Online Research is Cool Man!

Dear Mr. Principal-
We want to research dress codes for students in school. I don't want to have a dress code, but Mr. Horton says I have to research all the different reasons pro and con for having them. He says they should be reputable sources as well. I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know it means I can't interview my friends. Therefore, I have to go online. That means you need to let me.

I should be allowed to do internet research, because there is so much information out there for me to learn. I would miss it otherwise and you do want me to be well-informed don't you. Here is a great example of learning important information online. Just this month a student in Texas asked a Federal Appeals Court to bar his school district from enforcing his dress code. He got in trouble for wearing a t-shirt with a political candidates name on it. It was against school rules to have clothes on with non-school messages. That violates his first amendment rights to free speech, man! Oh, and get this! In Ohio, there is a school where cheerleaders can't wear their uniforms, because they violate the school dress code. Is that lame or what? How are they supposed to cheer without their flippy little skirts? In Nebraska, 23 students were suspended for wearing t-shirts in memory of a dead classmate. The shirts were being sold to buy a headstone for his grave. That is just wrong! See how much I have learned from online research. I would never have known this without using the Internet.

Now, I know that all websites are not equally kosher. Mr. Horton gave us a strategy called the 5 W's of website evaluation that we can use to help us make good decisions about which research to believe. I used that strategy for all of my research. In fact, they all came from MSNBC.com and my grandmother says they are completely unbiased, not like some of those other news stations. Just to be sure though, I used Mr. Horton's rubric and it mostly worked. How cool! Now, if you will just let me use the internet, I can do my homework faster and better.

Thank you very much for fixing my problem.

Sincerely,
Wendy Heather Braindead