Milk

My topic is the wonderful and disgusting milk. First I will talk about how mothers are not breast feeding anymore and just using formula or regular milk. That is just absurd!! Breast milk is wear babes get all there nutrients and things needed for devolving correctly, and mothers are TAKING IT AWAY! They are taking away the necessities of life!!! Next I am going to talk about milk that people drink from cows. I am one of the many people that hate drinking straight milk. We get our milk from cows who give it to their babies to get fat!! Yet we drink it, and people complain about being fat. Not only that but the things that people do to the milk and the cows are just unheard of. i am going to list all these facts and things that will make all the classmates stomachs turn. Like saying that most of the milk we drink has cow blood in it etc. Lastly, I am going to talk about the solutions and what people are doing instead of drinking bad milk.

BCS debate topic

The BCS (Bowl Championship Series) is basically how in college football they find the two "best" teams to square off in the National Championship. I will be trying to persuade you that this is an archaeic system that needs to be out lawed! I am going to talk about the multiple law suits against the BCS, and ultimately persuade you to my liking.

Home Economics in schools

My persuasive speak is going to be about how schools should require students to take some kind of home economics class to graduate. Home economics teaches students to do the basic things in life, like cooking, sewing and teaching them how to do basic everyday things. A lot of students don't even know how to do the basic everyday things so having a home economic class could teach them what to do when they are out on there own.

Other schools originally taught students these skills in a classroom, but over time they handed off this large responsibility to our parents, many of which failed to pass along their knowledge to us as the students. Some parents have never even been formally taught the basic skills needed in order to be successful, such as managing their bank account or doing their taxes correctly. Schools need to make it a priority that their students are prepared for all aspects of life on their own.

Basiclly my persuasive essay is about how it should be mandatory that students take a Home Economics class before they graduate high school.

Drugs

I was going to write about should not legalize drugs. Lavender and I talked about how I might write in support of animal research, but I think that I could write a better argument about drugs. I would mention things like how the FDA is super important in protecting people, and that if we legalize drugs, we basically undermine their existence. If we legalize drugs, large corporations will take them over, and start selling these products that don’t do anything but kill people. We are a society that really protects consumer protection, and legalizing drugs would basically be saying ‘screw you’ to protection. If we legalize drugs, then we can’t say that a company cannot release a bad drug that claims to, say, cure cancer, but while it does that, it turns your brain into mush. While I am not a big believer in all sorts of regulations, I there is something wrong with making it legal to sell a product that kills everybody. There is a lot of value in having a free society, but we cannot allow people to make a profit off of a product that kills everybody. While the United States is a society that favors giving freedom to businesses, we are also not one that favors letting them kill people. While deregulation in general is a good thing, we have to draw the line somewhere, and allowing companies to put out products that do nothing but kill the consumer is where we must draw that line.

Television's negative impact on society

I am thinking of writing a speech addressing the positive impacts of a television free household and the negative impacts television plays in the lives of many children. My evidence includes everything from over-stimulation (where kids are being fed a constant stream of images, and that soon becomes the norm, thereby affecting the child's perception of reality where not everything is given or presented to you, but a reality where one has to go out and get things for themselves.) to the fact that television destroys relationship skills and that it caused the loss the ability have a conversation. It creates a sedentary viewer and lifestyle (we want to lower obesity rates? then get rid of the TV.), it uses up much of our free time, therefore affecting grades, sports, family activities, etc. Television also exposes children to a large array of information and subjects that many may not consider appropriate for young viewers. Overall, I will argue that television is ruining family relations as well as the lives of our nation's youth.

This one's from Sonja!

