Jay Trivedi

Phase 3 Essay Freshman Composition

11/13/20

Cover Letter

Knowing that my audience is college students, who receive homework in college and have been receiving homework for over ten years from school, I decided to use them as an outlet for this paper. Because they have been receiving all kinds of quantities of homework for such a long period of time, they are a credible group for me to present my argument to me. I tailored my essay towards my audience by specifically talking about experiences that they have most likely also encountered. As you will be able to see, in my introduction, I try to put them in the shoes of where they have already been a countless amount of times. I bring them back to these experiences to give them a more negative perception of homework in hope of my classmates siding with me. I also ask them various questions to keep them engaged and paint a picture in their heads.

One meaningful insight that I gained is thinking about how much my life has changed over the years. More importantly, I was able to see how a change in an education environment has impacted me over the years and even saw the direct impacts that homework had on my personal life and my mental health. Regarding literacy, I feel like the only thing that homework benefited me in was my comprehension level. When teachers would assign a certain amount of time to read, I would benefit from this more than any of the other homework assignments that were assigned. 

In this phase specifically, I feel that purpose, argument, and evidence impacted me the most. When writing the assignment for this phase, I saw purpose emerge as a writing practice that I focused on heavily. Most assignments require the writer’s input to some extent, however, in this phase, this theme was something that I was very passionate about and therefore took this to heart. Relating to purpose, argument was something that I focused on and learned a lot about. It is not enough to focus on your purpose, but you have to rather argue your claim, or otherwise known as purpose. It is important to present your argument in an organized fashion, in order for the reader/audience to hear you out. The purpose of your piece is what you intend to do, but do not flat out say, while your argument is usually written directly in the thesis. Additionally, an argument has to be supported by evidence, which is what I used with statistics and experts’ input that I was able to research and express in my Research Essay.

I was able to integrate multiple course learning outcomes and be able to showcase these abilities. One course outcome I was able to learn and implement was, “Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.” I was able to study this outcome by picking out multiple sources and seeing how these sources would come together and could be used in my argument. I was able to line up my interests with these and present my argument through these sources.

Homework: Why it’s killing our kids

Lory Hough, a well known author who publishes school and education-related articles for Harvard, in her article, “Are you down with or done with homework?” argues that there is no clear response for whether homework should be banned or given. She supports this idea by first discussing what Stephanie Brant, a principal of an elementary School in Gaithersburg, is implementing in her school, in that she is replacing homework with reading for thirty minutes, then discusses the benefits of cutting down homework or eliminating it as a whole, and finally speaking on the consequences of doing such a thing. Hough’s purpose is to show the dangers of giving too much and too little homework and explaining how every student functions and reacts differently in certain environments in order to spread awareness to a future change that could possibly end up impacting students in a potentially negative fashion. She adopts a neutral, informative tone for her audience, the readers of Harvard Magazine and others interested in the topic of time and stress management for students. 

“Can we not have homework?” This is a statement that every student not only hears, but also wants every day at school. Hardly any students actually enjoy doing homework and most kids see it as an overwhelming chore. Now that most of us are in college, we do not receive as much homework, but rather consume more information in class and have a heavier workload geared more towards tests and projects. However, to further understand this feeling, you have to think back to when you were a young child. You most likely felt sad on Mondays especially knowing that you have to go do homework after an eight hour school day. Homework was assigned to us almost every day, regardless of how much information we consumed in school that day. To make matters even worse, a lot of us could have tests the next day, but instead had to spend time going to school and doing homework, and when we got home this school and homework time took away time from important assessments. Homework should be banned, or at the least limited because it does not increase productivity, does not allow students to flourish outside of a classroom setting, and leads to mental health conflicts.

Hough illustrates this when she writes, “This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.” In introducing this, Hough argues and keeps her ear open for Stephanie Brant’s claim, in that when students do homework based on content they learned at school after coming home from school, this benefits nobody. Relative to my claim, Hough explains that instead of being “robotic” and repeating what students should have learned at school, they should let their mind rest and let themselves “digest” and synthesize the content rather than overflowing. Hough implies that when there is an abundance of homework, this takes away from studying for “rigorous AP exams, midterms, finals, and essays.” Knowing that we are college students, this could not be more true,  where homework has overflowed our brains with content when we have a test in another class the next day.

Suzanne Capek Tingley, a former student and principal who is now a writer who specializes in giving her thoughts on educational policies, in her essay, “Should Students have Homework?” published on the WGU website, addresses the topic of changing the workload of homework, and argues that lowering the amount of homework can benefit students heavily and can be an overall positive change. She backs this claim by speaking on the quantity of homework, then examining the widespread of schools banning homework, and finally showcases why homework should at least be decreased, if not limited significantly. Tingley’s purpose is to explain why homework needs to be limited in order to enforce change in schools that will benefit students and society as a whole. She adopts a persuasive, detailing tone for her audience, the readers of the WGU website and others interested in the topic of changing workload of homework or schoolwork in general. 

