With this school year coming to an end, many different activities are approaching for students to take part in.
A common topic for discussion right now is prom, a memorable night in students’ high school academic career many frantically prepare for. Students all around the world make great efforts to try to make the most out of prom night. Like many schools, Millikan High School has decided to make prom on May 11, from eight to eleven, strictly for Juniors and Seniors.
Personally, I believe that this is fair but to the lowerclassmen, this could be seen as unfair. There are a few good reasons why prom should be reserved exclusively for juniors and seniors because it marks a big milestone in their high school journey.
By limiting attendance to prom strictly for upperclassmen, it ensures students have reached a certain level of maturity and responsibility. Also, juniors and seniors have likely been involved in the school community for a few more years than other students, making prom a meaningful culmination of their high school experience. These students must work hard for this coming of age experience and cherish this memory.
Restricting prom to juniors and seniors makes the event more memorable and enjoyable for those who attend. That is why we should make attendance to these dances for all. The other dances that Millikan hosts are winter formal, homecoming, and prom.
While expanding prom attendance to include freshmen and sophomores could be a good idea, I think it would just be better to keep dances separate. Allowing underclassmen to participate in prom provides a place where maturity is essential, a skill which many lowerclassmen lack.
Stevie Cade, a senior in COMPASS said, “I think there should be a dance for lowerclassmen because sometimes they don’t know how to act and can cause problems, like petty fights and disruption overall.”
Overall, providing students with more dances enhances school spirit, creates inclusivity, and creates lasting memories for students throughout their high school years. I believe that lowerclassmen just think that not being allowed to prom is unfair because they feel left out of one of the few dances we have.
There are many reasons why upperclassmen deserve a night to themselves that they earned, but so do lowerclassmen. Dance nights are such a big milestone in high school and I think everyone should be allowed to have a great time.
Robert Nelson • May 22, 2024 at 12:50 pm
Dear Corydon Editor,
On May 8, 2024, Addison Schneider wrote an article titled “Dances Being Inclusive”. As I am writing this prom has already passed but I think this is a question that is often brought up during the end of the school year. In my opinion I think that Prom is something that should be specifically reserved for Juniors and Seniors only. This is because prom is often something that is made into a core memory for upperclassmen although I think that it also gives underclassmen the fear of missing out on a popular event. This however can be resolved with another dance during the same time as prom with only the lower classmen, this allows for equality and for the underclassmen to be included in an important part of the high school experience. Thank you for covering this topic, great work as always and I look forward to reading more articles like this.
Sincerely,
Robert Nelson
Zariah Ruiz • May 21, 2024 at 1:32 pm
On May 8, 2024, Addison Schneider wrote an article titled “Dances Being Inclusive”. This opinion piece argues that dances reserved for upperclassmen such as prom should be reserved only for juniors and seniors. She does a great job observing both points of the argument by acknowledging how underclassmen may feel about not being able to attend prom. I agree with Schneider’s argument that prom is something for upperclassmen to look forward to as it resembles the end of AP testing as well as the end of a stressful year. I think the argument that underclassmen are less mature therefore rowdy and a disturbance to dances is a weak point. I’ve experienced many school events where many seniors and juniors tend to be the more aggressive crowd compared to freshman and juniors. Something I believe Schneider could’ve instead touched more on is the idea that prom is another coming of age event, and that reserving it for only upperclassmen makes it all the more special.
Elianni Rodriguez • May 21, 2024 at 11:27 am
On May 8, 2024, staff reporter Addison Schneider, wrote an article titled, “Dances Being Inclusive” to recognize the lack of inclusivity for lowerclassmen in school dances such as prom and how we can resolve it. This article highlights that prom is an important milestone in a junior or seniors’ lifetime and requires a certain level of maturity in order to attend. I praise the author for including a student’s unfiltered perspective on whether or not lowerclassmen should be able to attend prom. I also praise her for suggesting a resolution on how to make everyone feel included and have a good time. The addition of a school dance just for lowerclassmen will not only promote inclusivity but also school spirit, and long lasting memories. One thing I’d suggest is including the perspective of a lowerclassmen to get their opinion on how they feel being limited to only two school dances and why they feel this way.
