Judge InvestWrite Essays in Three Easy Steps

Transcription

1 Judge InvestWrite Essays in Three Easy Steps Step One The student essays you will judge were based on the InvestWrite assignment below. Please familiarize yourself with the following. InvestWrite Assignment for Grades 4 5 Background: What happens if you put a dozen eggs in a basket and you drop the basket? Good chance you will have a mess to clean up. What if you had put only six eggs in your basket and left the other six in the carton on the table? There s a better chance you ll be eating eggs for breakfast! The same thing applies if you invest in only one industry and it slumps. An industry is a group of companies that produce similar goods or provide similar services. A diversified portfolio will include investments (stocks, bonds, and/or mutual funds) from more than one industry such as technology, health care, communications, or consumer goods that we use every day like cars and clothing. It s important to make investments in different industries. Think about what would happen if you invested all your money in Apple, HP, and Dell and then prices in the technology industry dropped. Writing Assignment: (Note for Judges: this question includes reference to the virtual portfolio the student developed in their classroom this semester using The Stock Market Game ) In your essay, write about the importance of diversifying your investments. Include the following: Is your Stock Market Game portfolio diversified this semester? If so, how? Are the stocks, bonds, or mutual funds you selected in different industries? What would you do differently to create a more diversified portfolio in real-life using stocks and/or bonds and/or mutual funds? Why is it important to have a diversified investment strategy? And just for fun-if you enjoy them-share your favorite way to eat eggs! Step Two You will score the essays on a 300-point system based on the student s rationale, their understanding of the subject matter, and their writing style. Each area is weighed equally in the scoring process. Below is a suggested guideline for the essay grading criteria: Rationale (100 points) 1

2 Is there a clear progression of logical thought? Is the essay well organized? Does the essay clearly address all elements of the question? o Describes how they diversified their portfolio. o States whether the stocks, bonds, or mutual funds they selected are from different industries. o Identifies the differences between a real-life portfolio and their classroom Stock Market Game portfolio. o Discusses the importance of a diversified investment strategy. Has the student successfully described the importance of diversification in investment? Has the student successfully distinguished between important details and unnecessary details? Understanding of the Subject Matter (100 points) Does the student use the appropriate language or terminology when explaining his or her position? In writing the essay has the student made sensible statements? Does the student demonstrate a correct understanding of the concepts they address in their response? Has the student demonstrated a sound understanding of what it means to make a good investment for the long term? Judges might give a student extra points for demonstrating an understanding of industries and sectors. Writing Style (100 points) Is the essay interesting to read? Did the student add creativity to the essay by creating narrative about their favorite way to eat eggs? Does the response encourage you to continue reading to the conclusion of the essay? Does the student use an engaging approach to address the elements of the essay? Does the student use complete sentences, proper punctuation, and good grammar? Does the essay demonstrate the student s careful crafting and revision? Step Three Decide if you would like to: Review and score the entries on the judging website -OR- Print the entries and return to the judging website to assign scores to each essay Then please consider entering comments in the field labeled Comments and Feedback for Teacher/Student. This is a great opportunity for you to provide important feedback to the student and teacher regarding your insights and judging rationale for each essay. As a judge your scores and comments will remain anonymous. Teachers and their students truly appreciate your feedback. There is no word or character limit and brief remarks are sufficient. Even a sentence is adequate and a maximum of three to five sentences would be greatly appreciated. A FEW ITEMS TO NOTE: 2

