Andrew Tang's Speech Competition

But many teenagers today are so hyped up and stressed out that they’re getting only a fraction of the rest they need. The book mentions a high school in Silicon Valley that brought in outside sleep experts, created a kind of sleep curriculum and trained students as “sleep ambassadors,” all to promote shut-eye.

Adolescents today face a widespread chronic health problem: sleep deprivation. Research shows that getting enough sleep is a biological necessity. Sleep is essential for a person’s health and wellbeing, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Teens are among those least likely to get enough sleep; while they need on average 9 1/4 hours of sleep per night for optimal performance and health and brain development, teens average fewer than 7 hours per school night, and most report feeling tired during the day (Nationwide Childrens, 2003). The root of the problem is early school start times.

Frank Bruni expresses his deep thought of the “super” teens becoming exhausted on the high school or college campus in his article, “Today’s Exhausted Superkids”. He supports his main idea by using details of teenagers trying to outrule each other. Bruni begins the article by discussing how sleep needs to be a top priority in students’ lives. Bruni makes very valid points while writing about society’s push for students to become more involved in extracurricular and advanced classes, while also suggesting why more than seven hours of sleep is needed daily.

To conclude, we can see how not only does more sleep make us prepared and more focused for the school day, but how it also affects our positive sleeping patterns, our ability to learn, and the amount of stress that our bodies receive. We see how many liable resources were used to conclude that sleep truly is one of the most important factors in a student's everyday life and supports the idea that school should begin later for the most positive results. Starting school later will truly minimize bad sleep patterns and habits, increase the amount of learning and lastly, put less stress on our minds and

In the article Teachers,Students and Sleep, author Dave Stuart address the effects of different qualities of sleep have on students. Stuart covers the causes for poor sleep and the consequences this can have. The author repeatedly references the work of Harvard graduate Maria Konnikova, along with Shawn Stevenson who has a bachelor's degree, thus they appear to be reliable sources. Stuart cover the negative effects of artificial light close to sleep, and the many positive effects of regularity in other activities on the sleep cycle. Dave Stuart makes his readers reevaluate how important sleep is.

In addition, with such high academic demands, extracurriculars, volunteer work, and sometimes jobs the children become sleep deprived without even knowing it. Yuan, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics, says, “They say they are tired, but they don’t realize they are actually sleep-deprived. And if you ask kids to remove an activity they would rather not. They would rather give up sleep than an activity” (Richter). Regardless of where they come from of who they are, most teens don’t sleep enough during the week and sleep in on the weekends to compensate for lost sleep. But, many accumulate large amounts of sleep loss that they don’t sufficiently recover on the weekend and become fatigued when Monday comes. This problem needs to be confronted, but with not much importance in today's society it's hard to make a change like pushing back school start times.

“Today’s Exhausted Superkids” is an article written by the respected columnist Frank Bruni who has been a White House correspondent, a restaurant critic, and has written for the New York Times. Bruni begins this article by lamenting the various dilemmas facing America’s top high school students, all of which were presented in the book Overloaded and Underprepared. The problem which he claims to have struck him the most, though, is the dire lack of sleep which has become the norm for high school students. Bruni writes a great deal about how students today are becoming more and more compelled to be involved in more; to do more, often at the cost of precious sleep. He embodies this idea perfectly with the quote, “Lose a few winks but never a

During this week’s article, “Most High School Students Are Sleep Deprived”, by Sylviane Duval, The author claims throughout the article that most high school students are sleep deprived. The author brings up valid points throughout the article and even gives ideas on how to solve this high school sleep deficient epidemic. Throughout this paper I will point out some of the major strengths and weaknesses I found in this article.

Bruni’s response hit me hard because I, and many others around me, can relate. I agree with Bruni, sleep deprivation is an immense problem among “superkids” today. I know from personal experience that many of my peers, myself included, attempt to go above and beyond in everything that they do. These dedicated students are constantly trying to improve to be the best possible version of themselves. With

Today’s Exhausted Superkids is Frank Bruni’s response to the book “Overloaded and Unprepared.” His response portrays many people of the younger generation whom do not get enough sleep. In his response Bruni states, “But many teenagers today are so hyped and stressed out that they are getting only a fraction of the rest they need.” Bruni suggests smartphones and tablets are part of the cause of keeping kids and teens up in the middle of the night. However, he also mentions these are not the only factors as to why students do not get enough sleep. Hard work is another culprit. Many students work hard to achieve their high grades and do better on their tests. They strive to be the best and be a part of as many extracurricular activities as possible. Some students use stimulants, such as adderall, to become the high achievers they strive to be. Frank Bruni made good points about teens being overworked, but I disagree with his idea that many students do not get enough sleep due to pressure and expectations because most of them choose to do other things rather than sleeping.

“Today’s Exhausted Superkids”, an article by Frank Bruni, shows us how the new norm for teens is to be overloaded with an extreme drive for success. These striving teens are being referred to as “Superkids” in Bruni’s article because the hype for a competitive edge among teens today is causing a lack of sleep. Bruni’s opening to his article expresses his distress towards high school students who are always in search of that competitive edge. While Bruni was reading an article about sleep deprived teens, he had an awakening when he realized teens are so stressed and hyped up that they are only getting a fraction of needed sleep. Sleep is an essential part of healthy growth, especially in the age range of a teen because they are still developing. Furthermore, Bruni makes the point that when he was a teen students were getting too much sleep, but now students welcome those hours of sleep lost in order to get ahead. Throughout the essay, Bruni makes the important point and uses astonishing facts that high school students need to begin putting sleep first because of how detrimental it is to their emotional and physical health.

Specific Purpose: Sleep and college students usually don’t tend to get along very well. Sleep and college life often bump heads due to stress, coursework and social activities. This speech will give the students useful information about dangers of not getting enough sleep and also hints on how to get a better nights sleep.

Frank Bruni chose to respond to a book titled Overloaded and Underprepared. In his response, he focused on the content from the book regarding current trends of students’ lack of sleep. While Bruni was in school, the problem with teenagers was they were getting too much sleep, but now teenagers are not getting enough sleep. He decided to point out some problems teens face today that may be a factor why they get very little sleep.

Almost every day high school students are waking up around six o’clock in the morning to get ready for school, some even earlier than that. Nearly every morning students are waking up without adequate sleep. If sleep is one of the most essential needs of the body in order to grow and develop, shouldn’t we be more aware of how much it affects students everyday performance? The ways in which students are affected by sleep-deprivation is precisely why school needs to start later.

Adolescents don’t choose to stay up late; they do know the consequences of being tired the next day. “The starting time of school puts limits on the time available for sleep, this is a nonnegotiable limit established largely without concern