Alyssa M Carrillo • May 21, 2024 at 9:48 am
On May 8, 2024, Addison Schneider wrote an article titled “Dances Being Inclusive”. The article is an opinion piece regarding the range of students who are able to attend prom. Schneider takes her stand and agrees that only juniors and seniors should be able to attend. Scheider backs up her point that since they are upperclassmen they have reached a certain level of maturity and responsibility. Scheider also brings up how this could be unfair to underclassmen but that they’ll be able to have their own prom in a couple years so it should stay this way. Scheider interviews Stevie Cade, a COMPASS senior, who believes that there should be a dance just for underclassmen. Although this may seem like a good idea I believe that Homecoming and Winter Formal provide underclassmen with a chance to participate in school dances. Dances like Homecoming and Winter Formal provide underclassmen with the “highschool experience” and if they like it they’ll be able to choose to go to prom when they become upperclassmen.
Sincerely,
Alyssa Carrillo
Caroline Gass • May 21, 2024 at 9:46 am
This article shows an argumentative perspective on who should attend the prom. Schneider reasons that juniors and seniors get the privilege of attending and not lowerclassmen because the upperclassmen are more mature. Lowerclassmen have not gone through the experiences/maturity the upperclassmen have and both view the argument differently. To provide a solution, it is mentioned that there are other dances lowerclassmen can attend and that though lowerclassmen don’t have the opportunity to attend they will in the future. Schneider also includes in the article an interview with a senior saying that lowerclassmen should have a separate dance for themselves. Again this provides a solution to the argument and helps the reader see that the writer is reasonable/credible. Overall, the article is presented with valid points and information backed by an interview. However, more interviews from upper or lower classmen could be included but other than that it’s solid.
Jensen Calderon • May 20, 2024 at 1:20 pm
On May 8th, Addison Schneider wrote the opinion piece “Dances Being Inclusive,” which goes over the debate about letting lower classmen attend prom. The author makes some very valid points, and I like that she includes multiple perspectives to try and cover as much of the argument. Her argument though feels a little weak, because of how the article is formatted. It begins with the points that go against what she is arguing for and continues for the majority. It just felt like I was reading a list of all the reasons why freshmen and sophomores shouldn’t be allowed to go to prom, but then it ends with one medicore reason why they should, and a statement that says they should. If there were more supporting sources or pieces of evidence that supports the claim that the author is making, it would be better at persuading the reader, and if formatted differently, would give the reader a different first impression in favor of the author’s argument.
Savannah Martinez • May 20, 2024 at 1:17 pm
On May 8, 2024, Addison Schneider wrote an opinionated article titled “Dances Being Inclusive” that informs the reader about the opinions within the school about grade level inclusivity within major student dances. During the time in which the article was written, it was the final moments leading up to prom. Schneider claims that “…strictly for Juniors and Seniors. Personally, I believe that this is fair but to the underclassmen, this could be seen as unfair.” In other words, Schneider believes that by restricting prom to juniors and seniors, it makes the event more meaningful and memorable since it is a high school milestone. A solution that Schneider highlights is creating a dance just for freshman and sophomores so they won’t feel as left out. Then Schneider points out that there are other dances that are open to all Millikan students like winter formal and homecoming. Overall Schneider believes that school dances enhance school spirit and major dances like prom should be restricted to only juniors and seniors.
A suggestion that I have for Schneider is to include more students to interview for the piece. I believe that this will enhance the writing because it will have more student point of views for the topic. I think that by including people of all the different grade levels, it will enhance more distributed different opinions that vary across the grade levels.
I praise Schneider for providing a lot of solutions and much information about this topic. By doing this, it enhances the writing tremendously. It mainly makes the opinion seem addressable and approachable to combat the problem of feeling left out.
Overall, Schneider succeeds in informing the reader of their opinion that school dances enhance school spirit and major dances like prom should be restricted to only juniors and seniors by providing problem and solution evidence.
