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'Building character' - Community Service- Synthesis Essay


tiger13twin 7 / 20  
Feb 18, 2010   #1
Hi my assignment is: Using the following documents on community service requirements in high schools, write a synthesis essay explaining whether you believe that high schools in general- or your specific school or district- should make community service mandatory. Incorporate references to or quotations from a minimum of three of these sources in you essay.

I know you don't have the documents I'm supposed to use, but here is my essay, and I want to know how does it sound and is there any corrections you think I should make. Also, does this sound like a synthesis essay because I wasn't too sure what a synthesis essay is. Thank you so much.

Community Service

Community service is very important because it helps build character, which is something that the Dalton School and the Detroit News would agree with me on. Having community service as a requirement to graduate is a good idea as long as the student can choose what type of community service they want to do; because it forces students to go out in their community and help others. Community Service doesn't have to have a negative effect on people, it can and usually has a good effect. Willie Grothman and Tim Phang are two high school students who started a community service club that helped a lot of people in their community. Community service can be extremely valuable in the development of both character, academics and it gives students a chance to give back to their community.

Community service builds character because after accomplishing something, it gives people a feel of satisfaction and accomplishment that makes students feel good about themselves. The Dalton School believes when an individual goes out in the world and interacts with other people in the spirit of bettering, that individual makes a contribution and will feel a sense of accomplishment. But on the other hand, some people argue that it is wrong to force students into doing community service. Arthur Stukas,

Mark Snyder, and E. Gil Clary said students were less affected even if they had a choice of community service. These scientists also say that researchers have found that students who initially did not want to volunteer found that they actually enjoyed helping others if requirements were applied gently and with their input and involvement in the process. In my opinion that is what we want to happen when students are involved in community service.

From graph two that Mark Hugo presents is that community service has a high rating from the students who are educationally successful which shows that community service can have a positive affect on people. In the Detroit News, they talked about a thirteen year-old boy named John Prueter and the type of community service he did and the positive affect it had on him. He volunteered at the Alterra Sterling House, an assisted living home in Hampton Township. From this experience from John, he now wants to study nursing and he said he became interested in the field because of his volunteer work. This shows the positive result of community service because it can also lead you into the career path you would have never known you liked until you volunteered.

Putting time into your community is a way of "giving back". The Dalton School says the moral center of a community, that place where we can find the values of empathy, compassion, and caring, is the basis for civic responsibility and the success of that community. In the Washington Post by Tara Bahrampour, she writes about two high school students, Willie Grothman and Tim Phang of Washington- Lee High School experienced the success of community service. They formed a community service club called the Willie Grothman Club and they held things like walking for AIDS, for the

homeless and for breast cancer in an event in which they took turns walking relays all night around a track in the rain. For these events they collect pledges of money from friends and family members for each mile they walked or each bowling pin they knocked down. These guys were some of the most inspiring people because they were not just helping their community, but the people in their community who were homeless, had AIDS, etc. Not only did this club change the members' lives, but also it changed the lives of others around them, and the people they were helping.

Community service does not have to be a negative because it can always turn into a positive. In the Dalton School, the Washington Post, the Detroit News, and Arthur Stukas, Mark Snyder, E. Gil Clary, and Mark Hugo, they all helped me determine that community service should be a requirement to graduate because it can change peoples lives for the better.

Thank you for reading my essay but I have another question, which introduction sounds better, the one above or this one:

Community service is very important because it helps build character. Having community service as a requirement to graduate is a good idea because it forces students to go out in their community and help others. Community Service doesn't have to have a negative effect on students, it can have a good effect or no effect at all. Willie Grothman and Tim Phang - two high school students who started a community service club that helped a lot of people in their community-, The Dalton School, and The Detroit News- who did a story on John Prueter- would agree that community service is important. Community service can be extremely valuable in the development of both character, academics and it gives students a chance to give back to their community.
applesauce32 2 / 4  
Feb 18, 2010   #2
Just reading the first paragraph, you overuse the word community service. Try selecting a different word or approach it with a definition of community service
EF_Kevin 8 / 13,321 129  
Feb 19, 2010   #3
This should be a comma and not a semi-colon:
Having community service as a requirement to graduate is a good idea as long as the student can choose what type of community service they want to do, because it...

This sentence does not belong in the intro paragraph: Willie Grothman and Tim Phang are two high school students who started a community service club that helped a lot of people in their community. You can use this as the topic sentence for a body paragraph, though!

The first version of the intro is better, because it has fewer sentences that do not belong in the intro. Give examples in the body paragraphs, and keep them out of the intro. Use the intro to clearly state your argument.

:-)


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