Finalized Argument

Cheyenne Mallery

Ms. McKoy

English II

October 17, 2012

Don’t Smoke your Success Away

            It all started about 14 years before I was born. My mom started smoking at the age of 9. That is like a 7 year old doing bills for their parents. It is way out of their age range. It was not her mindset to smoke. She just had a rough life so she said that smoking was one of her escapes from the world. My dad, my cousins, aunts, uncle, brother, and mom all smoked throughout high school. They we not very successful either. Neither my parents, nor my uncle went to college and my brother goes to CCU, but he is slacking off. This led me to the thought that maybe cigarettes could be affecting their mind. Could it be the chemicals, or just the cravings distracting them? Smoking is a nightmare that some people just cannot wake up from. In some cases, it is like a horror story about being a failure. Smoking does affect adolescences (in 9^th-12^th grade) academically because of chemicals, and the cravings.

            Cigarettes have extremely harmful and disgusting chemicals. They are long cylinder shaped pieces of special paper filled with tobacco and thousands of chemicals. “Some of these chemicals include benzene, formaldehyde, ammonia, acetone, tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, arsenic, and hydro cyanide.” You would not think that you are smoking toilet cleaner, nail polish remover, insecticide, car exhaust fumes, rat poison, and gas chamber poison (Health Education Authority, table 1)! I think that is just sickening. Who would want to put those in their body? I have always known about the synthetics used in these cancer sticks because of National Red Ribbon Week. When somebody asks me what R.R.W. is, I say that it is drug awareness week. Cigarettes may not be drugs like cocaine but it is a major issue that teens need to be aware of. I believe that if teens were taught the effects of smoking on the brain, not just on the lungs, they would be more conscious of their grades. “Not all cigarettes are made alike” (Falco, 2). I personally have noticed this too. Throughout the years, I have learned more and more about this product. Knowing that there are substances in these products, why are people ignorant enough to smoke them? Have they not considered the fact that these harmful and possibly deathly chemicals could be ruining their brains? Obviously not!

I do know that some people that smoke said that they get cravings in class, so they become distracted. When I asked around, many teens agreed with this statement. What if the cravings are causing bad grades? Could they be too powerful to avoid and ignore? To me, it sounds like these cravings are like homework; you cannot get around it. According to Discovery Health, smokers, including high school students, can relieve the cravings not by smoking, but by physical distractions. “Replace the act of smoking by chewing carrot sticks, using a tooth pick or squeezing a stress ball to help simulate the oral or manual act of smoking long enough to get through a craving” (Sailor, 1-2). I know that in school, students are too occupied by work to do anything else. If adolescence are too busy to even lift up their pencils from their paper, then how are they supposed to relieve their cravings? They do not have time to be active in the sense of cravings. Therefore, they will become distracted from the surroundings and lose focus.

I recently conducted a survey at Early College High School. Question one was asking what grade the student is in. The second question asked if the student does or has smoked during their high school years. The third and fourth questions are tied together. Three asks if you think that smoking can affect you academically. If you said yes for three, you move onto four. Four says, “If you said yes, what could be a possible factor?” “Thirty-two percent of the 38 students surveyed claimed that they do or have smoked during high school” (ECHS Survey Statistics, slide 5). This percentage does not sound high to teens but 100% of the teens are smoking underage; the age limit is 18 years old. I think that if about 16% of those adolescence who smoke saw my blog, they might realize that they are ruining their future. “79% of the survey takers believe that smoking does affect you academically” (ECHS Survey Statistics, slide 7). Thankfully, this number is fairly high. Due to their choice to say yes, they agree with me. Many of the high school students who claimed the smoking cannot affect you academically were smokers themselves. I have come to the conclusion that 99% of adolescent smokers do not want to consider consequences; one of the consequences being low grades. I came to this conclusion because when I asked my peers that do smoke if they believed that smoking can affect them academically, they argued with me that it does nothing to you.

Smoking can affect the teenagers academically due to chemicals and cravings. There are so many teens that smoke their future away and fail. If they knew that smoking could hurt their grades, would the still smoke? The world may never know, but I think that they would think about quitting. I believe that all of my research can encourage adolescence to focus on what lies ahead in life; the future. College is a chance to become an expert for the career of your dreams. If you smoke it way, you will not have a successful life. 

