According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the frontal cortex in the brain, where reasoning and thinking before acting occurs, is not fully formed in teenagers. However, the amygdala, “responsible for immediate reactions including fear and aggressive behavior,” is fully formed early in life. This means teens aren’t as good at considering the consequences of their behavior before they react, so the adults in their lives should limit the risks in their lives until they’re better able to reason through them.

Teenagers are known to be less responsible than adults, so they should have at least some adult guidance to make sure they stay safe. Without adult supervision, teens will make poor decisions that could put them at unnecessary risk.

A good introduction = new information + ideas that everyone may not agree with. To put it another way, if your piece begins with an idea most people know and agree with, it’s less likely to pull readers in. People are made curious by new ideas and opinions that have multiple perspectives or may be controversial.

f teenage brains aren’t fully formed, causing them to act before they think about the risks they’re taking, should teens be restricted from some adult freedoms like driving, working, and socializing without adult supervision?

Some days my sixteen-year-old niece, Rachael, does all of her homework, helps friends study after school, and practices her cello, and other days she forgets her books at school, lies about where she’s going, and doesn’t do her chores. This sporadic behavior seems like it comes out of nowhere, but it turns out teenage brains are different from adult brains, causing teens to sometimes not think about consequences before they act.

Throughout history, teenagers have challenged the authority of adults. They do this because they want to be given more freedom and to be treated like adults themselves. This can cause real problems between teens and the adults in their lives.

Share an interesting, shocking, or little known fact or statistic about your topic. Starting your paper with a fact or statistic that gives your readers insight into your topic right away will peak their curiosity and make them want to know more. It will also help you establish a strong ethos, or credibility, from the very beginning.

"Single stories" develop from making assumptions about others based on hearsay or the media, so the way to combat them is to increase opportunities for genuine interaction between people from different backgrounds.

Chimamanda Adichie describes a similar experience in her TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story." When she started to write her writing was only influenced by British and American books that she used to read and she was not influenced by her everyday reality. She thought that all books are the same. Later she read books written by African writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, Adichie felt familiar with the places and characters in the stories. She understood that people like her exist in stories and that knowing only a single story is a danger and it leads to creating stereotypes.

Have you ever realized that your first impression about someone was wrong? It is common to have this experience, but it can be useful to understand more about why you thought this. Were your first impressions based on someone's race, gender, general appearance, age, etc.?

"Single stories" develop from making assumptions about others based on hearsay or the media, so the way to combat them is to increase opportunities for genuine interaction between people from different backgrounds.

Have you ever realized that your first impression about someone was wrong? It is common to have this experience, but it can be useful to understand more about why you thought this. Were your first impressions based on someone's race, gender, general appearance, age, etc.?

Chimamanda Adichie describes a similar experience in her TED talk, “The Danger of a Single Story." When she started to write her writing was only influenced by British and American books that she used to read and she was not influenced by her everyday reality. She thought that all books are the same. Later she read books written by African writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, Adichie felt familiar with the places and characters in the stories. She understood that people like her exist in stories and that knowing only a single story is a danger and it leads to creating stereotypes.