Swirling Tides

Should Students Have Homework?            Homework. Students spend time completing it, teachers spend time grading it. It’s a word that sends a shudder down the spines of students, a word that many students dread hearing. However, I strongly believe that there should be homework in middle school, for several reasons.       First of all, studies have shown that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood of attending college. According to research by the Institute for the Study of Labor, if you take the case of high school boys, increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for them. In fact, the ones who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school. According to time.com, a meta-analysis by Duke university psychology professor Harris Cooper found evidence of a positive correlation between homework...

Premise:  When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy? This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like t...