UNIT 1 WRITING WITH PURPOSE Read the following debate speech and answer the questions that follow. This house believes that written homework
should be banned Good afternoon chairperson, adjudicators, members of the opposition, teammates and audience. I am here to propose the motion that written homework should be banned.
Let me begin by outlining my three main reasons for this argument. Firstly, written homework is an unnecessary stress that all students must endure after a long day at school, which takes from our time to unwind in the afternoon and relax. Secondly, there are no proven statistics to say that written homework is of benefi t to a student’s development, and, fi nally, this time would be better spent revising, as most exams are memory and information related.
Let me start by introducing myself. I am Lucy Garvey and I am a third year student at St Martin’s Community College. I strongly believe that using our time in the evening to watch television, listen to music, play sport or socialise with friends is far more benefi cial to the development of our social skills and protection of our mental health. I conducted an in-school survey and 87% of students agreed that they would feel more prepared for a day at school if they had time in the evenings to relax instead of completing written assignments.
This brings me to my next point. I am not saying that there should be no homework whatsoever. Instead, I am suggesting that teachers designate practical homework, rather than long and tiresome written assignments. As pointed out by the The Good School’s Guide, unless homework is well thought-out and benefi cial to the learning outcomes of the lesson that day, it is pointless. Who here in this room agrees that they have spent countless hours completing written tasks that they feel will be redundant in 10 years’ time?
Finally, I would like to address the nature of the exams in Ireland. The State Examinations require us to retain information, learn vital knowledge and process this into our own opinions. I know you will agree that revision of texts and supplementary reading material would be a far more benefi cial after-school task for us students.
In conclusion, I believe that this house should ban written homework. It does not improve our grades, it takes away from our recreational time and it does not complement the exams on which we are graded. Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you to agree. Thank you for listening.
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