MR. MARTIN'S 8TH GRADE LANGUAGE ARTS PAGE!



Name________________________--Article Analysis--The use of homework by teachers is a controversial issue in education. There is a wide spectrum of opinions regarding homework, ranging from “the more, the better” to “homework is completely useless.” You will be reading two articles and viewing a television news report about the importance and value of homework. Write an essay analyzing each article/report. In this analysis, discuss each author’s purpose, as well as their tone and use of support. Which of these items did you find most helpful in understanding the value and correct utilization of homework? Step 1: Determine what the essay prompt is asking of you. What is it not asking of you? Notes:Step 2: Now, break down what it’s asking you into parts. What are the key words?Notes:Step 3: Draft a quick outline for your essay that would address everything the prompt is asking of you.RubricFocus—8 Points--The writer correctly addresses the prompt, writing what is asked of her/her. (3 pts.)--The writer does not veer off topic or add irrelevant detail. (2 pts.)--The writer shows a clear understanding of what the source materials (articles, report, etc.) are saying. (3 pts.)Organization—11 Points--The writer’s ideas are organized in such a way that they are easy to follow. (3 pts.)--Paragraphs are effectively used to break up the writer’s essay. (2 pts.)--An introduction is effectively used to begin the essay. (3 pts.)--A conclusion effectively reinforces the writer’s main points. (3 pts.)Support—17 Points--The writer uses effective, appropriate, and sufficient evidence from the source materials to support their claims. Source referenced often and at least two quotations are used. (11 pts.)--Quotations and references to the source material are correctly cited. (6 pts.) Style—14 Points--The writer maintains an agreeable, formal tone to their writing that benefits their essay. (2 pts.)--The writer uses a variety of sentences, descriptive vocabulary, and transitions to effectively make their claims. (6pts.)--Grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors are kept to a minimum. (6 pts.)50 Points Total--***How to cite for this essay: “According to...”, “As Kohn states,...”, In “The Truth about Homework,”...--No MLA citation necessary. Just reference the item or article.Item #1—TV news report, “Age-old Homework Debate Back in Spotlight,” from NBC Nightly News-- on Item #1:What is the item saying about homework?What is the writer/reporter’s purpose in discussing homework?What sources are used?Are these sources useful? Legitimate? What type of tone does the author establish? How does this tone strike you?Was the writer/reporter convincing to you? Explain.What did the writer/reporter say that helped you come to your conclusions about the homework debate?Item #2—“The Truth About Homework: Needless Assignments Persist Because of Widespread Misconceptions About Learning,” by Alfie Kohn--’s something perversely fascinating about educational policies that are clearly at odds with the available data. Huge schools are still being built even though we know that students tend to fare better in smaller places that lend themselves to the creation of democratic caring communities. Many children who are failed by the academic status quo are forced to repeat a grade even though research shows that this is just about the worst course of action for them. Homework continues to be assigned – in ever greater quantities – despite the absence of evidence that it’s necessary or even helpful in most cases.The dimensions of that last disparity weren’t clear to me until I began sifting through the research for a new book. To begin with, I discovered that decades of investigation have failed to turn up any evidence that homework is beneficial for students in elementary school. Even if you regard standardized test results as a useful measure, homework (some versus none, or more versus less) isn’t even correlated with higher scores at these ages. The only effect that does show up is more negative attitudes on the part of students who get more assignments.In high school, some studies do find a correlation between homework and test scores (or grades), but it’s usually fairly small and it has a tendency to disappear when more sophisticated statistical controls are applied. Moreover, there’s no evidence that higher achievement is due to the homework even when an association does appear. It isn’t hard to think of other explanations for why successful students might be in classrooms where more homework is assigned – or why they might spend more time on it than their peers do.The results of national and international exams raise further doubts. One of many examples is an analysis of 1994 and 1999 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data from 50 countries. Researchers David Baker and Gerald Letendre were scarcely able to conceal their surprise when they published their results last year: “Not only did we fail to find any positive relationships,” but “the overall correlations between national average student achievement and national averages in [amount of homework assigned] are all negative.”Finally, there isn’t a shred of evidence to support the widely accepted assumption that homework yields nonacademic benefits for students of any age. The idea that homework teaches good work habits or develops positive character traits (such as self-discipline and independence) could be described as an urban myth except for the fact that it’s taken seriously in suburban and rural areas, too.In short, regardless of one’s criteria, there is no reason to think that most students would be at any sort of disadvantage if homework were sharply reduced or even eliminated. