Writing Assesment

Every year the school district I'm from gives it's students a writing assesment, the PWA. In the students English class the teacher will show them two (generally unpopular) prompts. The student then has to write a "five paragraph essay" which introduces the prompt at hand, three paragraphs that provide a reason for the student's stance, three sub reasons withing each of those paragraphs, and a closing paragraph that's supposed to say something like, "In conclusion ___ is so because [reason 1], [reason 2] [reason 3].

I heard a story about one year where the prompt said something like "argue whether the world is getting better or worse," and some took the side of 'worse' and one of his three reasons was the way we do these writing assesment, what would really make my day is if I found out that he wasn't even trying to be funny.

If you look at Newsweek or other publications; persuasive writing is very common, but it's nothing like this. The opening paragraph will try to grab your attention, the closing paragraph will try feel conclusive, and throughout the text the authur will give reasons as well as support for those reasons, but the writer isn't going to be held to a mechanical format where his or her three -No more no less- paragraphs necesaraly begin with "another reason..." or "in addition..." And the thing that really bugs me is a legit writer would never close by saying, "in case you didn't read my article or get my point let me tell you what I said all over again."

I don't think I'd say I'm 100% against it. It might be a bad way to write but it still might be a sufficient way of measuring how well a student can write. But a student has to write a persuasive essay for a practical purpose, such as a college application, and they think they must do the 'five paragraph format' then the schools' teaching of writing is almost counter productive.

Weezer's Represent

First I must say that my prediction for American Idol was correct. So I guess I'm on my way to being a legit music critic.

Yesterday I was shopping on iTunes and under the free section there was a song by Weezer that is either trying to promote the world cup or taking advantage of the world cup. Usually the free songs on iTunes are kind of lame but this one was by a song by a group that's been around for a while and I'm familiar with, so I downloaded it.

One things that bugged my about the song was the cheering and narration at the beginning. I don't think narration in songs works very well, this is what went wrong with Green Day's song Holiday. That song had a great groove to it but it slowed down and then said, "a Representative from California has the floor." I would've taken this section out if it were my decision. My problem with narrations is that they usually are distracting and they abruptly change the mood of the song.

But anyway, after the cheering the song started sounding kind of cool. I guess my problem with the song was the lyrics. The lyrics are too upfront and the message is a little to blatant. I couldn't find the actual text of the song but it says "it doesn't matter what ______ thinks" or "you represent ______." Imagine if some love song just implicitly said things like, "I love you" or "you're attractive." There are zillions of love songs but none would express feelings buy saying those things exactly as written above. I didn't hate the song and since I got it for free I can't feel ripped off but it is pretty low quality; it feels like some people were trying to produce a rock song but they had writers block or they were in a rush. I think I possibly could have written a song with the same level of quality as this one. To be honest I have a hard time imagining people who like mainstream popular music because it's mainstream and popular liking this Weezer song. So I guess sporting events should stick with Queen's We Will Rock You.