You can collect up a week's worth of these ahead of time, or require
students to come in prepared to debate on either side. The Sun-Times also
links the poll topic to a news story that adds appropriate facts.
Sometimes the topics are lightweight; at others, serious. However, out of a
week or two worth of clippings, a student can usually find at least one idea
that he/she cares about enough to develop into a paper. Requiring students
to bring in clips each day and to have read enough to debate the
topic-of-the-day at least also helps in developing reading skills. You can
also, after initial debate, require the student to discuss orally the
position that opposes what he/she personally believes--based on the
"reverse" set of information.
Best, jan
janetbone@delphi.com
Eric--I won't be web-literate for another 3 weeks till the new software
shows up. Will you please repost your websites with assignments to me
personally (janetbone@delphi.com) so I can download the file for use when I
am able to access you? Thanks. 8/16