Persuasive Essay

I wrote this in Thompson's class.
Your principal is considering a new grading policy that replaces letter or number grades on report cards with pass or fail. What is your position concerning this issue? Write a letter to your principal stating your position and supporting it with convincing reasons. Be sure to explain your reasons in detail.


“Mom I got a 4.0;” The common statement for a kid who works hard and is responsible for his stuff. What if the grading policy got changed and it transformed into a pass of fail. Some kids would like and some wouldn’t. I don’t. If you work hard all term and get an A+ and some other kid just copies off you to “pass” the class. If you change the grading policy test scores will drop, there will be more lazy passengers just there to do nothing, and you have no idea actually how well or poorly in a certain class. There will be many bad consequences.
To start off, test scores will drop dramatically. Students will start to think that there only goal is to get a “P” for pass and that’s all they will work for. When this happens there only goal is to slide right by and do the littlest work just to pass the class. I have seen many people right now that just sit there until there grade all the sudden drops from a D- to a F, then, as if somebody fed them a gallon of caffeine they start working to get there grade back up to a D or C. This is one of the severe consequences that will pertain if you change the grading scale.
Secondly, people will do nothing but wine and cause trouble. If students aren’t actively working they will find something else to do, it might not always bring goodness to the classroom. Teenagers need something to do so they go around distracting the kids that are responsible and are trying to do the best that they can. If you change the grading scale even the kids that are trying to do the best that they can do will drop from the distractions and freak-outs that the teachers will have as a result of immature kids. Bad consequences are bound to occur with changing the grading scale.
Finally, when you get a “P” or an “F” you don’t know how exactly how well you did. As I have mention before if you get a C you can still pass the class. I have done well in school and would never know if I was still perfecting my school work. I like to look at my scores and grades and see if I need to kick it up a notch, so I could get an A. I would never know. I do not like the idea of changing the grading policy.
In conclusion, changing the grading policy will have many bad consequences. Grades for tests will drop dramatically, there will be lazy troublemakers, and kids that want to see the best for their future can’t determine whether or not if you did as well as you would have liked. Would you regret it, if your school dropped to the lowest rank in scores?

Jasper: The Evil Little Kitty

For this blog I am going to write about my crazy, annoying, psycho CAT. First of all I like cats and stuff; we had one the entire time I was growing up. Well this cat, Jasper is his name, is the weirdest cat ever. He lies in the bathtub to relax, he will walk in while nobody is in there and jump into the bathtub and just sit there for hours on end. Jasper is like no other cat I ever seen. You know how cats are stuck up felines; Jasper is the least stuck up thing ever. My little sister, who is in LOVE with cats, obviously is the one that spends all her time protecting him and playing with him. One day when I came home from school there was a cat as white as the first blanket of snow that falls during the winter. I was confused, my dad, who also loves cats, said that we would probably never get a chance. You know the word probably doesn’t mean never. So, that small chance that I was going to find a cat at our house some random day on a random week had come. We all started to think of names, Dewey, Snowy, Fredrick Bingham, George, Bob, Max, Johnny, Mike, Cheesecake, Mitchell, Whitey Tighty, Bob the Builder( that was my brothers), Jasper and a whole bunch of other random names that anybody could come up with. All of them got shot off one by one. I liked the name Max; it seemed to fit that snow white cat. My parents said that we need to find a name that everybody likes. Everybody loved Jasper, except me. I was the only exception. I could convince nobody except good old Mom and Dad (since they pick whatever side that comes to them first because they don’t want to make anybody angry with them, oh no) that Max is a good name. Days and days were passing, weeks and weeks and nobody could agree on a name. Since in had been a really long time my parents went with majority. Jasper was the name of that crazy old cat. I have disliked him ever since. There are a couple of other things that bother me about that cat. For one he steals my contacts lids and goes into the kitchen and runs around sliding it on the floor. He knows the exact sound it makes because when I put on my contacts he will come bouncing away into the bathroom to watch me. If I leave the lid off, Jasper will run off with it in his mouth and begin playing. Eventually he will slide it under the armchair and there it will sit until I go out and lift it up to get it. One other thing that he does is he will hide under my bed and when I walk by and swat at my toes, OUCH that hurts. It is the hardest thing to get him out of there so I try to avoid walking next to my bed. I have never liked cats that much from the day when one cat scratched me right across the arm and drew blood all over. That was when I was 5 so I don’t remember much. This is for last week because I am a procrastinating lazy slacker.

Goals

Goals: a good topic to start off the New Year. I have been contemplating what goals are. I think that they are guidelines, but not just ordinary guidelines, they are things that we would like to be better at or do better at. I am sure that you have you have heard the quote “if you plan to fail, you fail to plan.” I have always liked that quote; it has helped me plan for what is to come. Lately I have written down on paper what I would like to accomplish, I have made an agenda and prioritize on what I need to do. It has helped me get done what I need to do. Goals are sometimes hard to make, but if we can accomplish them then they will better us. Some of the goals that I have set are: Get a 4.0 every term, make drum line, work out more, and be nicer to those around me. I have found some quotes on goals.

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
---Anatole France

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
---Epictetus

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.
---Henry David Thoreau

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
---John F. Kennedy

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
---Michelangelo

You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.
---Yogi Berra

I hope that these quotes help you understand goals and I would hope that you will set some meaningful goals, and complete them.