Deborah Tannen Summary

Students are egocentric by nature and relate new ideas to themselves. Teachers I have observed took that into consideration and it is crucial I do as well. However, the teachers observed at one school resorted to building a strong sense of competition among students to push them forward. This has being a highly ineffective approach. Students were more focused on bringing the others down than they were interested in improving themselves.

This has been cemented into the brains of every school boy and girl from early on and yet still, it has become prevalent to relinquish ones desire to be educated so one may conform to the habits of the culture around them. The corruption of mankind is the concept that being intelligent makes you arrogant and off-putting when in reality, becoming literate and informed can open more doors and present more opportunities than every before! In Gerald Graff’s, “Disliking Books”, Graff describes his academic and intellectual upcoming through his experience from literature in school. Despite his environment and the culture around him, Graff found clarity in class discussion and fascination in literature. Slowly, with the guidance of his father and his personal drive to rise above the conformity around him, Graff was able to overcome the corruption around him and find new meaning in being knowledgeable; proving to the world and himself that with the right mindset and determination, you can rise Per aspera ad astra (from the mud to the

The students inability to stay loyal to Margot ties into the similarities of peer pressure today. The students fear of being left out and Williams vocal authority explain why they are influenced by him. Peer pressure is just overall good and bad depending on how it was used. The people of the world need peer pressure for making decisions and for influence. Hopefully, it is used for

Today’s college students are becoming more sensitized to the harshness of the outside world. Instead of learning to be resilient to others’ comments, they are being taught to take offense to any little word that could in some way be connected with a bad experience they might have had, and college administrators and professors are aiding this childish behavior. They are backing this movement to make adults into children. With this new movement to rid college campuses of any speech that may make anyone feel uncomfortable, students are being treated less like adults, and more like elementary children. In their essay, “The Coddling of the American Mind”, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathon Haidt express their concern about this movement.

I like this chapter because it teaches readers to expose their opponent 's weak spot and use it in an argument against them As a student I concede that I did not enjoy reading this book. However I feel that it taught me some new skills that will help me in the long run. Not only did I learn some new things, but I was able to do it on my own. Discontinuing the use of “Thank You for Arguing” would take away class time that should be allotted for other things and uses it to teach rhetorical tools that could be learned over the summer by having students read

Professor Thomas outlines this particular scenario to demonstrate the difficulties in discussing and teaching about academic integrity in school. Because plagiarism can be effectuated with such ease, it often poses problems that many educators dread. Teachers utilize Google, TurnItIn.com and Safe Assign in order to end the cheating which has reached epidemic proportions.” (Thomas, 2011). However, there are intellectual property issues in using these sites and the Conference on College Composition and Communication advises against the use of plagiarism detection services as a policing tool.

In Dudley Delvin’s “Plagiarism in America,” Delvin expresses his opinion about the growing plagiarism epidemic in America’s schools and presents a solution to correct the situation. The modern student body has begun to view plagiarism as a common practice since much of the information used is available instantaneously. Students often fail to see the issue of using another individual’s ideas as their own since the ideas are made public, allowing others to obtain the information. To solve the epidemic, Delvin proposes a solution that increases the surveillance of student work and incorporates zero tolerance policies that punish students for the use of plagiarism. Plagiarism has increased at rates proportionate to the advancements in technology.

In "America Needs Its Nerds" the author Leonid Fridman develops his argument by stating how the nerds feel when they are made fun of by others, how America has created stereotypes and how people look over them for the "cool kids." Many students take pride in their education. They also try to keep their grades up because academic achievement is important. Students who study hard and work hard do not like to admit to others how much they study/work. The author states, "Many students are ashamed to admit, even to their friends, how much they study."

If student rejects a value or norm held by the clique, the student risks reject by the clique, creating a fear inside of the clique. Even with a fear of rejecting looming in the air, many students find conforming to the clique relatively simple. Kory Williamson, who holds the Assistant Lennox Junior and Senior High Principle position with nine previous years of teaching high school history and a Master’s degree in education, emphasizes, “In that stereotype, people feel comfortable because it’s people who are alike them” (Williamson ). In making this comment, Williamson asserts, “You can’t escape the similarities” (Williamson). The essence of Williamson’s argument resides on the fact that students overwhelmingly choose stereotypes

For instance, performance concerns, external pressure, unfair professors, and lack of effort. Those are just some of things that cheaters use to justify their cheating. Before you can end cheating you have to understand their thought process. “It is important to understand what motivates students to cheat because having alternative solutions to the pressures that lead good students to be dishonest may be helpful as you work to encourage your students