For your first argumentative paper, I would like you to write a detailed response to Dorfman, Bilingualism in the United States. You may agree or disagree with this writer, but you must, of course, present an argument of your own.  Some things you will need to do in this paper: You will need to adhere to the standard form of essay composition, meaning that you must write an introduction that contains a clear thesis statement.  The thesis statement should be the last sentence of your first paragraph.  After that, devote supporting paragraphs to each point you wish to make.  Stay on one point for the length of the paragraph and exhaust it before moving on.  Also, finish your essay with a conclusion that sums up your argument without being overly redundant. Also, you will need to use at least one quote from your source (Dorfman).  Do your best with the quotes. You will need to format the quotes in MLA style. If Only We All Spoke Two Languages By Ariel Dorfman Published: June 24, 1998 Ever since I came to settle in the United States 18 years ago, I have hoped that this nation might someday become truly multilingual, with everyone here speaking at least two languages. I am aware, of course, that my dream is not shared by most Americans: if the outcome of California's referendum on bilingual education earlier this month is any indication, the nation will continue to stubbornly prefer a monolingual country. California voters rejected the bilingual approach -- teaching subjects like math and science in the student's native language and gradually introducing English. Instead, they approved what is known as the immersion method, which would give youngsters a year of intensive English, then put them in regular classrooms. The referendum was ostensibly about education, but the deeper and perhaps subconscious choice was about the future of America. Will this country speak two languages or merely one? The bilingual method, in spite of what its detractors claim, does not imprison a child in his or her original language. Rather, it keeps it alive in order to build bridges to English. The immersion method, on the other hand, wants youngsters to cut their ties to the syllables of their past culture. Both methods can work. I should know. I have endured them both. But my experience was unquestionably better with bilingual education. I first suffered the immersion method in 1945 when I was 2 1/2 years old. My family had recently moved to New York from my native Argentina, and when I caught pneumonia, I was interned in the isolation ward of a Manhattan hospital. I emerged three weeks later, in shock from having the doctors and nurses speak to me only in English, and didn't utter another word in Spanish for 10 years. That experience turned me into a savagely monolingual child, a xenophobic all-American kid, desperate to differentiate himself from Ricky Ricardo and Chiquita Banana. But when my family moved to Chile in 1954, I could not continue to deny my heritag.

1. For your first argumentative paper, I would like you to write a
detailed response to Dorfman, Bilingualism in the United
States. You may agree or disagree with this writer, but you
must, of course, present an argument of your own.
Some things you will need to do in this paper:
You will need to adhere to the standard form of essay
composition, meaning that you must write an introduction that
contains a clear thesis statement. The thesis statement should
be the last sentence of your first paragraph. After that, devote
supporting paragraphs to each point you wish to make. Stay on
one point for the length of the paragraph and exhaust it before
moving on. Also, finish your essay with a conclusion that sums
up your argument without being overly redundant.
Also, you will need to use at least one quote from your source
(Dorfman). Do your best with the quotes. You will need to
format the quotes in MLA style. If Only We All Spoke Two
Languages
By Ariel Dorfman
Published: June 24, 1998
Ever since I came to settle in the United States 18 years ago, I
have hoped that this nation might someday become truly
multilingual, with everyone here speaking at least two
languages.
I am aware, of course, that my dream is not shared by most
Americans: if the outcome of California's referendum on
bilingual education earlier this month is any indication, the
nation will continue to stubbornly prefer a monolingual country.
California voters rejected the bilingual approach -- teaching
subjects like math and science in the student's native language
and gradually introducing English. Instead, they approved what
is known as the immersion method, which would give

2. youngsters a year of intensive English, then put them in regular
classrooms.
The referendum was ostensibly about education, but the deeper
and perhaps subconscious choice was about the future of
America. Will this country speak two languages or merely one?
The bilingual method, in spite of what its detractors claim, does
not imprison a child in his or her original language. Rather, it
keeps it alive in order to build bridges to English. The
immersion method, on the other hand, wants youngsters to cut
their ties to the syllables of their past culture.
Both methods can work. I should know. I have endured them
both. But my experience was unquestionably better with
bilingual education.
I first suffered the immersion method in 1945 when I was 2 1/2
years old. My family had recently moved to New York from my
native Argentina, and when I caught pneumonia, I was interned
in the isolation ward of a Manhattan hospital. I emerged three
weeks later, in shock from having the doctors and nurses speak
to me only in English, and didn't utter another word in Spanish
for 10 years.
That experience turned me into a savagely monolingual child, a
xenophobic all-American kid, desperate to differentiate himself
from Ricky Ricardo and Chiquita Banana. But when my family
moved to Chile in 1954, I could not continue to deny my
heritage. I learned Spanish again in a British school in Santiago
that used the gradualist method. Thus I became a bilingual
adolescent.
Later, during the ideologically charged 1960's, I foolishly
willed myself to become monolingual again, branding English
as the language of an imperial power out to subjugate Latin
America. I swore never to speak or write in English again. The
1973 military coup in Chile against the democratically elected
Government of Salvador Allende Gossens sent me into exile --
and back into the arms of English, making me into this hybrid
creature who now uses both languages and writes a memoir in
English and a play in Spanish as if it were the most ordinary

3. thing to do.
I have developed a linguistic ambidexterity that I will be the
first to admit is not at all typical. Even so, it is within reach of
others if they start early enough, this thrilling experience of
being dual, of taking from one linguistic river and then dipping
into the other, until the confluence of the two vocabularies
connects distant communities. This is an experience I wish all
Americans could share.
Or maybe I would be satisfied if voters in this country could
understand that by introducing children from other lands to the
wonders of English while leaving all the variety and marvels of
their native languages intact, the American experience and
idiom are fertilized and fortified.
If people could realize that immigrant children are better off,
and less scarred, by holding on to their first languages as they
learn a second one, then perhaps Americans could accept a more
drastic change. What if every English-speaking toddler were to
start learning a foreign language at an early age, maybe in
kindergarten? What if these children were to learn Spanish, for
instance, the language already spoken by millions of American
citizens, but also by so many neighbors to the South?
Most Americans would respond by asking why it is necessary at
all to learn another language, given that the rest of the planet is
rapidly turning English into the lingua franca of our time. Isn't
it easier, most Americans would say, to have others speak to us
in our words and with our grammar? Let them make the
mistakes and miss the nuances and subtleties while we occupy
the more powerful and secure linguistic ground in any
exchange.
But that is a shortsighted strategy. If America doesn't change, it
will find itself, let's say in a few hundred years, to be a
monolingual nation in a world that has become gloriously
multilingual. It will discover that acquiring a second language
not only gives people an economic and political edge, but is
also the best way to understand someone else's culture, the most
stimulating way to open your life and transform yourself into a

4. more complete member of the species.
No tengan miedo. Don't be afraid.
Your children won't be losing Shakespeare. They'll just be
gaining Cervantes.