While many blogs are simply used to exchange personal information or to vent about current events, whether personal or public, a new generation of blogs has arisen that provides students and academic professionals the opportunity to communicate with one another on a less formal basis than typical research papers. Blogs, in combination with other technological advances provided by the web such as messages boards and emails, have opened new avenues in which students and other professional can communicate with other. While, as with any technology, a blog can be an effective means of communication with others around the world, it can also be a negative experience.There are a number of positive attributes associated with the current blogging culture. Feedback from blogs can be given and received almost immediately. Blogs can provide firsthand assessment of current events from individuals who are not always represented in mainstream media. Blogging communities can also disseminate information from a variety of sources that would not otherwise be available to the public. While these represent just a few of the positive aspects of blogs, some negative qualities exist as well. Blogs can often be highly personal creations, and many times, information given through these avenues may be overly opinionate, too personal, offense, or, in some cases, completely wrong. There are not current ways to verify information provided by bloggers, so much of the information provided must be taken at the risk of the user. While useful information can be transmitted through blogs, many times they can also be used for unfortunately unethical purposes such as hate groups.My own personal experiences with blogging have been rather beneficial. I enjoy the freedom of information and the opinions that are produced by experienced bloggers who do not have to work under the constraints of various media outlets. These blogs have been particularly conducive to my learning and education because they have given me to opportunity to explore new ideas, opinions, and concepts that would not have been available to me otherwise. Blogging itself is conducive toward more productive writing, and my participation with it has helped me tremendously.     I would like to change the way in which blogs are structure, providing the user with ways to verify information provided by the blogger. All too often, important information within a blog is completely falsified or irrelevant. The most important quality of a blog is being able to know with some degree of certainty that the writer is competent in the area they are discussing. As for my own experiences, I hope to continue participating in a variety of blogs, both for personal and academic reasons. Blogging has improved my own abilities of self-expression and has given me the opportunity to explore many ideas that were once foreign to me.

1. Will we get a review sheet or an in class topical review?

2.Will you alert us throughout the exam of  the time?

3. How many questions will there be?

4.Will there be page or word requirements?

5.Will you provide us with a grading rubric?

6.How much time will be allowed for the exam?

7.Can you give us some example essay questions?

8.Will you provide us with examples of good/bad essay exam answers?

One of the first things to consider when writing an essay exam is your instructor. You will need to take into consideration your instructor’s values and wants.  Just like you would identify your audience in an out of class essay, you will need to analyze your instructors expectations.  As writing researcher, Randall Popken found after reviewing various sample essay exams, there are three skills that stood out among others.  These are, the ability to store, access, and translate appropriate knowledge into an organized essay, the ability to analyze quickly the specific requirements of an exam question and formulate a response to those requirements, and the ability to deal with time pressure, test anxiety, and other logistical constraints of the exam situation.  Another important aspect of exam writing is the ability to store and recall the information that you have been given throughout the semester. But it is also important to decide what parts of the information have been emphasized either by the instructor or even better by a review sheet.  There are also other  signs of importance such as chapter summaries, subheadings, and highlighted terms.  You can also prepare in other ways, for example, make up some sample essay questions for practice. Also, by timing yourself, you can identify the areas that  you do well or the areas that you need to improve in.

I have essay exams because not only am I a slow reader but it also takes me a little longer than most to gather my thoughts.  I also hate essay exams because you are never quite sure of how to prepare for the essay exams’ questions.  There are a few instructors who will give you examples of what theessay questions could be but then you have to inevitably know ALL of them in order to be prepared entirely for the exam.

Comprehensive Sex Education curricula tend to vary from community to community, depending on the particular political makeup of the community. However, there are a couple of things that these programs tend to have in common with each other. First, most of them teach that abstinence is a preferable alternative because its practice would make teenage pregnancy and the spread of STDs impossible. This trait is often referred to as Abstinence First (Hymowitz, p. 8). In addition to this, these programs have a tempered view that many of the students will engage in pre-marital sexual relations even with the abstinence training. As a result, students are also taught about contraceptive use to help avoid pregnancy and STDs. Additionally, these programs provide biologic-al and medical information pertaining to health aspects of sexual relations, attempt to explain some of the psychological factors that can affect people while involved in relationships where sex is prevalent, and help students gain skills in communication so that they can effectively assert themselves when dealing with various interpersonal relationship situations (McKeon, p. 2).     Conversely, Abstinence Only programs are primarily concerned with teaching students the importance of putting off sexual relations until they are more mature. Many of these programs also stress the notion that people ought to be married prior to engaging in sex. Some use fear and shame to motivate students to avoid promiscuous sex (Kempner, p. 33). Many also teach students values such as adopting a take-charge attitude and resisting peer pressure temptations. Overall, “The explicit goal of abstinence education programs is to change both behavior and community standards for the good of the country” (Hymowitz, p. 5). Finally, these programs are not as concerned with presenting a curriculum that also involves contraceptives use and STD protection because, if the students refrain from promiscuous relationships, pregnancy and STDs are not a significant threat. In fact, in order to obtain federal financing, these programs are prevented from teaching about alternatives to abstinence (Santelli, p. 150).

