In the twenty-first century, education takes shape in many forms ranging from sentences in a notebook to the colors of a painting, and even the numbers on a calculator. All that matters is that the knowledge is passed along from group to group or generation to generation. I am a teacher’s assistant in a program called Chinese-American Planning Council which is a recreational after-school program for elementary students. I work with a few other college students and I have witnessed the processes in which students learn. Most of the necessary cognitive skills they have are learned mostly through imitation. They repeat words uttered by elementary school teachers and gradually make that vocabulary a part of their own. They repeat them and form new sentences with them. All this is from imitation and it does not seem different from how humans learned during primitive times. The power will always lie in the teachers and it has been this way since primitive times. I have experienced this myself when the students would ask me for permission to do certain activities. This “permission” would be the manifestation of respect to the authority. In a way, this respect creates a bond between the teacher and student. If there were no authority or power within myself or the other teachers, there would be no bond nor power.
Ariana Lee
The writer creates a vivid connection between the events in his personal life and society. Through his personal experience at working at CPC, he witnessed the process of imitation in which children go through to learn from the adults around them. In this case, the teachers are those adults because of the concept of permission. The concept of permission has been a long-standing principle that applies to every individual. It can be found anywhere in society whether it’s at home or a workplace and etc. There is always someone who holds more power in a situation and that person holds the power to give the weaker permission for something. This can be traced all the way back to the primitive ages. By relating the concept of imitation and permission to his personal event, the writer gives his work an analytical and sociological impact. An effective analytical essay cannot be based on just personal examples alone because one individual can not account for every individual because it can be biased and anecdotal. The writer avoids that and presents both a personal and real-world example.
Johnson Liang
I think my own paragraph is structured strongly. I relate to my thesis, which is not in this paragraph, by starting with an assertion and then I justify that assertion throughout the paragraph. Examples are given to support my claim and then credibility is shown because of my own personal experience. It sounds more convincing when essays are written with perspective and I interpret my own experience to help topic of power play. The idea of authority is introduced to relate with and show how authority is given to teachers in the education system. My paragraph has an assertion, an example to justify that assertion, and then the relation between my example to authority. I hope to get more feedback to improve this paragraph.
Gunin Agarwal
I find the example that Johnson used to be very functional. His experience as a teacher’s assistant has shown him the other side of education. We have all been on the receiving side by attending school and continue to be in that position while in college. The role of a teacher’s assistant allows one to reciprocate and educate someone else. As he said, being in that position gives you authority because now you have the power over a student’s grade. In the education system today, the grade is what ultimately matters instead of knowledge of the course and therefore the person assigning grades becomes very powerful. Jonson’s example of his personal experience has taught him the authority given to educators in our system.
What I like about the organization of the paragraph is the way the writer uses his personal experiences to describe how education has not changed at all from primitive times. The writer starts with a general concept of education in the US and then later on in the paragraph uses his own personal experiences which I think makes the paragraph stronger then if the writer used general examples. If the writer can develop the idea of primitive times more either in this or paragraphs before then the contrast between his personal experiences and what he experiences can be even stronger and make the essay better.
This paragraph in my opinion, was good. The example you used was relatable and convincing. Because everyone in our class has experienced the teacher and student relationship, it would be easy for us to agree with you. Without reading the thesis statement, the first sentence threw be off a bit. I thought this paragraph would be about how students are changing because you eventually talk about imitation. However after reading the end of the paragraph I realized you were talking about another type of imitation.
Yancey Ko
This paragraph is very well constructed. It is very narrow, to a classroom in CPA, which makes the paragraph very effective. The writer first claims a “power play” in a classroom environment. Then he proves his point by giving examples such as students would learn through imitating the teacher, and they would ask for teacher’s permission to do something. These examples show that the students are obedient to authority. At the end, the writer shows that “authority” bonds students and teachers, which concludes “authority” is the positive aspect of a “power play” in this case.
Gunin, Johnson, Ariana,
You all comment on the overall topic, and one comments on the examples used, which is another specific aspect (you were all to comment on a different specific aspect, however). You rightly note that the topic is an interesting and viable one, but this is more of a thesis statement and intro. (the author even refers to this as a thesis) and not a body paragraph. Remember, a body paragraph discusses one aspect of the thesis statement. For example, the idea of “asking for permission” might be a viable paragraph topic. Remember, too, that the more specific you get in your paragraph, the more depth you get overall in your essays, and the more convincing you will be.
Group comments grade: 9/10