3 Please remember, completing the judging process within the designated time period is critical to ensuring the process moves forward and we are able to inform our teachers and students as soon as possible. Your Username and Password will permit you to return to your assigned essays as often as you need. Each time you exit, your scores will be saved. Be sure to return and submit all scores when you have completed the process. Please review your essays and assign scores in the three areas, then return as soon as possible to submit all your scores through the InvestWrite judging website: We are available to help with questions and support via at: SOME ITEMS THAT MIGHT BE HELPFUL AS YOU JUDGE YOUR ESSAYS: When grading essays you might think back to the last time you took a class or taught a course that involved an A through F grading system. One method of judging would be to grade the essay in each of the three areas described above based on the 100-point scale as you read each one (i.e., A=90 and above, B=80 and above, etc.). Another approach involves reading the essays all the way through and ranking them. As you scan them again based on your rankings, you can apply a percentage of the 100 points available for each criterion. Before we recognize a student winner we go through a process to ensure the essay is the work of the student, including use of anti-plagiarism software. However, sometimes an essay might cause you to question whether it was actually written by a student. Please send us a message containing the essay number if you should have this experience. All essays are judged a minimum of four times, by separate judges. The score you place on an essay will become a part of a composite score within the rest of the judging process. FOLLOWING IS AN EXAMPLE: Many of our volunteers like to review a successful essay that received recognition in the past. Below you will find a first place winning essay. Please note that this essay ranked first place nationally among all essays that were submitted in that grade division for the semester competition. Spring 2014 InvestWrite: A PREVIOUS WINNING ESSAY FOR OUR JUDGES TO READ AS AN EXAMPLE National First Place Grades 4-5 Background: The stock market and the bond market are a part of the capital markets. The capital markets bring buyers and sellers together to issue and trade stocks, bonds, and other financial assets. The capital markets strengthen our country by providing financing for entrepreneurs to start businesses, for companies to grow and expand, and for our government to build schools, roads and libraries, while giving people like you and me opportunities to save and invest for our futures. 3

4 Question: Pick a stock from your Stock Market Game portfolio that you think will be a good long term investment. Explain why you chose it. What products or services does the company provide? What is the company s plan for the future? Where do you think the company will be 10 years from now? Why? Be sure to provide specific examples from different sources to support your opinions. First Place National Essay: Republic Services Inc. / RSG: A Good Long-Term Investment What would the world be without garbage services? Can you imagine how bad the world would look? Even though we take them for granted they shouldn t be ignored. Some people think it s gross but for others trash equals cash and those people make millions even billions being owners of garbage services. Even Bill Gates (the richest man in the USA) still respects them because he knows they are the base of the country. Republic Services is the second biggest garbage service company in the world and only started on July 2nd 1998! RSG has been growing rapidly for a good reason; they provide environmental services and solutions for commercial, industrial, residential, and municipal costumers. Republic Services owns over 181 landfills and 86 recycling transfer stations. RSG is mostly in Michigan and Illinois and is spreading into the Pacific Region. This means it is expanding and expansion is good for the future. The CEO and President of RSG, Don Slager has been growing the company aggressively. In its past years RSG has filled trucks with compressed natural gas (CNG), saving it over 100 million dollars. RSG received a huge monetary investment from technology guru, Bill Gates to the tune of $2.9 billion to switch to CNG. Republic Services currently has two main competitors: WM Waste Management, and WCN Waste Connections Inc. Republic Services earns most of its money in Illinois and Michigan. They have created Safety Awards Programs that gives drivers who are safe awards. RSG buys the most efficient equipment on the market. RSG has special trucks that can do six times the number of houses that a front loader can do. These are called side loaders because they have robotic arms on the side of the truck that pick up garbage cans shake them empty into a compactor and return them to the ground. Side loaders will soon be the next version of classic residential garbage trucks. Back loaders are the common residential trucks that have a garbage man in the back that puts garbage into the compactor. RSG is growing rapidly, and with such rapid growth changes have to be made. RSG is planning to have 20% of RSG s trucks running on CNG in This will help them grow and will save them millions of dollars. RSG will probably use side loaders and switch all their front loaders and that will get them to the next level of technology in the garbage service world. One thing that helped RSG a lot is buying $6 billion of stock from Allied Waste. This made RSG expansion stronger. On May 6, 2010 Allied Waste opened its first food composting service in Oregon. RSG will compost food to their closest facility in Washington, a round trip of 344 miles. The food composting facility is two acres big and will be filled with food compost. I believe that Republic Services is a good investment because in the 16 years it has been on the stock market it has doubled by $ RSG is a good stock to invest in because it is low risk and has outstanding management. RSG has one of the best safety awards programs and reviews each driver on safety every week and that is what makes the company low risk. My Dad works at RSG and he took me to one of their dinners called Dedicated to Safety Program and when we got there all the drivers were sitting at tables. On stage, the manager presented awards to all the safe drivers. I was proud of my dad and the work that he does. It is a 4

5 necessary and vital part of our everyday lives and not a job to be taken for granted. RSG has proven to me to be an excellent long-term stock, and news stations have reported that it is a strategic benefit that will only become more valuable over time. The P/E ratio for RSG is for the last 12 months. If Bill Gates can invest his money in RSG you can take his example and invest in RSG too. 5