5.2: My Students’ Suggested Writing Topics

To figure out what I would write about, I asked my students to suggest an assignment for me. As the example topics show, some them were pretty mundane—easy to do, but insubstantial and, frankly, boring. Other topics were substantial, but difficult to research and write about thoughtfully in just four days for the class. Finally, one student suggested a topic that captured my interest and that of other students; peers added their questions, and I knew this was the topic I wanted to address even though I knew little about it.

Students’ Suggested Topics

• Write about a cell phone charger. I had a teacher in high school that would pick random things every class and make us write about it for 10 minutes to “warm up” our brains. I hated those assignments.
• Why are liquid laundry detergents superior to powdered detergents?
• Does modern technology make life better and more convenient?
• How will the recent election of President Barack Obama affect race relations in the U.S.?
• What are your thoughts and opinions on adoptions by homosexual couples?
• Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets. Should the doctors have advised her against in vitro fertilization since she’s not financially stable to take care of all of those children? If she does end up on welfare should taxpayers be outraged? At what point or if at any should the government step-in in situations such as this?
• One angle to look at this sort of story is whether humans should impregnate themselves with “litters” of babies.
• Personally, I would also like to know what doctor would inseminate this woman without [who didn’t have] the funds to do so. It makes me wonder if he/she just wanted part of the publicity.

When you find a topic that is interesting and challenging, you’ve probably got a good subject that will sustain your attention during the harder parts of the writing. In this case, I was fascinated by the idea of a woman giving birth to eight children and the moral questions that the students asked about this case. I wondered what the woman’s motivation was for having more children when she already had six of them, was unmarried and without a supportive partner, and unemployed.

Notice that the interest level of the topic doesn’t guarantee an easy one to research. I chose to do quite a bit of digging into the issue because I had an “itch to know”; my curiosity was sufficient reason for me to do this work. Although school assignments may not seem this way, the motive behind research is—or should be—the genuine need
or desire to answer a question for which you don’t have the answer but about which you really want to know more.

My topic choice also took into consideration that my students would be writing an essay that supports a position during the semester. I wanted to write a similar type of essay that would provide a model for them at that time in their writing development. Thus, choosing my topic was connected to the rhetorical situation of my teaching these students to write arguments that are designed to convince audiences.