Why You Shouldn't Ever Make Students Choose a Prompt
I was literally forced to write this.
Behold- the best essay ever written in the history of mankind. Please sit upright in your chair so you don’t hurt yourself when you get blown away. A lot of students don’t have the mental capability to even speak, let alone come up with a topic on what to write for their essay. Most English classes that ask you to write an essay, provide you with a prompt. I highly suggest English teachers actually doing this, as outdated as it may seem.
Children struggle with coming up with their own topics. Once they do, it may be inappropriate, have no educational value, and even lower their grade simply by stating their opinion. The average IQ of high-schoolers has dropped tremendously. Not only does this mean they physically can’t imagine a useful topic to write about, but I personally don’t believe they should be actively thinking about a topic they came up with at ALL when It comes to essays. They might write about guns, drugs, sex and violence; how inappropriate for school right? It’s absolutely traumatizing.
What happens when their peers shift their gaze to the student’s computer screen and pass out from the things they have just read? This only further supports why students should NOT ever choose their essay prompt. In addition to the high levels of immaturity reflected by writing about topics that are infuriating to hear about on school grounds, they are highly useless and un-educational. I would rather see students write about how easy it is to drop out of High school instead of getting your GED, so you don’t waste everyone else’s time by being disruptive and disrespectful, than about how awesome cigarettes taste and why you should stop being a loser and try one. Almost everything has educational value, but when a student writes educational topics all of his/her life starting from the age of 4, they start to deter from that path and write about the fun topics they enjoy, which is totally biased and un-fair. Students are at school to learn and suffer, not to have fun and smile about their essays.
It is absolutely unfathomable how narrow-minded these children are once they begin typing. The student you once thought was the epitome of perfection in every conceivable way has now just told you her opinion of students choosing their own essay topic. This not only completely shatters and deteriorates your love and pride in that student, but now compels you to reduce their grade by half because you don’t agree with their opinion. The student will end up not only failing the assessment, but the course as well, soon High school altogether. Eventually they will grow weary of trying and drop out and die on the streets. Simplest way to put it- never, ever should any teacher let their students (even the brightest) choose their own topic.
In conclusion, teacher laziness is not worth the child’s life. The devastating consequences of letting the student choose his or her topic to write an essay about is enough to send any teacher after reading this into the fetal position, sobbing about the horrible task he or she has assigned. Essays are serious, not joyous fun and games. Choosing a topic for students to write about is the easiest thing in the world when there’s Google, letting them choose is a mistake that could possibly end up ruining their lives in the future.
The more teachers don’t assign essays and leave the choice up to the kid, the higher the percentage of dropouts increase. Coming from a student, I don’t think any student should ever choose the essay prompt if you didn’t hear me the first 20 times. This will help everyone and make everyone happy.
