Jago Chapter1

I don't know about everybody else, but I really benefited from Jago's references to "Problematic essay prompts" at the end of the chapter. As I embark on learning to become a teacher, I have often wondered how in the heck I will even begin writing stimulating prompts for my students to engage them in essay writing. Jago's bit about cohesion and its relevance to bad essay prompting is something I am going to try to remember forever. It really makes sense that a student's essay would have lack of coherence if the prompt to write the essay had eight other questions within itself. I am also taking ED 301 this semester, and last week we had to read an article about how the American Educational System is going to hell in a hand basket. One of the faults that the author pointed out (which I agree with) is that students are not learning to think for themselves. The point of a good essay prompt is to stimulate the writer into be able to conjure up an insightful reflection with the help of a question that gets them critically thinking about the subject matter. With a good, laconic prompt students have direction to be able to think for themselves.
The only problem I had with Jago for chapter one was when she mentioned she would often craft her prompts to reach certain students. While I agree that students would certainly benefit from have a catered to prompt, how in the heck do you individually write separate prompts for all over your students? Eventually your kids are going to have to adhere to one prompt to write a paper about when they go to other classrooms or move on to college. Shouldn't we just give them one topic to write about and then help them individually with their own private critical analysis?