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of American schools – elementary and secondary, public and private – continue to require their students to work a second shift by bringing academic assignments home. Not only is this requirement accepted uncritically, but the amount of homework is growing, particularly in the early grades. A large, long-term national survey found that the proportion of six- to-eight-year-old children who reported having homework on a given day had climbed from 34 percent in 1981 to 58 percent in 1997 – and the weekly time spent studying at home more than doubled.Sandra Hofferth of the University of Maryland, one of the authors of that study, has just released an update based on 2002 data. Now the proportion of young children who had homework on a specific day jumped to 64 percent, and the amount of time they spent on it climbed by another third. The irony here is painful because with younger children the evidence to justify homework isn’t merely dubious – it’s nonexistent.*So why do we do something where the cons (stress, frustration, family conflict, loss of time for other activities, a possible diminution of interest in learning) so clearly outweigh the pros? Possible reasons include a lack of respect for research, a lack of respect for children (implicit in a determination to keep them busy after school), a reluctance to question existing practices, and the top-down pressures to teach more stuff faster in order to pump up test scores so we can chant “We’re number one!”All these explanations are plausible, but I think there’s also something else responsible for our continuing to feed children this latter-day cod-liver oil. Because many of us believe it’s just common sense that homework would provide academic benefits, we tend to shrug off the failure to find any such benefits. In turn, our belief that homework ought to help is based on some fundamental misunderstandings about learning.Consider the assumption that homework should be beneficial just because it gives students more time to master a topic or skill. (Plenty of pundits rely on this premise when they call for extending the school day or year. Indeed, homework can be seen as a way of prolonging the school day on the cheap.) Unfortunately, this reasoning turns out to be woefully simplistic. Back “when experimental psychologists mainly studied words and nonsense syllables, it was thought that learning inevitably depended upon time,” reading researcher Richard C. Anderson and his colleagues explain. But “subsequent research suggests that this belief is false.”The statement “People need time to learn things” is true, of course, but it doesn’t tell us much of practical value. On the other hand, the assertion “More time usually leads to better learning” is considerably more interesting. It’s also demonstrably untrue, however, because there are enough cases where more time doesn’t lead to better learning.In fact, more hours are least likely to produce better outcomes when understanding or creativity is involved. Anderson and his associates found that when children are taught to read by focusing on the meaning of the text (rather than primarily on phonetic skills), their learning does “not depend on amount of instructional time.” In math, too, as another group of researchers discovered, time on task is directly correlated to achievement only if both the activity and the outcome measure are focused on rote recall as opposed to problem solving.Carole Ames of Michigan State University points out that it isn’t “quantitative changes in behavior” – such as requiring students to spend more hours in front of books or worksheets – that help children learn better. Rather, it’s “qualitative changes in the ways students view themselves in relation to the task, engage in the process of learning, and then respond to the learning activities and situation.” In turn, these attitudes and responses emerge from the way teachers think about learning and, as a result, how they organize their classrooms. Assigning homework is unlikely to have a positive effect on any of these variables. We might say that education is less about how much the teacher covers than about what students can be helped to discover – and more time won’t help to bring about that shift.Alongside an overemphasis on time is the widely held belief that homework “reinforces” the skills that students have learned – or, rather, have been taught -- in class. But what exactly does this mean? It wouldn’t make sense to say “Keep practicing until you understand” because practicing doesn’t create understanding – just as giving kids a deadline doesn’t teach time-management skills. What might make sense is to say “Keep practicing until what you’re doing becomes automatic.” But what kinds of proficiencies lend themselves to this sort of improvement?The answer is behavioral responses. Expertise in tennis requires lots of practice; it’s hard to improve your swing without spending a lot of time