Should we ban keeping animals in circuses? Yes. Dressing animals up, training them to do things against their will, usually with violence is cruel and should be illegal. Forcing animals to entertain us under poor living circumstances and bad treatment is unethical. Zoo's on the other hand are humane and actually save a lot of endangered species by securing them with safe and similar habitats to their natural ones and advanced medical treatment to those saved from the wild. Also a chance to research animals for science and become familiar to the creatures inhabiting our world. That is a way for city families to experience animals as they naturally are, not with make up and clothes forced onto them, parading around a circus ring probably frightened to their wits end. According to PETA.org, "Circus people force animals to perform these meaningless and physically uncomfortable tricks, trainers use whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bull-hooks, and other painful tools of the trade." I think it's good that people are starting to recognize this and I also think its our moral duty to ban circuses from being able to use animals in their performances, thankfully "because of concerns about animal mistreatment and public safety, a growing number of communities are banning or restricting the use of animals in circuses." I'm going to argue that a zoo is a good place for humans to research and be around animals from the wild but doing so, saving their lives and enabling them to live long and healthy lives in something designed to be just like their natural habitat. There's a way to be close to these creatures and even entertained in a perfectly humane way.

FIS regulations

I am going to write my persuasive essay/ speech on the FIS ( International Ski Federation) ski regulations. For the season of 2011- 2012 FIS is going to have new ski minimum lengths and radius for all disciplines. I will be arguing against this.

Resolved: Increasing the length and radius of the ski for FIS racing will protect and make the sport safer. 

FIS is making these changes because they think that it will slow done the racers and make the sport safer, but by making these changes it will ruin the sport. because the ski will have a bigger radius and be longer the coaches will set straighter courses which will not decrease the speed. And the racers will have a harder time turning the ski which may result in more crashes.
Top GS racer Ted Ligety is against this notion.

Debatable Topic

I think an interesting thing to right about is our gas prices. Lets stop messing around and raise the gas prices to eight bucks a gallon. Do you know what that would do. It would lower our carbon level in our atmosphere because alot of people would not pay for that. It would also raise a lot of money for the debt we are in. Lets face it, we have to start finding other resources to rely on. We are not fully aware that millions are fighting and dieing for gas and oil. Do you think alternative resources such as solar power, geothermal, wind and hydro would help. We have to start investing our money in alternative ways to produce energy

The King's (Davis') Speech-Driving

I want to bring up the fact that driving is a privilege that comes too easy.  I want to suggest that driving tests need to be more intensive (maybe a test of driving in many different situations), cars need to be no cell phone zones, in that cars need to be installed with transmitters that redirect cell phone signals inside the cabs of vehicles to eliminate all distraction that cell phones provide.  Cars also should have breath-o-lizer ignitions that require a driver to blow before the car can start. If it was a lot harder to obtain a driver's license, then people would be forced to have to make use of public transportation, which in all would also eliminate carbon emissions.  Although our nation has a very poor public transportation system, people who could not obtain licenses would eventually ask local and national representatives to bring about the topic of implementing a more complex and much safer public transportation system that would save hundreds of lives everyday.  I hopefully am going to be able to provide more suggestions to the topic of driving in our country, but for now this is what I have.

God Bless.

Barbies

In lieu of feminists’ and parents’ new obsession with attacking Barbie, I feel that I would like to stick up for Barbie and all of the good things she represents rather than hating on her for a couple minor production flaws. 

Since her creation in 1959, Barbie has long represented a strong, independent woman.  A woman who can go anywhere, do anything, be anything.  She has had more than 80 careers including a President, doctor, paleontologist, and veterinarian.  If you ask me, that is not stupid and those are all very good career paths to take.  Barbie gives girls dreams that they can try to achieve. 

Adults seem to fear Barbie’s influence on their daughters most often because of her body shape.  Thus, we all know that Barbie has a pretty disproportionate body: her feet are super small; her legs are incredibly thin; her waist is teeny tiny; and her chest is extremely large.  But here’s the thing: Barbie is a plastic toy and girls know that they cannot possibly judge themselves off of something that is not real.  Critics say that because Barbies are a popular toy for young girls, it influences their ideas on body image and can lead to eating disorders and self hatred, but there has still been no significant study to prove that Barbie makes girls insecure.  If you talk to someone with an eating disorder, chances are she’ll say she has the disease because of the pressure to be perfect that real supermodels or skinny famous people initiate.  She probably won’t say, “I just hate my body because of Barbie!”  Why should one doll form a complete idea of how we see ourselves?  Girls are constantly bombarded with real images of real people all day everyday that are much more influential than that of a childhood toy.