Works Cited

Anonymous et al. “Does Smoking Affect Adolescence (9th-12th Graders) Academically?” Survey. October 2012.

Brown, Shayla. Personal Interview. October 2012.

Crenshaw, Justin. Personal Interview. October 2012.

Gaydos, Taylor. Personal Interview. October 2012.

Gomez, Tiana. Personal Interview. October 2012.
 

Harper, Kelsi. Statistics. November 2012.

Harry A. Lando, et al. “A Period Of Increased Susceptibility To Cigarette Smoking Among High School Students.” Journal Of School Health 7307 (2003):272-278. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Oct. 2012.

Johnson, Len. “Chemicals in Cigarettes.” Stop-smoking-programs.org. Health Education             Authority 2012. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. http://www.stop-smoking-programs.org/chemicals-       in-cigarettes.html

Lewis, Kelsey. Personal Interview. October 2012.

Mallery, Cheyenne. Personal Interview. October 2012.

Sailor, Matt. “How Often Do Smokers Relapse When They Quit: Dealing with Cravings.”             Howstuffworks.com. Discovery Communications 2012. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.             http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/smoking-cessation/how-often-do-smokers-         relapse2.htm

Shereen Khatapoush, et al. "Identifying High School Students “At Risk” For Substance Use And                 Other Behavioral Problems: Implications For Prevention." Substance Use & Misuse 41.1               (2006): 1-15. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.

 

 

What is Important to Know?

     When thinking about my topic, I ask myself a few questions. These will guide me as well as my "Nerdz" through research and other posts. Which one of the grades (9th-12th) might be impacted most academically due to smoking? While I do my survey, this question will be running through my head. How much of an impact might is affect adolescence academically? When I see this question, i think about my peers who smoke and are poorly performing in class. Could smoking be the cause of their actions? Possibly. What if students knew that cigarettes affected their grades in a negative way? Maybe they would stop smoking. Maybe they would be more successful. Should schools step in to help students quit smoking so that they can succeed? I definitely think so. Why would this information help high school students? I believe that if students could quit smoking, they would be more successful academically. The facts about cravings, chemicals, and other factors of smoking could open up their eyes and make them take a second look at what they are doing to their future.

  

Essential Questions

•Which one of the grades (9th-12th) might be impacted most academic wise due to smoking?

•How much might it academically affect student’s grades?

•What if students knew that it affected their grades?

•Should schools step in to help students quit smoking?

•Why would this information help 9th-12th grade students?

 

Could these be affecting adolescence academically? I think so. http://www.stop-smoking-programs.org/chemicals-in-cigarettes.html

Cheyenne Mallery

Ms. McKoy

English II

10-16-12

“Academic Performance and Substance Use: Findings From a State Survey of Public High School Students”

            In this article, Cox et al argues that improving grades and the way that adolescences perform in an academic way is extremely important to parents and teachers. The authors claim that between being a kid and an adult, a teenager, comes with different and possibly unusual behavior such as emotional, physical, intellectual, and how they handle substances. Cox et al comes up with this claim by first describing their opinions and observations. Another claim that is stated is that past investigations have shown that cigarette smokers are more likely to have low academic achievement. The authors stated that in a recent survey of 12^th grade high school students, the ones who smoke on a regular basis had way lower scores than those who do not smoke.

            The authors’ purpose of writing this article is to inform parents, teachers, and students/ adolescences of the relationship of smoking and academic achievement. They used proven facts as well as observations to write this article. This article was significant to me because it pretty much stated my topic in a different way. The facts in this are right on target. Many of the words caught my eye because they are words that I have been using for my research. This article was extremely helpful because I can still use some of the statistics in my documentary.

Works Cited

Daniel R. Bender, et al. "Academic Performance And Substance Use: Findings From A State Survey Of Public High School Students." Journal Of School Health 77.3 (2007): 109-115. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.

 

Cheyenne Mallery

English 2

Ms. McKoy

10-15-12

“Identifying High School Students ‘At Risk’ for Substance Use and Other Behavioral Problems: Implications for Prevention”

            Hallfors et al argues that cigarettes, alcohol, sexual behavior, and other substances can cause adolescences to think about suicide, dropping out, and have lower GPAs. The authors claimed that problems like substance use, emotional, delinquency, alcohol, and tobacco use are common things to see when looking at teens. Hallfors et al develops this claim by first examining and observing adolescence and how they are affected by substances. The authors conducted experiments to examine how much teens were affected. Indiscriminate teens were chosen.  They also claim that it is hard to identify these problems because teens are not very open and hide how they feel.

