CM220 Unit 6 Sample Paper

Push the Bell Back: Why Fairview High School Should Start at 8:30

Author Name

School of General Education, Purdue Global

CM220: College Composition II

Unit 6 Assignment

Professor Name

March 2, 2026

What this page is doingA composition title should name the argument, not the genre. Push the Bell Back tells a reader what is being asked for and where, while a title such as Problem Solution Essay tells them nothing and reads like a file name. The district here is a composite built for this example, and the local figures are illustrative; when you write your own version, use a place you can actually check and cite what you find there.

The Problem With a 7:15 Bell

The first bus in Fairview Township pulls up at Maple and Ninth at 6:05 in the morning. In December the sky is still black and the corner store has not opened yet. Teenagers climb on with their hoods up, and most of them are asleep again before the second stop. The high school bell rings at 7:15, which means first period ends before the sun is properly up. Everyone in town treats this as normal because it has been the schedule for thirty years. It should not be normal. The Fairview school board should move the high school start time to 8:30, because the early bell takes sleep that teenagers cannot get back, and the change costs far less than the district has suggested.

Teenagers are not short on sleep because they are lazy. During adolescence the body clock shifts later, so a sixteen-year-old sent to bed at nine often lies awake until eleven no matter how tired he is. Doctors have been clear about what follows. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. and that teenagers get eight and a half to nine and a half hours of sleep a night (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2014). The American Medical Association took the same position two years later (American Medical Association, 2016). Meanwhile, about seven in ten high schoolers sleep less than the recommended amount on school nights (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024).

The cost of those missing hours shows up in ordinary places. A national analysis found that the average public high school in the United States started at 8:03 a.m., and only a small share of schools started at 8:30 or later (Hafner et al., 2017), which means Fairview is early even by a standard that is already too early. In the district's own records, the attendance office logged 1,142 first period tardies last fall among 2,400 high schoolers, more than three times the count for any other period of the day. Teachers on the ninth grade team say the first twenty minutes are mostly spent waking people up. That is instruction the town pays for and does not get.

What this page is doingThe opening earns its thesis instead of announcing it. One concrete scene at a bus stop, then the claim in a single sentence at the end of the paragraph, with the reason built into it, so a reader knows both the position and the argument to come. The evidence then arrives in plain sentences with the source named as part of the writing, and the local tardy count grounds national research in one town.

A Change Fairview Can Afford

The fix does not require new buildings or new buses. Fairview already runs a three-tier bus schedule: high school first, middle school second, elementary last. Flipping the first and third tiers would put elementary children on the early run and high schoolers on a bell at 8:30, using the same drivers and the same vehicles. Younger children are awake early anyway, and they are supervised on both ends of the day, which older teenagers are not. Districts around the country have made this exact swap, and it is the version transportation directors tend to prefer, because it leaves the fleet and the routes alone. Announce it in January and families have seven months to plan around it.

The money question has an answer as well. A study by the RAND Corporation modeled what would happen if schools across the country moved to a start of 8:30 or later and estimated a gain of roughly $83 billion to the economy within a decade, counting higher graduation rates and fewer car crashes, even after building in the added transportation costs districts worry about (Hafner et al., 2017). Closer to home, Fairview's own transportation office priced the tier swap at about $210,000 in the first year for crossing guards and two extra midday runs. That is under one percent of the operating budget, and most of it is a one-time expense.

It is worth being honest about what this change will and will not do. Later bells will not fix Fairview's math scores, and they will not stop anyone from staying up with a phone. What the evidence supports is narrower and still worth having: teenagers who start school later sleep more, and more sleep shows up in attendance, in mood, and in fewer crashes among the newest drivers on the road (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2023). A school district cannot legislate bedtimes. It can stop scheduling the school day against the biology of the people it serves, which is what a 7:15 bell does every morning.

What this page is doingA solution paragraph is only persuasive when it is specific enough to be argued with: which tiers swap, whose buses, what it costs, when it is announced. Notice the last paragraph gives ground on purpose. Saying that later bells will not fix math scores costs the argument nothing and buys credibility for the claim it does make, which is a trade first year writing rewards more reliably than piling on.

