Please help me grade my Issue essay :D

[Bowen C.]

Hi all,

Could you please help me grade and provide some feedback for my first attempt of an issue essay? Thanks a lot 

The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree

with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take.

In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in

which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and

explain how these examples shape your position.

 

----

Education is an integral component of a student’s successful career. Though each individual learns differently, there is always a question being raised about the best way of teaching. Over the years, many consider the most effective way for an individual to learn is to applause every positive steps he takes while place minimum emphasis on the negative ones. Even though it is natural to think that way, I cannot 100% champion this idea – as it sometimes does more harm than good.
 

Over the marathon-like journey of learning, it is very unlikely for an individual, especially those who are at a young age, to totally avoid getting frustrated and going sideways on his learning curve. To be more specific, it is not at all confounding for a young student to be upset, or even outrages, about a failed or poorly performed evaluation – even the matured ones do. These frustrations, if not handled properly, can easily turned into a long-term cancer on that individual’s learning career. That person can easily get into a habit of self-destruction on his confidence, eventually give up on trying to achieve even the bare minimum goals he sets before. This self-doubt mentality, while needing encouragements, cannot be revived by solely praising and encouraging. Instead, a candid response should be offered to the student, who might be swarmed into the sullen of this failure, leaving no room for him to rethink the reason of this failure. A possible advice could be “instead of dwelling on this failure, you should really focus on the way of improving yourself and revisit the key points that leads to the failure.” While this might not be the most comforting advice that student could hear, it certainly will be the most necessary one for him to digest. By really focusing on the roots of his failure, instead of only praising him by calling this failure “an accident”, the crucial lesson could be learnt. The student, therefore, will be able to get one more step closer to his much longed for success.
 

Moreover, consider the amount of distractions that students can easily be allured into, an unhealthy learning habit can easily grow deep into a student’s daily routines. While students need to interact with the computer to find the necessary information to complete learning tasks, he can easily point his cursor elsewhere in browsing other irrelevant, but attracting, sites and spend hours on them. This habit, if ignored, will be an enormous barrier for an individual to concentrate on the task. This truly negative habit, should be terminated immediately since inception. The supervisor or teacher should inform the individual that this is a terrible habit to get into, and present him the consequences if the negative habit should be continued. By providing not a pleasing, but a genuine response, the negative habit could be corrected and success should be one step closer.
It is rather obvious that all the positive actions and results deserve a round-of-applause. A praise will provide students more confidence and motivation to keep up the good work. At the same time, I believe some spurs on the students will also result in a better performance in the future. Instead of living in the happiness of past success, the student needs to realize that there is always room to improve and ways to go further. Though it is important to celebrate a success over a long stretch of diligence and industriousness, the individual should always aim higher and attempt to achieve more.
 

As everyone can see, learning is a journey that lies on a curve rather than a straight line. As there will be moment of glories, defeats and frustrations will almost always come along the way. For a teacher to utilize the full effect of teaching, a combination of praise and spur, even reprimand, should be applied. By working closely with their offspring, there certainly will be more geniuses emerge in the near future.

[MrsGrad]

Your position in the opening should be a little more clear. If you can't 100% champion the idea, does that mean you 0% champion it, or are you saying that there needs to be a little of both in a person's education? If the latter, then it would be more clear to say that. "Even though it is natural to think that way, I believe that negative outcomes can be useful learning tools when properly addressed."

Your argument in the second paragraph is pretty good. It's a little long, but overall it's clear what you're trying to say.

The third paragraph didn't feel like it fit in so well. I can see where the argument can be made that ignoring a bad habit is just as bad as ignoring a poor grade, but it didn't seem to naturally fit into the theme. Perhaps a better lead-in sentence would have helped: "Grades and test scores are not the only areas that teachers should focus on when searching for opportunities for growth. Identifying detrimental habits such as poor study skills can improve the quality of a student's work, but only if they are addressed and rectified, not ignored."

The fourth paragraph should offer a counter-point to your theory that negative outcomes should be ignored. You do that very briefly, but it is rather vague "all positive actions and results" - I might have given an example such as a good report card deserves praise. 

Read your prompt very carefully: "In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position." GRE graders are looking for the essay that illustrates that the author understands that few things are black and white, and while you took a definite position, you understand that there are caveats. Are there times when pointing out a failure might be detrimental (such as when the failure is due to something beyond the student's control)? Are there ways of addressing negative outcomes that are inadvisable (for example doing it in front of peers or without proper feedback)? 

I'm not so sure about your last sentence. There will be no more or fewer geniuses because genius is not something that is learned; this makes the sentence seem a little flippant. Suggested revision: "Improved performance can be achieved by appropriately providing both praise and constructive feedback to help students understand opportunities for growth and maturity."

I hope this feedback helps!

 

Jen