How To Convince a Friend To Ski An Argument in Five Parts

Another blast from the past, another 2009 post that I have saved. Another example of school work, just in time for back-to-school.

Last year, our son was in 6^th grade. As a pre-teen, I thought he was already pretty good at arguing. But, apparently, his language arts teacher thought that all of her students needed some more practice, so one of their writing assignments was to create a piece of writing that would argue a point. I suppose this would normally be called persuasive writing. But when the assignment came home, my son had titled it “My Argument.” I never saw the finished product but here is his outline:

I. My argument/his argument

a. Tell him about skiing. Even though he is busy with hockey, he could still try skiing

b. Skiing is fun to do

c. Then we could hang out too

II. My experience

a. Talk about what’s fun in skiing

b. Tell what my favorite run is

c. Tell about the first day

III. Research

a. Skiing makes people happier

b. It relieves stress

c. It makes legs stronger

IV. My proposal

a. We ski together

b. Then I’ll watch your hockey game

c. Later we can hang out

V. Wrap Up

a. Restate his argument

b. Restate my argument

c. Proceed to have fun

I’m sold. He definitely won that argument. And, I love the wrap-up. In fact, I love it so much that when he confronts me about using his outline in my blog, I am going to use it.

Him: You stole my work. This is so embarrassing!

Me: I love your work. It inspired me. I don’t mean to embarrass you. I’m proud of you.

Then (hopefully), we’ll agree to disagree and “proceed to have fun.”