Answering the Objections and Making It Happen

The loudest objection comes from the athletic department, and it deserves a straight answer. Practices would start later, some would end after dark, and a few away games would pull players out of class earlier in the afternoon. That is a real cost. It is also smaller than it sounds, because Fairview put lights on the main field in 2019, and the soccer and softball teams already share that schedule. Districts that moved their bells report that practice times settle within a season. The harder version of this objection is about after-school jobs, and here the concession is genuine: a teenager working a 4:00 shift may lose an hour of pay a day, and no schedule change makes that disappear.

The strongest objection is childcare. Parents of elementary children who now leave the house at 8:00 would suddenly face an early bus, and parents who work the first shift would have teenagers at home unsupervised in the morning instead of sitting in a classroom. This is the objection that sinks the proposal in most towns, and it should not be waved away with a slogan about sleep. Fairview already runs a before-school program at three of its six elementary schools, and extending it to the other three is the part of the plan that has to be funded first rather than last. If the board cannot fund it, the board should say so in public and put a price on it.

The board votes on next year's transportation contract on March 10 at Fairview Middle School, and public comment opens at 7:00. Three things would move this further in one evening than another year of arguing about it online. Sign up for the three minutes of comment and use them to ask one question: what would the tier swap cost, in writing? Email the four board members beforehand so the question is not a surprise. Bring one neighbor who has a teenager in the high school. Nobody at that microphone has to win an argument about adolescent biology. Somebody just has to make the district put a number on the table and read it out loud.

What this page is doingObjections are answered in order of strength, weakest first, so the essay ends facing the hardest one rather than hiding it. The concession about lost work hours is real, not the fake kind that gets swatted down in the next clause. The call to action then names a date, a place, three specific moves, and one question, which is what separates a real ending from a paragraph that says we must act now.

References

American Academy of Pediatrics, Adolescent Sleep Working Group. (2014). School start times for adolescents. Pediatrics, 134(3), 642-649. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-1697

American Medical Association. (2016). AMA supports delayed school start times to improve adolescent wellness [Press release]. https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Sleep in middle and high school students. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/sleep.htm

Hafner, M., Stepanek, M., & Troxel, W. M. (2017). Later school start times in the U.S.: An economic analysis. RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2109.html

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (2023). Drowsy driving. U.S. Department of Transportation. https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drowsy-driving

How this CM 220 Unit 6 example is structured

Purdue Global does not publish a deliverable name for each unit of College Composition II, so this undergraduate example is written to the genre the unit almost certainly wants. In many sections this unit is where the term's chosen problem becomes a full argument draft with sources and a call to action; your classroom's instructions decide the exact form. The CM220 Unit 6 example follows the shape that argument asks for. The first body sheet opens with a scene, then states the thesis in one sentence at the end of the paragraph, then proves the problem is real. The second offers a specific solution and prices it, and limits what the solution can promise. The third answers objections in order of strength, concedes what deserves conceding, and ends with something a reader can actually do.

CM220 Unit 6 questions, answered

What does CM220 Unit 6 usually ask for?

In many sections this unit is where the issue you have been building all term becomes a full argument draft: a thesis, evidence from credible sources, at least one objection answered, and a call to action aimed at a real audience. Your classroom's instructions and rubric set the length, source count, and format, so read them before reusing this shape.

Where should the thesis go in a problem-solution essay?

At the end of the opening paragraph, in one sentence, naming both the action you want and the reason for it. That placement lets you open with a scene or a fact that earns attention first. Everything after it should be traceable back to that sentence, and if a paragraph is not, it belongs somewhere else or nowhere.

What counts as a credible source for this essay?

Professional associations, federal agencies, established research organizations, and reputable news outlets all work, and general readers can check them. Avoid content farms, undated pages, and sites selling the thing they describe. Name the source inside your sentence rather than dropping a citation at the end, and cite every borrowed number in APA style.

Write yours, or have the desk draft it

This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.

CM220 Unit 6: sample paper, in real form