Lucy Green • May 20, 2024 at 10:56 am
This article did an excellent job at acknowledging both sides of the argument regarding whether or not prom should be expanded to incorporate underclassmen. Schneider was great at including perspectives from both sides of the discussion in order to eliminate bias. I really appreciated the addition of an interview from a senior to acknowledge the views of students at Millikan.
I strongly agree with the author’s point that prom is a meaningful event for
upperclassmen that they have worked hard for. I also agree that underclassmen may lack the maturity necessary to attend prom. Because this is such a relevant and intriguing topic, I would really appreciate a follow-up article that includes more interviews with students from all different grades, so we could assess what the overall opinion is at Millikan.
While I resonate with the opinion that prom should be limited to upperclassmen, I really appreciate the author’s unbiased tone and willingness to acknowledge other perspectives. This article was interesting and relevant and brings up subjects for future articles.
Eric Carranza • May 20, 2024 at 10:00 am
On May 8, 2024, Addison Schneider wrote an article titled “Dances Being Inclusive”. This was an article I was able to relate to while reading because I am a junior in high school and I feel that prom should only be exclusively for juniors and seniors for the same reasons Addison said. She talked about the main important reason for hitting or achieving a high school milestone that freshman and sophomores have not hit. Plus, they have other dances they can go to as well and being a freshman and sophomore once, I was okay with not having that extra dance. Addison was right about the levels of maturity and achievement between the classes. She also proposes a good idea of having more inclusive dances for lowerclassmen while still having prom exclusive for the upperclassmen. She also does a good job explaining and arguing for both sides of the argument rather than just being one sided. Proposing both sides of an argument gives better credibility to the author rather than them appearing as biased.
Danyela Brilliant • May 20, 2024 at 9:28 am
Schneider talks about how Millikan’s prom dance is only meant for juniors and seniors to attend to. She believes that it should still be allowed for only the juniors and seniors, but also that the lower classmen do feel left out because they can’t go to prom. I think that prom should stay how it is and not allow the lower classmen to attend, and not because they don’t deserve it, but because this is something special and significant mainly for the seniors, and even the juniors too. I think prom is something that pretty much everyone knows about since they are a young kid, mainly because of high school movies and such, and it is something that lots of kids look forward to in high school especially because it is specifically for the upperclassmen. They get to enjoy it for themselves and not have to worry about the lower class men acting like children at their dances. Schneider quotes a senior in COMPASS who thinks that the lower class men should have a dance because they can’t go to prom, but I personally don’t think that they need an extra dance because they will get to become juniors and seniors one day and be allowed to attend just like how everyone else has had to follow those rules.
Lainey Chan • May 20, 2024 at 9:19 am
This article is quite a well informative piece on high school dances. The argument is whether or not prom should include freshman and sophomores. The piece does a great job of providing multiple sides of the argument. Some people believe that prom should be special for only upperclassmen. The valid argument is made that the immaturity of the lowerclassmen could ruin the dance. Others believe that excluding and leaving out the lowerclassmen is unfair.
Personally, I believe that prom should be left to the upperclassmen. It gives lowerclassmen something to look forward to in their upperclassmen years. This would make the dance more special and it would stand out from the winter formal dance. There is definitely a stereotype of freshmen and sophomores where people view them as immature. While they may feel left out of prom as of right now, their time will come in a few years.
Hayley Skibinski • May 20, 2024 at 9:12 am
To summarize, Schneider wrote about how high school dances such as prom should be exclusive for juniors and seniors. I agree with this, considering the immaturity of lower classmen in recent years. I’ve been at this school for three years now, and I can tell how snobby, rude, and mean sophomores and freshmen can be. They have no sense of empathy and it scares me that these kids are going to grow up in the years and make the school a lot more annoying. Of course, not all kids are like them, but the vocal majority seems to ruin the whole batch of kids. In dances like homecoming however, I’ve seen juniors of my age goof off as well, so it definitely isn’t just the lowerclassmen. However, it is still not not enough to compare the upperclassmen the same as the lowerclassmen.