Classroom Terror or Electronic Godsend?

I continue to praise Minot High School, even through my English assignments…

This is an argumentative essay that was required to include documented research and not persuade the reader to a certain point, but to merely state a problem and a possible solution. I chose what I thought to be a simple topic: cell phone use in school.

A minute electrical device could save a life in the case of an emergency, create persistent distractions that causes a student’s grades to drop, interrupt classes with an array of annoying sounds, violate personal privacy, help keep track of time and events, and even act as a tool to cheat in school, and everyone has one in his pocket. A necessity in most people’s lives, the cellular phone contributes to modern society adding to the list of valuable tools available. Yet school boards disagree with each other on policies to regulate cell phone use in school; some argue that students should be trusted with the freedom to possess cell, while others state that the devices should never reside on school grounds. With so many teens possessing a cell phone, schools should create a fair policy to deal with the popular technology.

Individual Importance

My Saturdays have been occupied with Ready Writing UILs quite often now…I attended another UIL competition, this time at MacArthur High School on January 31, 2009. This was one of the bigger contests with a stricter competition, or so I was told by my teachers and instructors. I believe there were about 56 contestants at this Ready Writing competition, and I placed 6th. I admit this essay is the worst that I have written so far and I am really not pleased with it. I struggled with it more, and just know that it can be improved in so many ways. The topic I chose is listed followed by the essay I wrote.

“It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and everyone who works is scrubbing in some part.”
-Henry David Thoreau, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906)

As time proceeds and the future becomes the past, the world is constantly changing. Mountains rise from the flat plains they once were. Oceans split apart lands, destroying continents, but creating new ones. Trees loom and fall while flowers blossom and die. The world grows and dies in a constant cycle that continues to repeat itself time and time again. Along with the world, mankind has endured time’s challenges and has changed and grown. Humanity, however, is not trapped within a cycle doomed to repeat itself. With unique individuals each working to improve his own life, culture is created and knowledge is shared to aid the development of mankind and the world. Mankind’s development has become an art, and everyone who works applies his own stroke of color.