on the court. But to cite an example like that to justify homework is an example of what philosophers call begging the question. It assumes precisely what has to be proved, which is that intellectual pursuits are like tennis.The assumption that they are analogous derives from behaviorism, which is the source of the verb “reinforce” as well as the basis of an attenuated view of learning. In the 1920s and ‘30s, when John B. Watson was formulating his theory that would come to dominate education, a much less famous researcher named William Brownell was challenging the drill-and-practice approach to mathematics that had already taken root. “If one is to be successful in quantitative thinking, one needs a fund of meanings, not a myriad of ‘automatic responses,’” he wrote. “Drill does not develop meanings. Repetition does not lead to understandings.” In fact, if “arithmetic becomes meaningful, it becomes so in spite of drill.”Brownell’s insights have been enriched by a long line of research demonstrating that the behaviorist model is, if you’ll excuse the expression, deeply superficial. People spend their lives actively constructing theories about how the world works, and then reconstructing them in light of new evidence. Lots of practice can help some students get better at remembering an answer, but not to get better at – or even accustomed to -- thinking. And even when they do acquire an academic skill through practice, the way they acquire it should give us pause. As psychologist Ellen Langer has shown, “When we drill ourselves in a certain skill so that it becomes second nature,” we may come to perform that skill “mindlessly,” locking us into patterns and procedures that are less than ideal. But even if practice is sometimes useful, we’re not entitled to conclude that homework of this type works for most students. It isn’t of any use for those who don’t understand what they’re doing. Such homework makes them feel stupid; gets them accustomed to doing things the wrong way (because what’s really “reinforced” are mistaken assumptions); and teaches them to conceal what they don’t know. At the same time, other students in the same class already have the skill down cold, so further practice for them is a waste of time. You’ve got some kids, then, who don’t need the practice and others who can’t use it.Furthermore, even if practice was helpful for most students, that doesn’t mean they need to do it at home. In my research I found a number of superb teachers (at different grade levels and with diverse instructional styles) who rarely, if ever, found it necessary to assign homework. Some not only didn’t feel a need to make students read, write, or do math at home; they preferred to have students do these things during class where it was possible to observe, guide, and discuss.Finally, any theoretical benefit of practice homework must be weighed against the effect it has on students’ interest in learning. If slogging through worksheets dampens one’s desire to read or think, surely that wouldn’t be worth an incremental improvement in skills. And when an activity feels like drudgery, the quality of learning tends to suffer, too. That so many children regard homework as something to finish as quickly as possible – or even as a significant source of stress -- helps to explain why it appears not to offer any academic advantage even for those who obediently sit down and complete the tasks they’ve been assigned. All that research showing little value to homework may not be so surprising after all.Supporters of homework rarely look at things from the student’s point of view, though; instead, kids are regarded as inert objects to be acted on: Make them practice and they’ll get better. My argument isn’t just that this viewpoint is disrespectful, or that it’s a residue of an outdated stimulus-response psychology. I’m also suggesting it’s counterproductive. Children cannot be made to acquire skills. They aren’t vending machines such that we put in more homework and get out more learning.But just such misconceptions are pervasive in all sorts of neighborhoods, and they’re held by parents, teachers, and researchers alike. It’s these beliefs that make it so hard even to question the policy of assigning regular homework. We can be shown the paucity of supporting evidence and it won’t have any impact if we’re wedded to folk wisdom (“practice makes perfect”; more time equals better results). On the other hand, the more we learn about learning, the more willing we may be to challenge the idea that homework has to be part of schooling. Notes on Item #2:What is the item saying about homework?What is the writer/reporter’s purpose in discussing homework?What sources are used?Are these sources useful? Legitimate? What type of tone does the author establish? How does this tone strike you?Was the writer/reporter convincing to you? Explain.What did the writer/reporter say that helped you come to your conclusions about the homework debate?Item #3—“Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement?” by Harris Cooper--, NC - A poll conducted for the Associated Press earlier this year found that about 57 percent of parents felt their child was assigned about the right amount of homework. Another 23 percent thought it was too little, 19 percent thought it was too much.Educators should be thrilled by these numbers. Pleasing a