Letters to Friends: Are they arguments?

1. Letters to Friends: Are they arguments? How to write a bad-ass, compelling letter to your friends.

2. Read with a purpose • As you read this letter by Mr. Kim, try and find the argument he is making. • Where is my argument in the following passage? • We’ll read it together. • You’ll have two minutes with a partner to find it.

3. Letter Outline • Take out your letter from yesterday.

4. Letter Outline • Paragraph #1: Scene with a hook • Paragraph #2: Introduce your argument • Paragraph #3: Prove your argument with evidence from your life • Paragraph #4: Remind your reader of your argument. • 1 Page at LEAST. Due 7 minutes before end of period. • Letter can be more than 4 paragraphs. Use your OWN voice. But be sharp. Be smart. Be yourself.

5. Letter Outline • Paragraph #1: Scene with a hook • Paragraph #2: Introduce your argument • Paragraph #3: Prove your argument with evidence from your life • Paragraph #4: Remind your reader of your argument. • 1 Page at LEAST. Due 7 minutes before end of period. • Letter can be more than 4 paragraphs. Use your OWN voice. But be sharp. Be smart. Be yourself.

6. Hook • Write a scene to hook your friend. • No such partner as the “one” • Dear Edgar, • Pizza, salad, ribs, tacos, desserts, fish, French fries: Hot empty plate in my hand, I cant decide what to choose. An old woman who smells like moth balls taps me on the back with her cane saying “it’s not that difficult young blood.” But it was difficult. That pizza oozed with orange grease. The tacos were singing a mariachi song on my tongue. All of my options are beautiful. You know, these types of choices are presented all over the place and not just at the bomb hometown buffet. You know, after I broke up with Olga, my life collapsed. Nothing mattered. But then I met Holga. And you know what? Life took its course again. Holga, in fact, baffles the imagination, being more than I could ever expect. Sometimes our imagination is limited, and we can’t see that there are so many people in this world who can make us happy.

7. Hook • Yesterday I had the time of my life, running in 1 degree Celsius weather, with the wind slapping me around while I charged through the port neighborhoods of Busan. I was wearing shorts and a long sleeve shirt, a proud Californian phenomenon. The center of my skull ached, but I had the new Blood Orange album bumping while to my left the moored boats rocked serenely. I passed a group of city workers jogging in place, supervising a lamp post installation, and one of them kind of bridled, then shook his head at me, smiling. I nodded and thought, yeah, watch me! I sprinted up a hill, the muscles in my legs feeling like loose casing. I never felt my legs jiggling. It’s as if the cold brings a new awareness of the body’s relation to gravity and the world. Such is the life of a son trying to burn time while visiting a mother in Korea.

8. Argument • Imply a sophisticated argument about love, life, sports, friendship, whatever: • Love is a paradox you regret it and cherish it • Friendships are always about manipulation • No such partner as the “one” • Lakers are better than Clippers • Majority of people are clueless (Like right now)

9. Argument Now I’m in a coffee shop whose heater is busted (or the owner is cheap as hell and doesn’t want to pay heating bills). I read the NY Times article you posted on facebook, and the process of life closing down options reminds me very much of writing a novel. After each page you compose, your characters begin to lose their options, and for me, the question is how do you create a meaningful life within those limitations? I guess as I’m nearing the end of my novel, I’m cherishing these limitations on freedom, both in art and in life. One of the delusional ideas I had during my previous relationship (that sounds like a reference to a job…”my previous job was as an enema installer”) was that by blowing it up, I would suddenly have my buffet of choices in my life, able to live anywhere, have any type of job, whatever. Whatever!

10. Argument • I could set sail into the infinite waters of finding a partner and not select and instead randomly sample based on the million and one choices. This person says she likes to break the ice on first dates by farting. Why not!? Well, this type of galactic freedom can wear one down. All this is to say that love can proliferate with restrictions. I’m here, with my mom and my stepdad, waking up in the mornings and brewing coffee. We’ll have breakfast as a family. There will be arguments. There will be jokes and laughter. And I’m here, partly out of duty, partly out of guilt, but what choice do I have? I suppose I could simply neglect my family. But for whatever deep instinct I have for caring for my mom, I feel so alive within the narrow scope of choices, of my attenuating freedom. I could come up with an infinite range of reasons why I’m here, and I’m sure the “true” reason is a vertiginous blend of all of them, but for now, I’d like to say that I was put on this earth to do this. No other options. I’m not sure what it’s like being a parent, but I’m sure you’ve experienced echoes of this with Clara.

11. Conclusion • Wrap it up. You can restate your thesis. You can come up with new ideas grown from earlier ones. Be daring.

12. Conclusion • Now I’m off to dinner with my mom, stepdad, and a minister and his wife. My Korean is ridiculously childish. I have no idea what this will be like. Hail to limitations. I hope you’re settling in, healed from hangovers and love. We'll need to catch up when I get back. If anything, we can share more stories over crappy coffee and bacon.

13. Rubric • Use a scene as a hook • Imply an argument on love, friendship, family, sports. • Use evidence from your life or others to prove it. • SEND IT TO YOUR FRIEND. • Hector and I will check off your letter for credit. I will not collect them. They are private.