     Proponents of Abstinence Only are opposed to Comprehensive Sex Education primarily for two reasons. First, they believe that it teaches students conduct that is immoral. Because this program concedes that students might engage in pre-marital sex and tries to teach them how to conduct themselves if sex occurs, opponents believe that Comprehensive Sex Education does not take abstinence seriously and indirectly sends a message to students that promiscuous sex is tolerated. By acknowledging that students will engage in sex, this program is morally corrupting and actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: by conceding the possibility of students involved in sexual activity, Comprehensive Sex Education actually makes sex look more tempting to students (Hampshire and Lewis, p. 292).   

Works Cited

Hampshire, James and Lewis, Jane. “The Ravages of Permissiveness: Sex Education and the Permissive Society.” 20 Century British History15.3 (Sep. 2004): 290-314. Hyumowitz, Kay. “What To Tell the Kids About Sex.” Public Interest 153 (Fall 2003): 3-18. Kempner, Martha. “A Controversial Decade: 10 Years of Tracking Debates Around Sexuality Education.” SIECUS Report 31.6 (Fall 2003): 33-45. McKeon, Brigid. Effective Sex Education 2006. Advocates for Youth. <http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fssexcur.pdf>. Santelli, John. “Explaining Recent Declines in Adolescent Pregnancy in the United States: The Contribution of Abstinence and Improved Contraceptive Use.” American Journal of Public Health 91.1 (Jan. 2007): 150-155.   

1. My audience will be parents with young children to adolescents.

2. I chose this audience because they will be concerned the most with sex education.

3. The audience will affect my argument in several ways. First, what type of sex education do they feel is appropriate. Second, how much sex education should their children receive. Third, how much time should their child’s school spend on education. Last, do they know about their child’s school sex education program. If so, do they approve, or what needs to be improved.

4. Hasty ggeneralization simply because of finding strong and substantial evidence to support my conclusion. Also, over-reliance on authority because it will be hard to not assume that the experts are right, when many parents feel differently from the experts.

• Use of stem cells
• immigration
• violence and video games
• HPV
• global warming
• medical treatment for vets
• water shortage
• population of overweight children
• obesity in America
• evolution
• spanking of children
• abortion
• gay and lesbian rights
• Jet Blue airline
• rights of sex offenders
• federal/state prisoner treatment

Q. What is your topic?

A. Sexual Education

Q. What interests you in this topic? Why did you choose it?

A. I am interested to know what is being taught in schools regarding sexual education and how this information is being presented. I chose this topic because I am curious to know more about what is being done in today’s classrooms to help educate students on sex.

Q. Why does your topic matter? Why should other people care about it?

A. My topic matters because teens are at risk for sexually transmitted diseases.  There is also a risk of getting pregnant and becoming a teen mother. Most people care because they have kids or will eventually have kids.

Q. How can you qualify (or limit) your topic?

A. I will probably focus on a specific age group such as middle school or high school sex education.

Q. Can you limit your topic by geography or location?

A. Yes, I will probably focus on sexual education being provided to high school students in North Texas.

Q. By time?

A. How changes in sexual education have changed in the last ten years.

Q. By specific groups affected?

A. How sexual education affects the rate of teen pregnancies in high schools.

Q. What other questions can you think of?

A. What programs are being offered to teen mothers? Which high schools allow pregnant mothers to attend? Are they given any assistance or special care?  

I am going to write on the issue of Sexual Education.

I believe this issue is controversial because on one side of the issue people believe that if we give teens this information then it will lead to sexual promiscuity. On the other hand, people believe that if we do not give teens the proper information then this could lead to sexual diseases and teen pregnancies.

This topic would need to be narrowed to a specific age group.

1. That I had good information in my first paragraph. Also, my third paragraph had a good topic sentence and my essay had an excellent conclusion.

2. I considered the strong part of my essay was in my conclusion. Yes.

3. My weakness was that I did not include an introduction so that it set up the argument I was making.  To improve this weakness, I need to work on developing a strong thesis that would help guide readers through my essay.

4. I did go to the Write Site.

5. Yes.