Final Course Reflection

In the beginning of my research, my thesis statement was vague and obvious: parents and teachers need to be involved with their student’s education. It was enough to write my topic selection essay, however it failed when I needed to write my exploratory essay. The thesis was to short and already known so it needed to be redefined. At the beginning of my exploratory essay I used this statement to help my paper get off to the right start. However, as the paper developed I explored the opposite views and other aspects which could hinder or help the education of students. By doing so, I explored the Erikson stages of development which show that there can be a negative and positive outcomes to every lesson learned in life. Another approach I took was to view the governmental side of education. This helped me to derive my new thesis statement by looking into the NCLB act (No Child Left Behind Act). The research I found on the NCLB act was that George W. Bush first put the act in to place in 2002 and was focused on highlighting the problem areas and correcting them with academic testing. More research showed that Obama wanted to redefine the act and focus more on early child development and after school programs which would give the cost put toward academic testing towards the other programs. After doing all of this research and seeing the different view-points and how many lives were affected by this act I came to the final thesis for my research paper.  My thesis would be that the NCLB act did not just a law that affected the lives of the students, but the lives of all who were affiliated with the students and wanted to help them pursue their academic careers. The three main peers affiliated with the students would be the parents, teachers, and government; leaving the Erikson stages of development and the NCLB act as the main sources of support. The counter argument would be that the law did have faults, such as, the billions of dollars but put towards academic spending. The rebuttal would be that Obama would revise the act putting it toward the early child development and after school programs. The first two papers helped me to come to this conclusion and without them I would still be stuck with a vague and obvious thesis statement resulting in a horribly boring research paper.