blame the student for failing regardless of whether it is the student’s or their fault. Most people, including teachers, do not want to accept blame or believe they are cause of a student’s failure. Thus, teachers would not examine their teaching style and would simply assume the student is lazy and is deserving of the F. So in effect the handing out of more F’s would not make teachers consider their teaching abilities since they would first blame the student. Another reason Singleton is wrong is he assumes that students would respond to a teacher’s change if the teacher did in fact realize that some students are failing because their teaching method is not working. Just because teachers want to work on helping students that are failing, does not mean that those students want help and so ultimately this technique would not help improve the quality of education. For example, as teachers single-handedly focus on helping those failing to actually learn the material in order to pass, they are letting down the rest of class that may start to struggle without a consistent teacher. Therefore, students would not learn anything new while the teacher devoted their time to one or a few students instead of the many that were already passing the class.
ReplyDeleteSingleton’s claims giving an F “whenever and wherever” would allow principals, etc., to come to terms about improving our education system because as students in levels increase, more money would have to accommodate them. He is referring to high schools because he mentions principals and voters, which are in agreement to the public system. Singleton neglects those in less fortunate areas who are most in need for a better education system. These schools don’t have enough money to begin with so we can’t expect a whole lot more to be brought in. Money spent per pupil is one of the biggest factors in grades because suburban students, on average, do 10% better than those living in urban areas. If those students fail there will be less money per pupil and hence worse grades. In addition, the situation will become worse because there will be a lower teacher to student ratios and teachers will be overwhelmed. Besides, it isn’t always as simple as handing students an F to turn them into straight-A pupils.
ReplyDeleteWhile Carl Singleton, in “What Our Education System Needs Is More F’s,” may believe that more F’s in American education will fix the problems that plague our system, I disagree. While I believe that grade inflation should be reined in, meaning that less talented students should not be able to slide through the education system because of lax teaching standards, I am not as extreme as Singleton. While I understand what Singleton is trying to say in “more F’s,” he is taking too much of an absolute approach. Singleton makes it seem that all unqualified students should get F’s and that all talented or qualified students should get A’s. In his article Singleton proposes a solution to a very real epidemic in American education, but he just needs to work on how he presents it. Singleton’s idea has validity to it, but in a very crude and rough sort of way. Higher standards, meaning grade deflation, would certainly improve the quality of our students, but giving “more F’s” would, at least in my opinion, only discourage needy students and lead them down a path of less opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThe main point in Bagaric and Clarke's Torture: WHEN THE UNNTHINKABLE is MORALLY PERMISSABLE is that torture used in war is acceptable. Although many may agree with this point, I strongly disagree. It has been proven that torture is not an affective way of retrieving information from prisoners and therefore, completely unnecessary. Some may say that torture is deserve and beneficial, but evidence has shown otherwise. Most prisoners tortured have given false confessions, have given false information, and tell whatever the perpetration wants to hear. Torture is a completely unnecessary and inhumane part of war.
ReplyDeleteClarke claims that torture is acceptable in certain situations, and believes that anti-torture movements are “misguided” in the sense that they result in much “injustice and suffering in our society.” In situations like kidnappings and terrorist threats, she believes that torture should be present to save the lives of the innocent. She continues to assert that outlawing torture is a moral indecency, because it places the interests of the wrongdoer first. However, torturing the wrongdoers will get society nowhere. Clarke writes of how torture does not dehumanize society, but rather helps it. She continues to say that the United States allows Ambulances and Police cars to drive fast, putting all people driving in danger, that some people smack their kids, and surgeons sometimes do surgery without anesthetics. That however is wrong because it violates many logical fallacies, specifically the fallacy of Appeals to Common Practice. Appeals to common practice states that X is a common action, so X must be morally acceptable. Just because many believe that torture should be allowed, doesn’t mean it is morally acceptable or just. Torture is more likely to provide false or no information. It is detrimental the rights all human beings have.
ReplyDeleteSingleton argues that handing out more F's to students, the teachers will force their students to learn and fully comprehend the needed material. However, giving more F's can also have a very negative effect on the students and the educational system in America. Some students are so worried about their grades that if they get one F, they begin to shut down academically because they feel as if they can't do any better. They begin to think that up until this point, the classes that they have been taking are easy and didn't need much work. But now that they are in a harder class they need to start working more and harder to do well. It also makes it harder for students to get into college and graduate school because F's lower your GPA and as you start to look at better schools, they begin asking for better GPA's. In the long run, colleges and grad schools will have to begin lowering their GPA requirements, or no one will ever get into the higher education schools.
ReplyDeleteIn Singleton's article he argues that giving out F's in our educational system in will suddenly change the standard of grading and there for the students will receive a better education. Personally, I do not agree with his argument because he is hoping that every single teacher will listen to his suggestion. He is also relying that students will react to this change of grading in perfect fashion. Singleton does not account for all of the variables that can ruin his theory. For example, instead of students reacting to a tougher grading scale by putting in more effort in hopes for better grades, they might shut down and feel it is almost impossible to succeed. Teachers can also get carried away with how easily they are giving out F's, and not stay honest to the students. Just from experience I feel as if Singletons theory is not even possible in todays world because of the importance of GPS's in our school system. Grades are the over all controller of schools because based on GPA schools are ranked and given funds based on their ranking. Schools would not appreciate a harder scale for students to get graded on and have a possibility of loosing funds or going down in rank.
ReplyDeleteOne of the Singleton’s arguments from the essay “What Our Education System Needs Is More F’s” is about participation of parents in their children’s education. The author claims that if F’s became more prevalent, parents would be more involved in their children’s academics. The author also implies that F’s would be a wakeup call to parents which would create better students as their studying outside of school become monitored. However, I feel that an F on a student’s transcript is not the way to send a message out to parents. A sudden shift from normal grades to F’s would make parents question the credibility of the educational system. And it’s not like parents choose not to participate, sometimes they simply cannot because of their commitments. There are other, better and more effective ways to increase parent participation. For example, parent teacher conferences, all home work and tests to be signed by parents, etc.
ReplyDeleteIn his essay, Singleton argues that the way to deal with failing students would be to keep them in the same grade until they learned the required material. According to him, this would alert parents and community members of the importance of education and motivate students to work harder. What Singleton does not account for is the number of students who simply are not able to learn the material, possibly because of a learning disability or negative home environment. Singleton offers no explanation for how to deal with these cases. Using only the argument that Singleton has put forth, these children would theoretically remain in the same grade for the rest of their lives. Even if they would be allowed to simply drop out at a certain age, this still proposes the possibility of a most likely troubled teen in the same classroom as small children, which could result in dangerous situations. Not only that, but taxpayers would continue to support what seems to be, under Singleton's proposed system, a lost cause.
ReplyDelete