Teaching & learning
Assessment, feedback, motivation and what helps students learn.
Competition for Grades: Does It Motivate Students or Undermine Learning?
An argumentative essay weighs the motivational value of grades against the harms of grade-focused rivalry, arguing that useful feedback should be preserved while competition for rank should not define classroom success.
Should Schools Teach Students How to Evaluate AI Answers?
An argument for teaching students to check AI-generated answers, using evidence about teen chatbot use and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.
Student Input and Curriculum Design
An argument for using students’ stated interests to make curriculum more relevant while preserving educators’ responsibility to teach essential, unfamiliar, and challenging material.
Should Schools Ditch Letter Grades? Argument Essay on Pass/Fail Grading
An argument for keeping A–F grades as the general system while using pass/fail selectively and improving the feedback, clarity, and review that make evaluations useful.
GRE Issue Essay on Teacher Salaries and Student Performance
A model argument that student achievement should inform, but not determine, teacher pay. It weighs accountability against unequal conditions and the limits of performance measures.
Should Teacher Salaries Depend on Student Performance?
A qualified argument for evaluating teaching with multiple forms of evidence while rejecting student test scores as the direct or dominant determinant of teachers’ pay.
Teaching Facts Through Ideas and Context
An argument for teaching conceptual frameworks before individual facts when learners need a map for organizing information, while using carefully chosen facts and cases to build or correct those frameworks.
Later School Start Times: Learning, Sleep, and Practical Constraints
An evidence-based argument for later middle and high school start times that explains adolescent sleep needs, interprets U.S. school-start data in its historical context, and considers practical scheduling objections.
Should U.S. High Schools Teach Financial Literacy?
A qualified argument for practical financial education in U.S. high schools, with concrete examples involving credit, college borrowing, and household decisions—and a clear account of what instruction cannot fix.
GRE Argument: Does Competition for High Grades Undermine Learning?
An evidence-based argument that competition for grades can motivate effort but may undermine learning when high stakes reward narrow performance, opportunities are unequal, or feedback is limited. It explains how these risks can vary across educational levels.
Should Class Participation Be Graded? Fair Assessment for Different Learners
An argument that participation may contribute to a grade only when it measures demonstrated learning through multiple equitable options, rather than rewarding frequent public speaking.
Personal Discipline and Student Motivation
An argument that student effort matters, but educational conditions can either obstruct that effort or help turn it into sustained motivation.