While I agree that reading and discussion can generate some great ideas for students, it doesn’t appear that organization skills are ever discussed in this chapter. I don’t know if the book simply assumes that students already know these things by the time we get to them, but I’ve always found organization to be one of the most important fundamentals of writing strong papers. The structure of a paper is really the skeleton of you work. The ideas and evidence and the meaty part of the paper, but what the chapter seems to be saying to me is that they want the kids to find their own way. Students should definitely have their own writing style, but it’s tricky because they should also know what is expected of them and what their teacher holds to be a good solid paper.
I’m not saying this chapter didn’t have its good points. I actually enjoyed it. It just seems like there should have been some emphasis put on organizational skills. I really like the discussion prompts because the ideas are so juicy and full of questions for young minds. The right to kill, the death sentence, crime problems, the right to your own lifestyle, and other ideas were brought up here and I think any of them would be fitting for a classroom and many great papers could come out of those few little articles.
Teachers should let students know their standards, show them some basic organizational skills for putting a paper together and then get into the meatier stuff like real world concepts and moral conundrums.
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