Robinson Quote Essay Revision
During the first week of school, students wrote a persuasive essay agreeing, disagreeing, or qualifying their individual position on a statement Sir Ken Robinson made about education. The prompt is below, and here is the video link to the entire context of the quote.
It's a 16 minute TED Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I
In class you were given back the essay you wrote at the beginning of the year.
1. Read and evaluate your essay. Reflect on what you have learned about throughout this year about rhetoric, persuasion, and effective writing.
2. Watch Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk to get the entire context of his argument.
3. Revise your essay, refining your point of view. You may have found you changed your mind on the issue, or you may simply enhance your rhetorical devices and strategies of your own argument.
4. You will type your paper. It must be 700 to 800 words long. Print the word count at the end of your paper.
5. You will print out the rubric, which is linked at the bottom of this web page, and attach it to the front of your paper.
6. You will attach your original paper that you hand wrote at the beginning of the year.
7. The last page will answer the following questions:
a. What did you do well in the first draft? What needed improvement in the first draft?
b. What did you do differently in the second draft?
c. How did you grow as a writer this year? What did you learn about writing? What did you learn about yourself?
The Prompt:
TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is a non-profit, international organization dedicated to spreading “ideas worth sharing.” Author, speaker, and educational advisor Sir Ken Robinson discusses educational reform. In his speech he argues the following:
“Education, in a way, dislocates the very many people from their natural talents. And human resources are a lot like natural resources; they’re often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they’re not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves. And you might imagine education would be the way that happens, but too often it’s not.
Every education system in the world is being reformed at the moment and it’s not enough. Reform is no use anymore, because that’s simply improving a broken model. What we need…is not evolution, but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into something else.”
Explain Robinson’s argument and discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with his view. Support your position by referring to the passage and by providing reasons and examples from your own experience, observations, and/or readings.