These are just some of the ways in which I hope to defend Barbie and all that she stands for.  I know she is not a bad role model, but rather a good one: a role model showing that girls can do whatever they put their minds to.

I would love it if someone could provide me with some tips or ideas on how to make this a really awesome speech. Thanks!

Speech idea

I'm still deciding on my topic, but i think i want to do something on how women are sometimes mistreated by men. I could make this serious and talk about how serious it is and how women should be able to do whatever is needed to protect themselves, or turn it into something funny, lavender thought maybe a how to be a good guy. like give 5 or 10 points on how to be a good boyfriend/husband/friend. and just elaborate on each point, but i still need to figure out what the points would be if i did that.

Its always someone elses fault

my topic is always maddie's fault (just someone to blame). Are the answers from maddies lifestyle going to solve all the worlds problems? No, but it fills the void of gilt. Maddie likes to confuse people because her name contains a "t"! That makes it harder for everyone to make sure they use the right name or she gets pissed and no one is happy! And let's talk about global warming. Maddie has a car and is brewing toxic drugs in her basement. It's her fault that Polar bears are running out of ice!

Overall my presentation is going to be satirical, expressing that everyone blames something or someone else for all issues. Rarely will you hear some one say it's their fault fir hitting a cat. " it ran out into the street! It's not my fault!" etc.

Debatable Topic: Expectations Too High for Education

My topic is going to be about the immense pressure and overwhelming work load put on kids at too young of an age. In this modern age, children are expected to perform academically at a higher standard than enjoyably possible. Everyone only gets one life so why would kids want to spend their one and only childhood sitting in a classroom studying most the day for as much as 220 days a year. We were not put on this earth just to spend 1/4 of our only life inside, and feeling miserable. Not only does the amount of time in school overwhelm a child, but the homework load and the height of the bar for expectations is too high that it creates a kid's mind into a stressful, uncomfortable, and self-destroying place. Modern kids are slackers and underachievers because the expectations are too high and they accept  "failure" and have no self-confidence, and this all ends up creating a mentally distraught mind that has actually been destroyed, instead of enhanced, by the almost unreachable goal of success. So kids are expected to do more than their mind is ready for.

Grading System

“Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~Albert Einstein

Just as Albert Einstein said, along with many others in agreement, the grading system should be eliminated and in its place should be a system based on a more personalized level. I think that highschool should help students prepare for the life after high school, whether college is in the future or not. Students should be able to design their curriculum based on interest and talent, not by required courses. High school should be a lot like college. In ninth and tenth grade, General Education courses should be required to obtain a well rounded grasp on all senses of the core classes such as English, Science, Math, History, and a foreign language. After that, students should start looking for their strong suits and start persuing a career or at least expanding on their own raw talents and developing something that they will love. It is unfortunate that grade point averages are dropped signifigantly if you do not do well in a math class because you are not mathematically minded. Students should be rewarded for what they are good at, not told how bad they are at something. Being limited during the college application process because you didnt understand a foreign language or a math or science class are common worries among high school seniors which is why students should elect how their curriculum is run. What are students graded against anyway? Who are we compared to to decide that I get the B and you get the A. People are not the same and we shouldn't be graded or tested based on a standard. In turn, students at the end of high school will have a better grasp on what field of study they want to go into and colleges will be easier to pick from because students already know how to decide where to go based upon what programs the college offers. More points and opinions coming, also more organization:)

The backcountry

I am going to write about ski mountains think they can controle land that isn't even theres. For instance the telluride ski mountain thinks they can make bear creek part of there mountain but they own no part of it and it is all natinal forest. They have no right to say weather i can ski there or not. Ski mountains need to stop being so selfish and deal with what they bought

Practical Skills & Progressive learning in Schools.