majority of parents regarding homework and having equal numbers of dissenters shouting "too much!" and "too little!" is about as good as they can hope for.But opinions cannot tell us whether homework works; only research can, which is why my colleagues and I have conducted a combined analysis of dozens of homework studies to examine whether homework is beneficial and what amount of homework is appropriate for our children.The homework question is best answered by comparing students who are assigned homework with students assigned no homework but who are similar in other ways. The results of such studies suggest that homework can improve students' scores on the class tests that come at the end of a topic. Students assigned homework in 2nd grade did better on math, 3rd and 4th graders did better on English skills and vocabulary, 5th graders on social studies, 9th through 12th graders on American history, and 12th graders on Shakespeare.Less authoritative are 12 studies that link the amount of homework to achievement, but control for lots of other factors that might influence this connection. These types of studies, often based on national samples of students, also find a positive link between time on homework and achievement.Yet other studies simply correlate homework and achievement with no attempt to control for student differences. In 35 such studies, about 77 percent find the link between homework and achievement is positive. Most interesting, though, is these results suggest little or no relationship between homework and achievement for elementary school students.Why might that be? Younger children have less developed study habits and are less able to tune out distractions at home. Studies also suggest that young students who are struggling in school take more time to complete homework assignments simply because these assignments are more difficult for them.So, how much homework should students do? The National PTA and the NEA have a parent guide called "Helping Your Child Get the Most Out of Homework." It states, "Most educators agree that for children in grades K-2, homework is more effective when it does not exceed 10-20 minutes each day; older children, in grades 3-6, can handle 30-60 minutes a day; in junior and senior high, the amount of homework will vary by subject???." Many school district policies state that high school students should expect about 30 minutes of homework for each academic course they take, a bit more for honors or advanced placement courses.These recommendations are consistent with the conclusions reached by our analysis. Practice assignments do improve scores on class tests at all grade levels. A little amount of homework may help elementary school students build study habits. Homework for junior high students appears to reach the point of diminishing returns after about 90 minutes a night. For high school students, the positive line continues to climb until between 90 minutes and 2?? hours of homework a night, after which returns diminish.Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what's going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.Opponents of homework counter that it can also have negative effects. They argue it can lead to boredom with schoolwork, since all activities remain interesting only for so long. Homework can deny students access to leisure activities that also teach important life skills. Parents can get too involved in homework -- pressuring their child and confusing him by using different instructional techniques than the teacher.My feeling is that homework policies should prescribe amounts of homework consistent with the research evidence, but which also give individual schools and teachers some flexibility to take into account the unique needs and circumstances of their students and families. In general, teachers should avoid either extremeNotes on Item #3:What is the item saying about homework?What is the writer/reporter’s purpose in discussing homework?What sources are used?Are these sources useful? Legitimate? What type of tone does the author establish? How does this tone strike you?Was the writer/reporter convincing to you? Explain.What did the writer/reporter say that helped you come to your conclusions about the homework debate?Sample Introductions:#1I found each of these items insightful about the topic of homework. Each brought forth interesting points. However, after an analysis of their purpose, tone, and use of sources, one article stood out as the most useful. #2Homework is an issue I deal with on a daily basis. Sometimes I’m dealing with it until the wee hours of night. So, I was very interested in reading some research as to whether all this work I’m doing is actually worthwhile. Here’s a breakdown of each item, focusing on author’s purpose, tone, and use of sources.#3Man, do I hate homework! It’s as if these teachers didn’t think we had lives. Therefore, I was very pleased to read Alfie Kohn’s article about how useless homework actually is. It’s terrific that, finally, there’s some research out there that might eventually free students from the bondage of homework.Sample Conclusions:#1 Overall, I found Alfie Kohn’s article the most useful. Kohn used a variety of research to back up his point. He also used sound logic to support his arguments. His tone may have been aggressive, but it needed to be if he’s going to shake up people’s assumption that homework is automatically good. I’ve always felt that students had too much homework, and now I found an expert to back me up. Hopefully, teachers and principals will listen to Kohn.