Ash-leigh Jackson

Pool 12:3
Mrs. Veta Dawson
Module one essay

The writer’s main purpose is to alert or educate readers about the chasm of academic

achievement between boys and girls in Jamaican High Schools. The writer’s main point is

that girls develop faster than boys. Organizational Strategies are things used to plan the

format of the essay. In this passage organizational strategies and language technique were

used.

The first organizational strategies that could be seen is statistic. This could be seen when it

was said “Previous studies have shown that the brain does a lot of reorganising during

puberty. At the age of about 10–12 years, you start to see a lot of activity in the brains of girls

as this pruning takes place, but it was 30 between 15-20 for boys”. Another one would be

contrast. An example of contrast was shown when it was said “More than twice the numbers

of females (67 per cent) are enrolled in UWI than males (33 per cent), and 59 per cent of

those enrolled in post-secondary non-tertiary education are women. A literary technique that

can be seen is Hypophora. This is where a person poses a question and then answers the

question. This can be seen in the third paragraph when the writer wrote “In both primary and

private preparatory schools, girls outperform boys in the Grade Six Achievement Test. Why

is this? Is it because boys learn differently from girls, and Jamaica's school system is

hopelessly feminized, putting boys at a disadvantage? Maybe. But it seems to me that the

analysis of male educational underperformance ignores major scientific findings that have

been known for some decades, and 15 which have been reinforced or confirmed by recent

research.” Another strategy would be problem and solution. The problem was that the boys

were not being treated fairly educational wise and is often left behind in learning. The
solution that the writer gave was that we convert co-ed high schools to single-sex schools,

and build more grammar school for boys.

The information presented can be seen as credible for few different reasons. One would be

that it was written less than 5 years ago which means it’s still reliable. Another reason would

be that they were able to cite there sources to show where they got the information from. One

thing from the passage that would not be credible would be the statistics from 2005 where the

number of boys to girl who sat CSEC subjects was stated. More than 10yrs has passed so it

would be reliable.

In conclusion the writer main point is that girls develop faster than boys and the main purpose

is to alert or educate readers about the chasm of academic achievement between boys and

girls in Jamaican High Schools. The organizational strategies and language techniques used

were statistics, contrast, hypophora and problem and solution. A reason why the information

can be seen as credible is because it was written less than 5 years ago.