Resource : EdTalk Project Graduation rates.  Examine Black and Latino graduation rates vs. overall graduation rates.

Optional Background Resource 1: Graduation rates (article)

Optional Background resource 2:  The Need to Close the Empathy Gap in School Reform, by Chris Stewart.

  Argument practice. Argue: 1. Why is there such a big difference in graduation rates at UTEP? 2. How can we equalize and raise those rates at UTEP while still protecting educational excellence?

Summary Practice: Choose only one:

1. Resource: How to Defend the Earth from Asteroids; 

2. Resource: Brain Changes Found in Self-Injuring Teen Girls (Trigger warning: May be upsetting to some readers).

3, Resource: Men Sometimes Act Less Interested in Sex–In Order to Get It. (Trigger warning: Scientific discussion of adult subject.);

4. Resource: The End of the Ear-Splitting Dining Room.

Argument practice (ISARC): Choose one and defend your standpoint:

        A. In today's dog-eat-dog world America must always operate from a position of righteous strength, and cannot be held back by any sort of weakness, division, self-doubt or hesitation. Our government must offer us firm, confident leadership, led by our strongest, healthiest, most powerful and most disciplined leaders.  We need to have a muscular, brave and manly form of government, a government everyone can look up to, one that refuses on principle to accept back-talk, uncertainty and self-questioning, and that rejects crooked politics, empty debate, wimpy excuses or shameful apologies. We need a government where strong and capable hands are always confidently at the wheel. We must never let stupid internal squabbles, crooked politicians, lying news media, hostile foreign foes or our own disloyal traitors divide us. Instead, we must march forward together in an unbreakable unity of national purpose and a true faith in our flag, in the sure knowledge that whatever we must do we will do it proudly as the world's greatest nation, bold and fearless under the Stars and Stripes, unshakable in the knowledge that America is always right.

      B. In today's world of crises and challenges, a nation like America must be judged first and foremost on how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable citizens. Our government must always be a government of the people, by the people and for all the people. In order to encourage the most vulnerable and the weakest among us to rise above adversity and succeed we must maintain a caring and open democracy that we can depend on to help, a government that offers opportunity to all and represents the will of the majority.  At the same time we must always be open to questioning,  peaceful dissent, diversity of opinion and legitimate criticism from inside and out, be proud of our freedom and our diversity, and act with the humility that comes from knowing that someday heaven and history will surely judge us on all that we do and all that we fail to do as a nation.

Resource: Cartoon Guide to Rhetoric

Tentative summary practice on your choice of any one of these four articles:

• A. Scientific article on the possibility of time travel. Or,

• B.  Scientific Article: When it comes to love, personality matters.  Or, 

• C. Scientific Article: Sexual Behavior of University Students. Or,
• C. Scientific Article: Boomeranging back to parents' home affects young adults' mental health.