Theme Review and Text Structure Review

Why Do We Have Schools?

Education in our society serves many purposes, but there are three main functions. First, students learn skills that will help prepare them for society. Writing, reading, and mathematics are essential in today’s workplace and many people learn these skills in school. Second, schools serve communities. Whether by functioning as polling locations during elections, or providing safe havens for students in temporary living situations, public schools add value to communities. Third, public schools provide a structured environment for children to engage in productive activities during many days of the year while their adult caretakers may be working. In other words, public schools also provide day care. These are three of the primary reasons why we have schools in our society.

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Milestones

In 1821 the first public high school in the United States was started in Boston. By 1900, 31 states required children to attend school from the ages of 8 to 14. As a result, by 1910 72 percent of American children attended school. Half the nation's children attended one-room schools. In 1918, every state required students to complete elementary school. In 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education unanimously declared that separate facilities were unconstitutional and desegregation began.

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Have a Great Day!

There is more than one way to have a successful school day, but a great way is to be well prepared. The first thing you should do is complete your homework the night before. Don’t try to do your work in the morning, it will be too stressful and you may not have enough time. Next, you need to go to bed at a reasonable time. If you stay up too late, you will not be able to focus on assignments or instruction as well and you may even fall asleep during class. Lastly, you should wake up early. This will give you time to get ready and feel good about yourself, and you’ll also be able to get something to eat before the day begins. So remember, one way to have a successful school day is to do your homework the night before, go to bed early, and wake up early. Have a great day.

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Attendance

Having good attendance is important because attendance determines the school’s funding. Some students have poor attendance, and the school has tried many ways of addressing this: teachers have talked to parents on the phone and the school has mailed letters. Yet, some students still maintain poor attendance. Next, the staff will attempt to schedule parent/teacher/administrator conferences with students who are habitually absent. Hopefully, this will help more students get to school everyday.

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Are Charter Schools Harder Schools?

These days, students and their caretakers have more choices when it comes to selecting a public school. In addition to the traditional neighborhood schools, Charter schools have popped up in major cities across the country. Both charter schools and neighborhood schools fill traditional roles like providing instruction, serving lunch and other meals, and administering the state tests. But charter schools and neighborhood schools differ in many important ways. One key difference is the amount of time students spend in school. In Chicago, students who attend neighborhood schools do so for around 180 days in a year, and each day is slightly over six hours long. On the contrary, students who attend charter schools do so for around 200 days in a year, and most charter school days are over eight hours long. While both neighborhood and charter schools provide free public education to students meeting enrollment criteria, students who attend charter schools spend much more time in class.

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Read the passage and determine its text structure!

You may think it’s bad to forget your homework, but what if you forgot who you were? Amnesia is a condition where a person loses some of their memories, like details about their personal identity, but still may remember how to do things, like play a piano. One type of Amnesia is called post-traumatic amnesia. Post-traumatic amnesia is usually due to a head injury (like a serious fall or knock on the head). The degree of memory loss may be related to the force of the injury. A simple whiplash may cause a person to forget the moments before the accident, but a more severe injury may cause a greater loss. For example, the victim may not remember who certain people are or may forget details about their own identities.

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Read the passage and determine its text structure!

Ansel Bourne was a preacher, carpenter, and most likely an inspiration for the name “Bourne” in the movie and novel series, The Bourne Identity. Up until 1857, Bourne had been a carpenter, until he was called to religion. After 1858, he worked as an evangelical preacher, until 1887. He set up shop in Norristown, Pennsylvania, as a candy maker using the name A.J. Brown. Three months later, he woke up not knowing where he was, with no memory of the previous months. The case of Mr. Bourne has fascinated psychologists, and some film makers, for years.

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Read the passage and determine its text structure!

What do you get when you cross a robot and an astronaut? A Robonaut! Robonauts are robot helpers designed to work side-by-side with astronauts. Work on the first Robonaut began in 1997, and by 2002 Robonaut B was revealed to the public. Robonaut B may have featured interchangeable lower bodies, like four-wheel mode or hydraulic legs, but scientists and engineers continued to improve Robonaut. In February of 2010, Robonaut 2 was released to the public. Robonaut 2 moved four times faster than the first Robonaut. An advanced version of Robonaut 2 was finally tested in outer space in 2011. Robonaut functioned exactly as designed.

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Read the passage and determine its text structure!

Many people use the words cyborg and android interchangeably when, in fact, they have different meanings. Both terms refer to beings powered by robotics, but an android is powered entirely by robots. Though androids are completely mechanical, they are designed to look like humans. They may have synthetic skin, hair, and other features, but no human organs. On the other hand, cyborgs are part human and part machine. They may have robotic hands, legs, or eyes, but all cyborgs have surgically implanted technologies that enhance their abilities.

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Read the passage and determine its text structure!

What do Finding Nemo and Robocop have in common? Not much, except that they both feature characters who suffer amnesia. Amnesia is a common plot device in movies and TV shows, but how accurate are these depictions? In television and movies, memory loss caused by a knock to the head (post-traumatic amnesia) is shown as fairly common, when it is actually quite rare. Unlike in movies and television shows that feature amnesia, most knocks to the head will not produce memory loss. In reality, memory loss or amnesia is much more likely to occur as the result of a stroke, brain infection, or brain surgery. So while amnesia causes people or characters to lose memories in both film and reality, characters are usually “fixed” by taking another knock to the head. In reality, people are not cured so simply.

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