The following is an excerpt from a letter sent by the principal of Greenwood School to the parents of all incoming kindergarteners.
"We have decided to institute a policy of all-day kindergarten, instead of half-day kindergarten, for all students at Greenwood School. All-day kindergarten will help all our students achieve at their highest levels. The classes will be 'tracked', so that average students are together, but high-achieving and low-achieving students will be put together in classes. In this way, the high-achieving students will be able to help pull the low-achieving students up to the high-achieving students' level, so that no student falls behind. The all-day kindergarten classes will cover the same material previously covered in the half-day kindergarten classes, but will go at a slower speed to accommodate learning differences. In addition, the students will receive extra instruction in music, art, and physical education. One of the greatest benefits of the plan, however, is that students will be in a structured environment for longer hours, reducing the numbers of hours that otherwise would be wasted at home or in day care."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
From his letter to the parents of incoming kindergarteners, the principal of Greenwood school definitely seems be having the best interests of his students in his plan to extend half-day kindergarten to a full-day session. In spite of his noble intentions, the reasons that he states for doing so seem to be old-fashioned and not in tune with the annals of modern theories of education.
Kindergarteners typically refer to children below the age of six, who attend school to get prepared for the rigours of formal education. Though it is true that these children need to be slowly brought out of their parents' sheltering and exposed to the highly competitive world of education, expecting them to do so as soon as they join kindergarten is impractical. Half-day or full-day school, it means little when a child is just discovering the truly alien world of learning and discovery. In fact, at such a tender age, children would only undergo unwanted stress if they are made to do too many things at a time, namely, learning what they are taught at school, overcoming the fear of being away from home and adjusting with peers. That established, it would be cruel to not give the child a break from the stress of attending school, what the Principal refers to as 'wasting time at home and in day care'.
Many educationists today will strongly disagree with this Principal's classification of high-achieving and low-achieving students. It is acommon opinion that kindergarten is too early a stage to decide whether a child is a "high" or "low" achiever. Every child is unique, and has some innate talents that are ideally be fostered and developed gradually. If by "high-achieving", the Principal of Greenwood school is referring to the child'd performance in academics, he has a very narrow-minded view of the wonders that children are capable of - not just in so-called studies, but in arenas like music, the finer or performing arts or sports.
Given that every child is unique, it would be impractical to expect these so called "low-achievers" to perform better when they are made to sit at school the whole day. In fact, though adults don't realise it, such children sense that they are inferior to their "high-achiever" peers, and may even rebel against this special treatment and not perform as expected. This may only create a negative impact on the child's ability to learn.
Though a few of the reasons he gives for instituting full-day kindergarten instead of a half-day session are surely valid, it would do well for the parents of those children to carefully think before enrolling their wards in Greenwood school, because this move could prove harmful to their child's overall development and self-esteem in the long run.
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Sentence: From his letter to the parents of incoming kindergarteners, the principal of Greenwood school definitely seems be having the best interests of his students in his plan to extend half-day kindergarten to a full-day session.
Description: A verb, present tense, 3rd person singular is not usually followed by a verb 'to be', infinitive or imperative
Suggestion: Refer to seems and be
Sentence: That established, it would be cruel to not give the child a break from the stress of attending school, what the Principal refers to as 'wasting time at home and in day care'.
Description: The token to is not usually followed by a negator
Suggestion: Refer to to and not
Sentence: In fact, though adults don't realise it, such children sense that they are inferior to their 'high-achiever' peers, and may even rebel against this special treatment and not perform as expected.
Error: realise Suggestion: No alternate word
flaws:
It is an argument essay. But you developed it as an issue essay.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: ? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 2 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 459 350
No. of Characters: 2220 1500
No. of Different Words: 240 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.629 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.837 4.6
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No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 53 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.6 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.339 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.585 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.115 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5