#2In conclusion, kids just need to suck it up and do their homework, just like Harris Cooper suggests. Homework is a good thing for kids. You learn the subject material, and you learn to be responsible and manage your time. He’s a university professor, too. So, he knows what he’s talking about. Students need to stop whining and do their work.#3 After analyzing each author’s purpose, tone, and use of sources, I believe the news report from NBC is the item that most shaped my opinion. It was probably the most informative because they talked with so many different people: teachers, students, parents, and principals. They also referenced studies that backed up both sides of the issue. It was a fair and balanced report that made me realize, as the young girl in the report plainly stated, “I really don’t like homework, at all.”Sample Topic Sentences:#1Let’s begin by analyzing the NBC Nightly News report. The purpose here is clearly to inform. I say this because the report gives a balanced account of each side of the debate...#2I think the tone of each item is quite different. I felt the NBC report had a professional, yet light tone. The reporter wasn’t trying to strong arm the viewer into thinking one way or the other...Sources: Sound reasoning? Studies? Surveys? People involved with the issue? Is the use of sources one-sided or balanced? What is the reliability or quality of the sources used? Are there a variety of sources used? Are there a lot of sources used?Tone: Angry? Calm? Fair? Biased? Intellectual? Serious? Jokey? Professional? Informal? What words or phrases used form the author’s tone? What do the strategies the writer/reporter used say about their tone?Purpose: To inform? Entertain? Persuade? A mixture? What led you to think the author had a certain purpose in mind? One Potential Outline—I. Introduction--What are you writing about?--Why?II. Tone--What was the NBC report’s tone?--Why do you think this?--What was Kohn’s tone?--Why do you think this?--What was Cooper’s tone?--Why do you think this?III. Use of sources--What sources did the NBC report use?--What did you think of their use of these sources?--What sources did Kohn use?--What did you think of their use of these sources?--What sources did Cooper use?--What did you think of their use of these sources?IV. Author’s Purpose--What was the purpose behind the NBC report?--Why did you think this?--What was the purpose behind Kohn’s article?--Why did you think this?--What was the purpose behind Cooper’s article?--Why did you think this?V. Conclusion--Which article was the most helpful to you?--Why?Richard MartinArticle AnalysisThe issue of homework, its use and its value, can be a raw, emotional topic among educators, students, and parents. Students spend a substantial amount of their youth slogging through math problems, textbooks, reading counts books, and social studies projects. Of course, the question arises in students’ minds, “Is this really worth it?” On the other hand, educators may feel their authority undercut as they continue to give homework in the face of findings that suggest assigning homework is poor practice. Because homework is such a controversial, sensitive issue, any articles supporting one side or the other should be carefully evaluated to uncover any bias or flawed reasoning. What follows is an analysis of two web articles and a television report investigating how beneficial homework actually is. Specifically, I focus on the authors’ use of sources, tone, and purpose. First, I’ll discuss each item’s use of sources. In 2012, NBC Nightly News ran a story entitled “Age-old Homework Debate Back in Spotlight.” During the report, students, parents, a teacher, and a principal all gave their opinions about homework. It was smart to include the views of all those involved in the issue of homework. The other two items I read did not include actual quotations from any of these groups, but only provided generalized perceptions of students and educators. The report also referenced two major studies, an Australian study which suggested homework was only helpful to 11th and 12th graders, and a British study which found homework was useful at all grade levels. They included the NEA and PTO’s recommendation that homework amount to a maximum of 10 minutes per grade level, starting in 1st grade. I felt it was a well-rounded report, referencing a variety of sources. However, because it was only a two minute report, it was not all that in-depth. I found Alfie Kohn’s use of sources in his article, “The Truth about Homework,” a little suspect. Kohn uses two national surveys to show that the amount of homework assigned is increasing. I think this is sufficient to prove his point, but the surveys are dated—1997 and 2002. His main argument is that “...decades of investigation have failed to turn up any evidence that homework is beneficial for students in elementary schools.” For high school students, he states “...there is no evidence that higher achievement is due to homework...” Unfortunately, Kohn only refers to one major homework study (also dated), the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study from 1994 