Dear Fellow Students and Parents,
Here, I'm speaking for those students who suffered from the incompetent teachers they have met. I'm actually one of the victims. When we get into the class which has an incompetent teacher, we have no choice but take it. And honestly, I have learned absolutely nothing for the entire year. So, I ended up buying those Barron's books and study it on my own. As all of you know, the NYC Regents are getting harder, especially the Common Core math regents. New York Times article, “Algebra Score Prompt Second Look at Revamped Regents Exam” by Kate Taylor, she stated that, "The result: On the 2015 Algebra I exam, which was supposed to align with the new Common Core curriculum, the percentage of students passing fell to 63 percent, down nine points from the old exam last year (Taylor, 2015)." This statistic shows more and more students are now struggling with passing the regents. College board now is demanding more from the students in order to prepare them for college. So, we have to make sure every teacher are doing their work, teaching what they supposed to teach. And be responsible and actually care about their students' education.
So, what should we do to make sure teachers are doing their job right? The best way is to ask from the students. Every year, we all have a survey which we kind of evaluate our teacher, but we don't know our answers really count or not. Still, we all hopes that our answers should be count as part of the teacher's evaluation. This really helps the school and the Department of Education to know if the teacher is doing their job properly. And lastly, a statistic from NYC Department of Education says, "The Department’s proposed $23.1 billion Operating Budget (the total budget less pension and debt service costs) includes funding for principals, teachers, textbooks and supplies (NYC Department of Education)." The money we spent on education shouldn't be used for nothing. So here, we urged the parents to help us that one day we will be able to "grade" our teacher.
Sincerely,
September 26th, 2016
I used three writing strategies from Zinsser which were credibility, that and which and mood changers. The credibility in this speech was the statistics from New York Times article and NYC Department of Education, which were mostly accurate. By showing credible sources, this will make the audience trust what the speaker is trying to say. That and which serves an important role in writing, using "which" tells the people more specifically about something than using "that". In this speech, using "which" instead of "that" tells the audience more clearly which survey the speaker is talking about. Lastly, the mood changer acts as a transition word, such as however, yet, and still. In this case, by using "still", the audience can feel that students really want the survey to play a part in the evaluation of the teacher.