            The results of the experiments showed that affected teens said that they do not like to spend time with their family, do not plan to attend college, have no knowledge of their parent’s lives, and do not do any type of school activity. The kids who were surveyed were broken up into two categories; high risk and typical. The results for the high risk kids helped prove the authors’ argument.

            This article is significant to my blog because it shows how teens feel and how they are affected by substances. I got a lot of information to support my blog out of this. There are lots of statistics that I can put into a graph or even just make into sentences.

Works Cited

Shereen Khatapoush, et al. "Identifying High School Students “At Risk” For Substance Use And Other Behavioral Problems: Implications For Prevention." Substance Use & Misuse 41.1 (2006): 1-15. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.

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Cheyenne Mallery

Ms. McKoy

English 2

October 4, 2012

A Period of Increaded Susceptibility to Cigarette Smoking Among High School Students

            Filice et al argues that when teens smoke, they experience five stages of preparation. They also argued that they are more capable of being susceptible (being affected emotionally). The authors also argue that the susceptible youth are two to four times more likely to smoke later in adolescence. They claim that the first stage of smoking is the preparatory stage; the teens build stronger attitudes and beliefs about it. The second stage is the “trying” stage. This means that adolescents start to try smoking. Stage three is the experimental stage which is when the smokers try different things with smoking. Stages four and five sort of tie in with each other. These two stages are regular usage, and addiction. Filice, Hannan, Lando, and Joseph also claim that susceptible youth are two to four times more likely to smoke later on in their life as a teenager or young adult. A third statement made by the authors is that “short-term periods of increased susceptibility might represent important opportunities for prevention to smoke. To make these claims, the authors first studied and experimented adolescents. Filice, Hannan, Lando, and Joseph surveyed teenagers to see how tobacco related to knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.

             The purpose of this article is to share the purpose and findings of the surveys that they gave out. They took students from 9^th to 12^th grade and put the results into graphs. The students were anywhere on a scale from susceptible, but never smoked to committed non-smoker, to some experience with smoking. This work is significant to my topic because it brings up the fact that smoking may affect student’s knowledge. That was part of the research that they did.

 

Works Cited

Harry A. Lando, et al. "A Period Of Increased Susceptibility To Cigarette Smoking Among High School Students." Journal Of School Health 73.7 (2003): 272-278. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Oct. 2012.

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Essential Questions

Which one of the grades (9th-12th) might be impacted most academic wise due to smoking?

How much might it academically affect students grades?

What if students knew that it affected their grades?

Should schools step in to help students quit smoking?

Why would this information help 9th-12th grade students?

Look at all these chemicals. Could these help make you "More Stupider?"

Yes or No. Do you think that smoking in high school can affect students grades? Feel free to put your opininon. Explain why if you can.

My Research Topic

            After coming up with many ideas, I finally narrowed it down to five choices. After that, it was so hard to choose one. I asked Ms. McKoy what I should do and she told me what her favorite one was. I kept her opinion in my mind and thought for a while. I finally agreed to pick the one that she liked. “Can smoking effect how well you do in school?”

            I realized that my topic was too broad. After watching the power point about broad and narrow topics, I used the five w’s to help narrow down. Who, what, when, where, and why. For who, I said smokers. I said smoking while in high school for what. My when is form 2008-2012. Because I don’t want to have too little or too much information, I am only doing my research on the east coast. I am doing this topic because I might be able to convince students to quit smoking if they know that it might affect their grades. After I did my five w’s I made my topic more specific. “Can smoking effect how well 9^th-12^th graders perform academically?”

            The reason I chose this as my topic is because almost everyone in my family smokes. My mom, brother, uncle, and even some friends that I consider family. My dad used to smoke but he quit a couple years ago. I have asked them to quit because I don’t want anything to happen to them but I can’t quite get them to quit. My brother, Shaman, just graduated and it got me wondering if he could have gotten better grades if he hadn’t been smoking.