Public Discourse

Oh the next writing assignment. Public discourse. Normally I have no problem with writing a paper for any class (I'm not saying that they are well written only that I understand them [I think] and that I can actually brain storm and begin them). With this paper, I was having problems understanding it and brainstorming for it. Finally after some logical thought I believe I have it figured out. Public discourse; break down the phrase. Public, my two favorite definitions pertaining to the phrase, means open to all persons or generally known. Discourse, again my favorite and relevant definitions, means communication of thought by words and a formal discussion of a subject in speech or writing. Adding these definitions together leads me to believe that public discourse are thoughts/opinions/speaking of a subject that the public knows and/or the public is available to know (I'm assuming that the public is allowed to have an opinion, of course, because it is one of our rights).
Now that I understand what is meant by public discourse, I need to think out some ideas, some controversial subjects that pertain to todays issues. Also, in order for my paper to be a good one and thus cared about, my subject must be something that I care about and something that is easy to form (or one that I already have) an opinion on and that I can find information for.

Some of the first things that I can think of are prayer in public schools, political corruption, homosexuality, health care, hate crimes, child abuse, censorship, animal rights (including experimentation) and adoption. This actually may seem like a long list but on all of these issues, I already have my opinion and many sources in which I can utilize.

Animal rights is a huge possibility because it will be easy for me to write about and argue because in my Ethics class, we have been working on animal rights for the past two weeks. I have had to argue for them already.

Censorship, I'm not leaning towards that too much even though it is relatively easy to get sources against it.

Child abuse is a very touchy subject, in my opinion, and it will be hard to find anything for child abuse to be able to state anything that would argue against me (basically I am against it but would need to know the other sides arguments).

Hate crimes are a big issue because just back in my hometown, a hate crime was committed only about a week ago. This makes it an important subject to me because I am completely against hate crimes and for me to be considering to go to the school where students committed this hate crime bothers me. Good news is that there was a march for unity because of it.

I don't know for sure what I am doing yet. This is just me thinking through a few of them.