Our topic (administrator note)

I thought it might be a good idea to explain to people outside of our class what we are doing so that maybe we can get some outside sources and different points of view.
For people outside the class we are responding to the "Arguments" section of  The Curious Writer by Bruce Ballenger.  We will be writing argument papers which will then be widdled down to Op-eds at the end of the semester so this reading was intended to enlighten us to a few features of this type of writting.   Any writers out there who have some insights into what makes for a good argument paper or Op-ed are welcomed to add their ideas here, all of us would appreciate it.