and 1999, to back his claim up. If there really are “decades of investigation” to support his argument, I’d think he’d include more than just one study. He also refers to some learning studies from psychology, but these are unconvincingly, loosely tied to his claims. He does use some interesting logic to prove his point. For example, he reasons that some students “don’t need the practice” of homework because they already understand the concepts and other students “who can’t use it” because they didn’t gain enough of an understanding of the concept in class to practice it at home. In comparison to Harris Cooper’s article, “Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement?”, Kohn’s use of sources seems scant. Cooper’s approach is to look at homework from the perspective of a meta-analysis of studies. It appears that he takes into consideration the findings for close to 50 different homework studies when stating his advice as to homework’s usefulness. He asserts that generally, studies find a positive correlation between homework and achievement, although this connection is not as noticeable for younger students. Like the NBC report, he references the NEA/PTO recommendation that, generally, students should have 10 minutes of homework per night per grade level.In terms of tone, I found the NBC report to be unbiased, professional, and somewhat fun. I appreciated that the reporter includes studies supporting both sides of the homework debate and included opinions from students, parents, and educators supporting both sides. I felt like the reporter was trustworthy and honestly looking to find some answers for this “age-old questions.” I say the tone was fun because of its inclusion of student interviews, including one of a little girl frankly stating, “I don’t actually like homework very much, at all.” I found Alfie Kohn’s tone to be aggressive and even insulting at time. At one point, he suggests that those who support the use of homework are disrespectful toward students and ignorant, disregarding the “decades of investigation” that show homework is not beneficial. Later, he suggests that telling students homework will help them is like feeding them “cod-liver oil.” For those who don’t get the reference, cod-liver oil was promoted by fraudulent, old time medicine men as a cure-all for people’s ailments. The implication is that if I give kids homework, I’m no better than a thieving fake doctor. This does not come across as the reasoning of a fair, judicious expert. It completely turned me off to Kohn. Cooper, on the other hand, employs a calm, open-minded, intellectual tone. He’s not out to call anyone names or make them feel bad. He simply states what his meta-analysis suggests about homework and provides a common-sense, middle-of-the-road recommendation that teachers should avoid extremes in the amount of work they assign. Toward the end of the article, he runs through the common arguments of pro- and anti-homework proponents. That he gives space to both sides shows that he is fair. NBC Nightly News, Kohn, and Cooper are all over the board in terms of their purpose. I felt the reporter for NBC wanted to inform and entertain her audience. She was informative in presenting a variety of evidence supporting both sides of the argument. Because this is television, I’m sure she also intended the story to be entertaining—otherwise people would change the channel. I was entertained by the engaging graphics and the short interviews (sound bites) which the parents and children. I didn’t feel the report was trying to persuade me because it wasn’t one-sided. I believe Kohn solely meant to persuade his audience. I say this because his argument is extremely close-minded, not leaving any room for the possibility that homework might be helpful. Perhaps the reason Kohn’s tone was so assertive is because he felt he must really shake people up to get them to depart from old assumption that homework must be a good thing. Kohn may have also meant to be informative, but I didn’t leave the article feeling too enlightened. For him to be informative, he would have had to reference more actual research. The research he did use seemed scant and hand-picked. Because Cooper used a meta-analysis for the basis of his article, I did feel more informed than with Kohn. And, I think that’s what Cooper intended. He comes across like a scholar wanting to help those who are looking for answers on the topic. I believe he also meant to be persuasive because he gives his opinion that homework can be beneficial and give advice for how much teachers ought to assign. Again though, his persuasion is gentle in tone, rather that insulting.As a teacher, I’m charged with helping students master skills that will help them in the future. I’ve always believed homework to be an integral part of fulfilling this responsibility. However, I don’t want to overburden my students, who have many responsibilities and interests apart from school. So, I found Cooper’s article to be the most helpful to me. His advice was practical, and because of his use of tone and sources, I found him to be trustworthy. I also learned interesting, valuable information from the NBC report and Kohn, but I felt Cooper provided a sharp, well-rounded perspective that helped me best understand the topic. ................
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