Take-home assignment

November 25th, 2012

Take-home assignment

Mr. Garrioch / English Composition

11b4 111150 Ho InHee

Make a rational argument for a position you do not support personally.  For clarity, please state your true opinion first and then argue the opposite position. Consider an issue that has affected you personally. 

Argument: Literary works by politicians shouldn’t appear in national textbooks.

Textbooks, especially national textbooks, should always remain politically neutral. But the prohibition of publishing literary works by politicians in textbooks wouldn’t offer political neutrality to textbooks, and therefore, shouldn’t be passed.

The term ‘literary works by politicians’ is ambiguous. Depending on the application of the law, the term may refer only to literatures an incumbent politicians then wrote, or it may refer to any literatures written in a once politician’s life.

Also, the effectiveness of such law is very uncertain. Politicians’ literary works often contain no political intention, and non-politicians’ literary works often contains clear political bias. Thus, banning publication of literatures by politicians in textbooks has great loophole and large room for abuse.

The prohibition of publishing literary works by politicians in textbooks, with its ambiguous standard and uncertain effectiveness, may only make textbooks a political battlefield.