Kate reviewed last week's work on argumentative writing -- conclusion and premises. Since she loved my new color-changing nail polish (fascinated!) she wrote a formal statement of logical and persuasive argumentation on the topic to obtain permission to get these herself! Her premises (reasons why) included 1) it's fun 2) less expensive than "dip" 3) she wrote a perfect essay in critical thinking class that even included MLA format. For these reasons, she concluded, Therefore I should get color-changing polish. We reviewed new word concepts: optimist and pessimist. Kate's one page original essay is posted on her bulletin board. It is a descriptive essay using the eight elements of critical thinking. I gave her a cute Boynton picture and she did a times 5 minute free-write describing it. When she could not think of anything else to write, I asked her questions using the eight elements, i.e., purpose, point of view, assumption, etc. For each element she added a sentence. Therefore, she ended up writing more than twice the amount after she didn't know what else to say. This was a lesson on creating original content by using the elements and she can use it in any course for any topic forever!