Gangs (Writing the Critical Essay)

Books in the Writing the Critical Essay: An Opposing
Viewpoints Guide series use the patented Opposing
Viewpoints format to help students learn to organize ideas and arguments and to write essays using common critical writing techniques. Each book in the series focuses on a particular type of essay writing—including expository, persuasive, descriptive, and narrative—that students learn while being taught both the five-paragraph essay as well as longer pieces of writing that have an opinionated focus. These guides include everything necessary to help students research, outline, draft, edit, and ultimately write successful essays across the curriculum, including essays for the SAT.


From Introduction:

How Can Kids Be Stopped from Joining a Gang?
Though gangs commit the most serious of crimes, they are typically made up of teenagers and young kids. In fact, gang recruitment begins as early as middle school, and there are even reports of kids joining gangs as young as six or eight years old. Sometimes these kids are the younger siblings or children of older gang members, and are “born into” the lifestyle. In other cases, young kids who grow up in gang-ridden neighborhoods are targeted for membership at a very young age. One example of a gang that has attracted very young kids is the Fruit Belt Posse, which is active in Buffalo, New York.
This gang calls its youngest members the “Baby Posse.” It is disturbing that America’s youth are behind the robberies, murders, and violence that are the hallmark of gang activity, but their young age sometimes offers a chance to reach them before it is too late.