Argument: Practical skills such as balancing finances, communication, and progressive thinking should become part of the high school curriculum and a requirement for graduating seniors.

Though behind the claim: Our society is progressive. The high school students are our future, and we need them to be as knowledgeable as possible when they step out into the real world. Over 50% of Harvard graduates will create the jobs they take. We need more people in America to take on this challenge. With all the terrors of global warming, fears of foreign attack, and scarce amount of resources left to sustain our way of living, the next generation needs to be educated differently. While a normal education consisting of History, Math, Science, English, and Art does benefit individuals, it should not be the only subjects that are considered important. We need to teach more languages and stress the importance of world wide communication. Technology is becoming so incredibly advanced and we need to master the tools we have. Also, to solve our future problems, we need to find solutions now. And to do so, we need thinkers and leaders.

Reasons to teach practical skills: School is supposed to prepare you for the future. Honestly, how many jobs are going to rely on your knowledge of the 1812 war or your comprehension of The Scarlet Letter? Finances should definitely be taught in school since too many college graduates spend the next twenty years of their life in serious debt. Once you are independent from parents, students should be able to manage their own money, invest, and balance their checkbooks. Yet with the education we are getting now, there are countless individuals who have no clue how to keep their money in line, pay taxes, and not get taken advantage of by the smarter individuals or companies.

How we would progressively learn: Principle Alex Carter had the right idea when it came to twenty-first century learning. The students need to experience a hands-on education and be immersed in real life scenarios. The ISPs (Intensive Study Programs) were a great example of real world lessons, but they were only stressed four weeks out of the year. I am suggesting we incorporate these skills into at least one if not two periods a day. Currently, the debate class presents a great example of teaching social skills. Learning the key proponents of public speaking, intelligent arguments, and considering opposing positions will help individuals have success in the future with getting their ideas across. Also, life is full of conflicts, and knowing how to debate and win an argument gives people an advantage. Other aspects of progressive learning include: attending to the whole child, community, collaboration, social justice, intrinsic motivation, deep understanding, and active learning.

I am not trying to say “get rid of all the original classes.” I agree that history is important to know in order to refrain from repeating our mistakes and understanding how our country came to be. And for anyone who plans to go into the field of engineering, mathematics is extremely vital. Reading and writing well are both crucial skills to possess.

Arguments against: Academics form the foundation of higher education, and practical skills should be taught outside of school. These would be just another unnecessary class with no beneficial purpose. Progressive learning isn’t individual attention or memorization.

SORRY THIS IS SO LONG BUT I HOPE SOMEONE READS IT AND GIVES SOME OTHER ASPECTS OF MY ARGUMENT FOR/AGAINST. THANKS (:

Speech Topic

So I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do yet. I'm in between the topics of beauty contests are harmful and prostitution should be legalized. I think I could make valid arguments for both topics, but I'm not sure which one will be more persuasive. I think beauty contests in a way are bad, because the women just mess with their image so much, it's not even them anymore. And they are famous and rich for no other reason except people think they are attractive. It is also bad because the contests are becoming more popular for youth. Like there's the show toddlers and tiaras and these five year olds are wearing make up and have their hair dyed. But on the other hand, prostitution is like an individual liberty and no one cares that these strangers are having sex, they only care about the fact that money is being exchanged. But that could be an occupation for some people. So yeah, I'm still debating between these two topics...

How Women Get Out of Sticky situtions.

For my speech, I will be writing about how it seems that women can get out of sticky situations much easier than men, more specifically, the good looking, innocent acting, crying women of society. How is it that they manage to get out of speeding tickets by crying, or a freebee in class for forgetting their homework while I leave my homework at home and get a zero? I feel like i'm pretty cute, and if i ever tried to cry in front of a police officer im sure he would just laugh at me for being a wienie and write me an even bigger ticket; While a women is going 100 miles an hour in a 45 zone, drunk and high on crack, she manages to get let off with a warning because she starts crying and telling the officer of the hard day she has had. Of course this is a little exaggerated, but I think you all know what im talking about. Please, teach us men your ways of getting off the hook... we need it.

