Common Core gives you skills that will last a lifetime. Common Core is standards that students must meet to be successful in school. This gives students whose teachers have been using the Common Core an advantage, because they are prepared for college and the real world. Schools need Common Core so they will have smart and successful students.
Last year in 6th grade, I was nowhere near as great of a writer as now. I could barely construct a basic five-sentence paragraph. It’s not that I didn’t know what to write; I just didn’t know how to put my ideas into words. When I got my words onto paper, they weren’t really interesting. My sentence structure was composed of simple sentences and very few compound sentences. This is because we weren’t really taught how to create attention-grabbing and descriptive paragraphs.
Because of Common Core and Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC), this year, all of that changed.
My writing has never been better. Now, I can put my ideas into words, and my paper will become a page-turner. I can use information from the text to support my ideas. I can also turn a book’s words into my own voice by using my style. Everything I am learning now is helping me become college-and-career ready for what the world has to offer.
By participating in Common Core and LDC, I am preparing myself for college and a life-lasting career. During college, I will not have to worry about retaking the Regents Writing Test and taking a remedial class. I also won’t have to fill out a job application and have a fear of not putting out my best effort.
Common Core and LDC will also help with most careers — like being a detective, doctor, nurse, or lawyer. How? Detectives have to write crime scene reports. Doctors and nurses have to describe how the patients look and are feeling. Lawyers have to write down all the notes on their current case. Though these are just a few career examples, Common Core and LDC prepare you for a wide variety of other careers too.
Common Core and LDC helped change my writing and possibly my future. Now, you have to decide if Common Core and LDC are worth the challenge, or a waste of time. The decision you make will last a lifetime.
Chantel Simmons is a 7th grader at King Middle School, Atlanta.
