Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Outline Format
*Best used with persuasive speeches, type your information on the right side of the colons
Name:__________________________________
Specific Purpose:_________________________________________________________
Thesis Statement:_________________________________________________________
I.
Introduction
A.
Attention getter: Inventions that are obsolete: Pagers… PDAs….paper
maps…. Newspapers…. Landlines….payphones….VCRs…. phone books…. Long
distance phone charges…. (Business Insider magazine, Bianca Mali, December 2009).
Add one to the list: HW. What did you do last night? And the night before? And the
night before that? And the night before that? HW….. Diff. in ? what did you do vs.
what did you learn….
B.
Introduce topic and motivate audience: HW affects us all, yet it’s the least
regulated or understood cultural practice. Reason to listen: even if you don’t believe
practices of HW in America. Can change, you can learn something from my speech about
how to change your thinking about HW.
C.
Establish credibility: I’ve been doing HW since kindergarten. I’ve looked
at studies by education researchers, we’ve been told to have “socratic seminars” but if
we’re really “socratic” there would be much more focus on critical thinking and
metacognition (differentiating between what we know and what we don’t) in modern
homework assignments.
D.
Preview main points/thesis statement: Because research doesn’t validate
it, because it steals family and independent learning time, HW should be regulated and
restricted.
II.
Body
A.
Need or Problem Step
1.
Describe the need: Time: HW is out of control – time limits are
completely arbitrary and no one checks to see if teachers are exceeding it.
a. “60% spend more than one hour seven days per week” in a study
of 6th-12th graders and their parents. (2011 study of 2000 students in Bernards Township
School District, east coast)
b. There
2.
Explain the importance of the problem: There is little research to
support the effectiveness of HW in high school and research says its counterproductive in
grades K-8.
a. In math, more HW doesn’t = higher achievement. Study title/author:
“Mathematics Achievement: The Role of Homework and Self-Efficacy Beliefs,” by Anastasia
Kitsantas, Journal of Advanced Academics, Volume 22, Number 2, Winter 2011, pp. 310-339. Study
concludes (and I quote), “Not only did time spent on homework have little beneficial impact on
achievement in this study, it actually was associated with poorer achievement.”
b. According to ChallengeSuccess.org, a nonprofit nonpartisan organization aimed at
whole student success in America, American students are spending more time in school and more time
on HW than ever (comprehensive study pub’d in 2012), yet, American students still rank 30th in math
and 20th in reading among 65 countries tested by the PISA (Performance Index of Student
Achievement, 2012)
3.
Describe what could happen if the problem is NOT solved: We
will continue to be noncompetitive, as a nation, globally, with other kids’ skills in math
and science eclipsing us.
a. NPR Education correspondent Claudio Sanchez summed it up when he
said about the PISA results, “"Remember the movie Groundhog Day, where the
main character wakes up every morning and realizes nothing has changed? He's
reliving the same day over and over again. Well that pretty much sums up the
latest PISA results for 15-year-olds in the U.S. Their scores in reading, math and
science have not changed since 2003."
4. The problem is one of attitude: the assumption that doing work when
you’re tired and don’t understand its value builds character. 21st century skills need
inventors and out of the box thinkers but HW doesn’t help with this – it harms our
creativity.
a. ChallengeSuccess summed up the fallacious belief in HW in their study,
“Though the pros and cons of homework have been debated for more than 100 years,
homework continues to be given to students, often because of a longstanding assumption
that it is beneficial to them. (For more on the history of homework, see: Gill &
Schlossman, 2003/2004; Kralovec & Buell, 2000; Vatterott, 2009). Most of the
arguments based on the faith that homework is good for kids go something like this:
homework teaches kids to be responsible and develop a strong work ethic, and when
students have a lot of homework, it is a sign of a rigorous curriculum and a good teacher
(Vatterott, 2007).”
Transition: Yeats quote: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
B.
Satisfaction/Solution Step
1.
Describe your plan in detail: Require those who assign HW to
state the learning objective at the top of the assignment. Require them to state the
intrinsic motivation (why/how this might be a valuable learning skill for students beyond
the class, and well into the future). Also, require schools to use an APP that tracks the
HW assigned to a given student (so they can see the overall picture).
2.
Explain why your plan will work: It won’t eliminate HW, which
will freak people out, but will help teachers to reflect and reconsider the value of the
work they pile on, choosing not to give work when it doesn’t fit the intrinsic learning
objective criteria.
*Transitional statement between steps
C.
Visualization Step:
1.
Describe what results your audience can experience if your plan is
adopted: This will be description – from a user end – of what the
app would look like.
2.
Describe the benefits that relate to your audience: more time to
think outside the box, more motivation to do HW that IS assigned because teachers who
give it have to justify its importance in students’ present and in their future
3.
Describe the consequences that will affect your audience: the
achievement gap – students whose parents work 2 jobs, these students have to work and
care for younger siblings – so the current fire hose approach to HW sets them up to fail
(means we sort of are caste system). Second
4.
State your “Call to Action”: I’m asking you to MAKE THE APP.
I’m asking you to ask yourself or your teacher: “How does this assignment connect to the
unit? How can practicing this skill improve my metacognition? What are the crossapplications of this HW to other subjects? Is this HW necessary? What is the most
efficient way to complete it?”
*Tell the story of basis schools
III.
Conclusion
A.
Signal ending: Use the word basis: HW has served as the basis for how
we plan our free time. Ha ha. Free time – ironic. Free time is not free. But BASIS
schools show the success of students now and in college and in life is the creative and indepth exploration. The basis of something isn’t that its basic. Its that it forms the
foundation: do we want to form a foundation of an obedient working class?
B.
Restate the importance of the problem: Our global competitiveness is at
stake.
C.
Re-emphasize the “Call to Action” Step: Make the APP
D.
Memorable ending: We are a nation of rebels. This is the modern crisis.
Rise up. Don’t just not do your HW: think it into obsolescence.