The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

78 “Single-Sex Versus Coeducation” by Kaitlyn Morse and Kelsey Gentry Instructor’s Notes Kaitlyn Morse and Kelsey Gentry’s argumentative synthesis demonstrates how effectively freshmen can collaborate on a research project. These students’ paper represents the attentiveness to detail, thoroughness of research, and thoughtful consideration of opposing viewpoints this type of persuasive essay requires. It also meets its intended audience of scholars and sensitively negotiates the complexities educators and their students face in regards to this topic. What do you conclude after reading this essay? Think about what does, or doesn’t, convince you. What do you find to be the most effective part of the paper? The least effective? Why? Writers’ Biography Kaitlyn Morse is a junior early childhood education major from Connecticut. She enjoys academic and non-academic writing and loves to read. Kelsey Gentry is a sophomore biology major from Virginia. She has enjoyed writing since early elementary school, particularly poems. Her other areas of interest include playing piano, sketching, hiking, and photography. Single-Sex Versus Coeducation If one takes an English phrase and translates it over and over into different languages, by the time one translates the phrase back into English, the result will differ completely from the original. This example is similar to what happens with much of the research behind single-sex education. Prominent scholars publish research, but by the time the research reaches the principal’s desk, the teacher’s hand, and the parent’s newsletter, enthusiasts of single- sex schooling have distorted much of the original information. As a result, those who are in charge of the schools have ideas about