Abortion

Big surprise, Nathan's writing about abortion. As most of you know, I've felt passionately about this issue for quite some time, and after the last speech I gave about it during sophomore year, I'm eager to have another go at it. I will discuss why life begins at conception and try and keep "morals" completely out of the speech, as morals are subjective and they have little place in persuasive arguments. I'll also talk about abortion preventatives; such as increased public emphasis on birth control; alternatives, such as adoption; and how a possible middle ground may be found, such as abortion being available to rape victims or if the mother's life is in danger. I'll also discuss how abortion should not be a federally subsidized procedure, as a large number of the tax dollars that pay for abortions come from people who are vehemently opposed to it.

Go ahead and give me suggestions, tell me why I'm wrong, or just start insulting me in the comments section below.

Emy's SPEECH!!!

For my speech I'm thinking about writing about how diets make people fatter, if you want to lose weight you have to change your life style. When you go on diets it gives you less food and the food you eat has less nutrition so then your metabolism slows down. This starves your body. When your body is hungry it feeds off your muscle and leaves the fat making you weaker and fatter. Im going to argue how instead of spending money on the dieting you should spend your time on changing you life style to improve the way you eat and exercise. How does that sound?

Standardized Testing

I will be arguing why standardized tests (SAT/ACT) should not be required for college. Not only do kids not like them, but there are a lot of unfair advantages amongst people which influence their scores. These advantages of course favor mostly white people, those with money and can afford to spend thousands of dollars on test prep, and even men over women. Standardized testing is just a corporation, and it's unbelievable that this corporation dictates how people can or cannot pursue their futures. If people really want to take the test, they should still have that option, but all colleges should be fair test, and people should be able to demonstrate their successes is different ways because every person is different.

War on Terror

I am going to do my persuasive essay on the war in the middle east. I am going to explain not only how many soldiers died, but how many CIVILIANS were killed. Almost 1 million civilians were killed. Also, President Bush did not have the evidence he said he had to start the war. I am using a lot of research and a lot of pathos to hit the reader's emotions.

intro:

For the past eleven years, the United States has been engaged in a dangerous war in the Middle East. Started by President Bush in 2001, the war on terror was started because of claims that the Middle East had weapons of mass destruction. Some may say that the activity in Afghanistan and Iraq have been successful if you consider the murder of Osama Bin Laden, but has justice really been done?

Progressive Drinking

I am writing about how the drinking age should not only be reduced to 16 for beer and wine and then 18 for hard alcohol but for this to work how the driving age should then be 18 so people learn through responsibility.

heres the opening so far....

For years there has been the controversy over having a drinking age that limits underage drinking, binge drinking and to control the affects of drunk driving. There is a solution. Lowering the drinking age, through progressive means is the answer. Young adults should be able to indulge in casual drinking such as wine and beer at age sixteen and then be rewarded, when coming of age, as an adult at eighteen with hard alcohol. The one last thing that would go into this, to control all factors would be to higher the minimum driving age to eighteen. This would not only find a common ground, it would teach individuals to respect drinking because it would no longer be a rebellious act, it would also help teenagers make personal decisions and be more independent. Finally, the safety factor is huge. Instead of having kids drink and then ‘rage’ the streets, or have unsupervised house parties teenagers could then drink at clubs that were age oriented, at home and feel good around their parents, or at dances and concerts where arm bands could mark your age. Not only would kids be in safe environments but this could open up the larger factors of public transportation, especially in big cities so kids would never have to worry about driving, and those who were eighteen and able to drive would have to make responsible decisions, knowing the pressing life and death consequences of drivers under the influence.