ESL 51 Hmwk due WED 6/22

1. Spend about two hours creating the first draft of your Revised Argument Essay choosing from one of the three topics below:

1. A new trend among high school graduates around the world is the “gap year.” A gap year is a break between graduating from high school and entering a college or university. Students use the gap year to work, travel, volunteer, or do some interesting combination of those. What is your opinion of this practice? Is it a good idea to take a gap year, or is it better to go straight into a college or university?


2. As you know, a typical salary in the service sector might be between minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) and $10.00 an hour. An exception to this is waiters. Waiters are often paid between $2 and $3 an hour, with the assumption that tips will bring their salary up to a higher level. What is your opinion of the practice of making waiters rely on tips? Are there reasons to keep the current system, or are there better reasons for paying waiters minimum wage or more?

3. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
“Face-to-face communication is always better than the alternatives.”

Note: We discussed how to begin these today, by first identifying the arguments being disputed and creating a question for each to use as the first sentence of your introductory paragraph. Then we also brainstormed vocabulary and possible pros and cons of each. Refer back to the marked up copy of the model "What (Not) to Wear" for features you want to include in your Argument Essay. Page 85 in your gray packet can also help you organize your ideas. We will work on self-editing this first draft tomorrow in class, but print out your first attempt BEFORE class starts at 5:30pm.

Also continue working on Focus on Language.