Teacher Guidance for Writing Assessment: 10 th Grade Argument
Window Four 10 th Grade Argument Writing (80 minutes) Topic: Zero Tolerance in School?
Writing Prompt Overview
During this writing prompt, students will consider the debate on zero tolerance in schools. Students may need to have zero tolerance clarified as the refusal to accept certain behaviors, and is typically strict and uncompromising application of laws and rules. This piece was written by Sean McCollum and featured in
Scholastic magazine. Mr. McCollum addresses both sides of the argument and students will take a stand on what side on which they agree.
Teacher Directions:
Step One: Read Prompt (5 minutes) Teacher reads the prompt and overview to the students and students individually interpret what the prompt is asking.
Step Two: Read/Annotate (10 minutes) Students read and annotate individually. Space is provided for notes.
Step Three: Reactions (5 minutes) Students use space provided to record the 5 most important questions, pieces of text, response to text they could use in their writing.
Step Four: (60 minutes) Students write to prompt individually.
Situation: Many school districts are adopting Zero Tolerance policies in order to deal with and prevent school violence.
Task: Write an argumentative essay to your school online newspaper in which you explain why you support or oppose Zero Tolerance Policy. Use textual evidence to support your argument. Write about any counterclaims expressing the opposing side’s point of view, while explaining why your viewpoint is valid.
WRITING
Writing Prompt
Standards Addressed
KCK12R10W1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
KCK12R10W4
KCK12R10W10
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (CC.W.9-10.4, ACT)
KCK12R10W9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline –specific tasks, purposes, and audiences. (CC.W. 9-10)
LANGUAGE
KCK12R10L1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. (CC.L.9-10.1, ACT)
KCK12R10L2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. (CC.L.9-10.2, ACT)
KCK12R10L3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening . (CC.L.9-10.3, ACT)

STUDENT WRITING PROMPT:
:
Q4 Topic: Zero Tolerance in School?
Situation: Many school districts are adopting Zero Tolerance policies in order to deal with and prevent school violence.
Task: Write an argumentative essay to your school online newspaper in which you explain why you support or oppose
Zero Tolerance Policy. Use textual evidence to support your argument.
Write about any counterclaims expressing the opposing side’s point of view, while explaining why your viewpoint is valid.
Window 4
Read/Annotate – Everyone silently reads and annotates. Comment on at least five things and write in the margins/spaces!
Zero Tolerance: Safer Schools or Unfair Rules? By Sean McCollum
It is our responsibility to provide a safe place where young people can learn and be safe,” said Nellie
Meyer, principal of Clairemont High School in San Diego. “We have real strict policies that prohibit weapons and drugs on campus.”
Zero tolerance, the policy that was designed to forestall violence in U.S. schools, grew out of several violent incidents in the 1990s, capped by the shocking 1999 shootings at Colorado’s
Columbine High School. Those killings produced widespread support for zero tolerance and other
“get-tough” programs designed to keep another such tragedy from occurring. “If you have a weapon, you will be expelled,” explains Meyer about the weapons policy at Clairemont High. “We have to be that firm on something that dangerous.”
According to the National School Safety Center, zero tolerance for weapons on school grounds has produced results. During the 1992-93 school year, there were 56 violent deaths in U.S. schools. By
2001-2002, that number had dropped to five. And the number of expulsions for weapons has also dropped since 1999, reports the National Center for
Education Statistics, indicating that the rules
are having a deterrent effect. A 2001 Associated
Press poll found that more than 80 percent of
 Americans supported zero-tolerance policies. To make schools even safer, some districts have expanded zero-tolerance rules 
to cover drug possession and violent
 and threatening behavior. Such dan
gerous disruptions have no place in 
schools. Rule abiding students deserve 
safe, drug-free environments in which to 
pursue their studies. Classmates with problems need to be removed and given the help they need.
Enforcement of zero-tolerance policies has sometimes led to absurd punishments. But, this is, in part, a nod toward fairness: No matter who breaks a zero-tolerance rule—honor student or slacker—the punishment is clear and severe, no excuses.
The news media often make a big deal when these policies result in a ridiculous punishment, like

the case of the 11- year-old Florida boy taken away in handcuffs for drawing a violent picture. But how do you measure the success of zero tolerance? You won’t see any news reports about the guns and drugs students don’t bring to school because they know the consequences.
Like any new strategy, zero tolerance needs ongoing review and improvements. Schools must clearly—and frequently— explain the policy to students and teachers. Administrators must apply the policy fairly and with common sense, giving accused students “due process” to explain what happened.
And school districts need to provide services and counseling to help suspended and expelled kids get back on the right track, because we all make mistakes.
Zero Tolerance Does More Harm Than Good
Rachel Kiel, 15, admits she messed up last
February. Having found a marijuana cigarette, the Illinois ninth-grader jokingly showed it to some friends. (She later tested negative for any kind of drug use, her mother says.) She was caught with it and arrested, then suspended, then expelled until
January 2005 under Thornton Fractional North High School’s zero- tolerance policy. But this honor student with no history of trouble doubts she’ll ever go back; she may choose homeschooling instead.
“I’ve lost a lot of friends and the trust of other people,” Rachel told LC . “It’s just not fair the way I’ve been treated. I feel like I’ve been branded.”
The zero-tolerance goal of creating safe schools is a noble one, but in many districts the policy is getting twisted. Horror stories abound: the Wisconsin sixth-grader suspended for a year for bringing a kitchen knife to school for a science project; an 8-year-old facing expulsion for carrying a fingernail clipper; a high-school junior charged with “verbal abuse” and expelled for sharing with friends his essay ridiculing the principal.
Too often, zero-tolerance
 policies severely punish students
 without considering their history or intent. A student who accidentally brings a pocketknife to school is treated the same as someone carrying a gun. And often, the accused 
is suspended or expelled without a chance to explain the story or question the accuser.
Many experts now question the effectiveness of zero tolerance. “Schools are not checking to find out whether these policies are actually working,” Howard Hastings claims. Hastings, whose son was expelled for a zero-tolerance violation, is a spokesman for the organization End Zero
Tolerance. “As yet, no school can show that implementation of zero tolerance has actually made the school environment safer,” Studies show little change in school safety he told LC . Hastings cites six studies that show little change in student safety. A 2002 report by the

U.S. Departments of Education and Justice indicates bullying in schools is on the rise.
One high-profile study—“The Dark Side of Zero Tolerance: Can Punishment Lead to Safe
Schools?”—comments that students’ getting the zero-tolerance message “may be less important than the reassurance that sending [the message] provides to administrators, teachers, and parents.”
School safety is of course vital. But zero tolerance is not delivering on its promise say critics, and it is ruining the educational hopes of a growing number of students in the U.S. http://teacher.scholastic.com/writeit/cavalcade/pdf/sept2004/debate_zero_tolerance_p20_21.pdf
Be sure to be explicit in your claim, provide evidence from personal experience, the brainstorm and the text.
Situation: Many school districts are adopting
Zero Tolerance policies in order to deal with and prevent school violence.
Task: Write an argumentative essay to your school online newspaper in which you explain why you support or oppose Zero Tolerance
Policy. Use textual evidence to support your argument. Write about any counterclaims expressing the opposing side’s point of view, while explaining why your viewpoint is valid.
Be sure to include:

A specific claim

Elaboration on how or why evidence supports claim

How the evidence limits opposing counterclaims