This assignment allowed each student to join an ongoing conversation on what seems to be a perennial issue. With many discussions to choose from, it was each student's responsibility to become familiar with what was already being said about the topic. With information the student gathered, they analyzed and synthesized the data to come to a conclusion on the issue for themselves. The goal of this paper was to gain practice in incorporating and refuting the ideas of others in a  persuasive informative essay for an audience who has only a superficial or uninformed knowledge of the materials and activities they have studied.