Tingley illustrates all of this when she states, “Child psychologist Kenneth Barish wrote in Psychology Today that battles over homework rarely result in a child’s improvement in school. Children who don’t do their homework are not lazy, he said, but they may be frustrated, discouraged, or anxious. And for kids with learning disabilities, homework is like “running with a sprained ankle. It’s doable, but painful.” The essence of Tingley’s claim is that homework is just simply not worth it with the rate it is given. She uses multiple studies to show that homework hardly affects course grades, if having any type of positive impact. With these hours of homework come mental health problems including anxiety, stress, and being overwhelmed in general. Tingley is right in the sense that assigning too much homework can in fact, decrease productivity because of an overburden and lead to anxiety, stress, and other potentially worse mental health problems.

Courtney B., a student who is writing to president Donald Trump, in her letter, “Homework should be banned,” published in Letters2President addresses the topic of the effects of homework on students and argues that homework should be banned for students across all schools. She supports this claim by first giving her audience a background on the life of the student in an attempt for the audience to better understand her claim, then describing the circumstances of different students and explaining what students experience in their lives, and finally describing the direct negative effects that homework have on students and clearly describes in detail the negative consequences. Courtney’s message is clear, She expresses her desire to ban homework across schools and feels as though homework is negatively impacting the next generation. She adapts a persuasive and logical tone by backing her claim with proven statistics for her audience, the readers of this letter to the president, and the president himself. 

In Courtney’s view, “ Senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education, Denise Pope, found that spending too much time on homework meant that students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills” after surveying 4,317 students from 10 different high schools. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.” Courtney’s concept about homework taking too much time away from other productive activities can be applied to my reasoning that, why should students continue doing homework if research does not support it? It is frustrating as a student to see yourself having to do hours of homework after coming home from a long day at school rather than being able to do a hobby or reflect on personal goals or desires. Courtney’s reasoning behind homework taking away too much time from a student’s free life can directly relate to my claim, in that a student can not correctly fluoriush without having time to strive towards his/her passions and desires.

Speaking in the Ted Talk, Germandia states that, “results showed that students indicated that homework as somewhat useful and only six percent said that homework is very useful for learning or preparation, but it’s not the homework that’s causing the lack of interest, it’s the amount that students are expected to do. The solution is so simple. Do not give out so much homework! If the school board is going to increase the amount of time of school, then so be it, because that just gives us students more time to practice and understand the concept inside the classroom rather than getting a boatload of homework they have no clue on what it’s asking you to do.” Germandia’s point is relevant to my reasoning that homework is an overkill given that he talks about how homework does not benefit students. Germandia suggests that productivity should be left in a class setting because when the students are forced to o homework that they might not fully understand, it does no benefit to anybody. This can relate back to my claim that homework should be decreased because it will lead to stress and anxiety. Put it like this. Would you rather practice the content that you learned in school when there is a teacher to guide you if you need assistance or at home where you may feel pressured if you do not fully understand something. 

Mikel Garmendia, a sixth grade student giving a Ted Talk presentation, in his Ted Talk, “Homework Overload” published on Tedx Talks addresses the topic of the effects of school work on mental health argues that having a homework overload from school will severely affect students in a negative way. He supports this claim by first talking about the workload of a student on a general day-to-day basis, then talks about the negative effects of homework on students by showing what homework will do to a student’s mental thought process, and finally presents a solution in that homework should be drastically decreased for the better of school. Garmendia’s purpose is to show how an excess of homework will actually decrease a student’s efficiency and can cause an unhealthy burden of stress in order to contribute to a global change towards giving less homework across all schools for students of all ages. 

Now that these sources and their interpretations are presented, we can now better see how homework should be significantly decreased because of the lack of productivity and creativity a student will acquire leading to stress, anxiety, and potentially even worse mental health problems. The continuation of homework will only add to this already conflict-enticing school system. It’s time to put our foot down and help the next generation of students flourish to the best of their ability!

Works Cited

Hough, Lory. “Are You Down With or Done With Homework?” Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2012, www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/12/01/are-you-down-or-done-homework. 

Tingley, Suzzane. “Should Students Have Homework?” Hey Teach!, 9 Aug. 2018, www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/should-students-have-homework1808.html. 

B., Courtney. “Homework Should Be Banned.” Letters to the Next President, 24 Sept. 2016, letters2president.org/letters/739. 

“Homework Overload.” Performance by Mikel Garmendia, Tedx Talks, 2015.