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An alphabetical list of TED topics.

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A collection of TED Talks (and more) on the topic of Science.

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10 minute news updates

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Future medical career? Start here.

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A collection of TED Talks (and more) on the topic of health.

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Information on primary and secondary sources

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Information on primary and secondary sources

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Most books are secondary sources, where authors reference primary source materials and add their own analysis. "Lincoln at Gettysburg: the Words that Remade America" by Gary Wills is about Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. If you are researching Abraham Lincoln, this book would be a secondary source because Wills is offering his views about Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address.

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For many topics, you can conduct an interview of someone that works in that field and has first-hand knowledge to share. For example, if you want to research the use of School Resource Officers, you would arrange to interview a police officer.

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For our Second Annual Student Editorial Contest, in which teenagers are invited to write on an issue they care about, we have gathered a list of 301 writing prompts that may help — an update to last year’s popular list of 200.

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Current events

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The code is 3141lihs.

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Literature with derogatory language
Continuing Civil Rights Issues
The New Green Deal
The "Muslim Ban"
DACA
Asylum Seekers
Use of solitary confinement
Diversion programs for teenage offenders
The Electoral College
Censorship
The voting age
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"I learned my son is gay when I read his college essay"

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"I learned my son is gay when I read his college essay"

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(iStock)

"An essay like this should give a peek into who you are," I'd counseled my son, a high school senior. By "an" I meant "your college essay."

"Eh," he'd replied. We climbed the hill near our house and his legs, longer than mine, moved quickly. Throughout the college-seeking process, we'd taken many walks and discussed schools he found most intriguing. "I'll just write it in a day," he told me. I tried not to worry about his approach, or his deadlines. I hoped that he'd say... something.

As my inbox filled with supplemental essay drafts, and a letter of intent to his top choice college, I began to feel impatient for receipt of "the" essay. Eventually, an email arrived, subject line "Main Essay."

His essay began with his great-grandmother's appearance (my grandmother) at the Supreme Court to argue a case about foster care in 1974 and quickly moved to 2015, the April day Obergefell v. Hodges, the gay marriage case, was to be argued. My son was outside the Court, thanks to a well-timed college visit in D.C. The gist of his essay was about the sense of home he experienced in that exuberant crowd. His takeaway about belonging - to the queer community and to the world of activists and change makers unwilling to tolerate injustice when the potential to ask for a better world existed - affirmed him.

In the middle of his college application essay, filled with big ideas about a more ideal and just world, he came out. He came out to essay readers, and he came out to his parents - his line editors.

I flashed back to how insistent he'd been about this college visit, more focused on Tuesday's rally than Monday's tour. We'd questioned taking another day off from school right after spring vacation, but he refused to budge. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at his insistence to witness it. The day same sex marriages became legal in Massachusetts my husband and I had taken him and his brother to City Hall before daycare. We'd wanted our kids to experience the day's jubilance over a right we hoped would spread across the country. No one imagined just how quickly that might happen. So we agreed to the Tuesday in D.C.

That May morning years earlier, I'd breathed a tiny bit easier as I imagined what it might be like for my children to marry the person loved and chosen with legal protections in place. Among friends and neighbors, the mood was giddy. We hugged loads of people. There were balloons. The sun shone brightly. The air was cool, but not bracing. After dropping kids at daycare, I returned to City Hall. My best friend and I wound up at our friends' wedding, witnesses along with their young twin boys. It was a moment.

My son wanted his moment. He sought it out; he drank it in. I wanted to focus on that, but he hadn't asked me to chime in. He'd asked me to sift through stilted, earnest words he hoped would illustrate all that thoughtfulness and emotion, and those ideals he held with such deep conviction. I tried to excise cliché and rearrange a couple of paragraphs. As I did so, I stifled the urge to jot a note back in all caps (actually I wrote it then deleted the sentence: DID YOU MEAN TO COME OUT IN YOUR COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY?).

Obviously, he did.

The hardest part about my son's essay wasn't the coming out. What hurt was his reluctance to tell us face to face. Because this news arrived so quietly and under deadline, I felt like I had to attend to the essay revision when instead, I wanted to say something. Or hug him, or get him a rainbow cake. I stuck to the task at hand, reluctant to risk derailing his progress if I responded in the wrong way just then. Besides, he wasn't asking for his parents' approval, something he knew he already had. I tried to take his lead.

Essay complete, we walked up the hill the next day again. "So?" I asked.

He explained that, "everyone knows" except of course, his parents. "It's not really news," he continued. "I don't talk about real things with you," he assured me.

"Ouch," I replied. "I just want to say, even if you don't want to talk about it, I'm here whenever you do. And it's great news, even if it's not news."

I had to console myself with this: he did, in his way, tell us, and not in a mumble. He revealed to us how strongly he felt about his discovery of his place in the world. I hope and trust that no matter what the admissions people decide, he knows, as we do, what a brave and wondrous declaration it was, and is-and that although he might not profess to care, we heard him. Our response, if muted and cautious, came with love-and pride.

Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser is a writer and can be found on twitter @Standshadows.

Join On Parenting on Facebook or at washingtonpost.com/onparenting. We tweet @OnParenting and have a newsletter. Sign up here.

You might also be interested in:

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I learned that my son is gay when I read his college essay

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"An essay like this should give a peek into who you are," I'd counseled my son, a high school senior. By "an" I meant "your college essay." "Eh," he'd replied. We climbed the hill near our house and his legs, longer than mine, moved quickly.

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PRO (yes)

Pro

Pete King, JD, US Representative (R-NY), stated in an Apr. 23, 2017 interview on Sunday Morning Futures, as printed in the show transcript titled "Rep. Schweikert Talks Spending and Health Care Negotiations; North Korea Threatens to Sink US Aircraft Carrier," available at foxnews.com:

"[T]here's nothing racist or bigoted about having a border wall. You need it, maybe not in every mile along the way, but you have to have an extensive border wall... [I]f you saw the dead bodies out in my district as a result of people coming across the border freely, you'd see the consequences of this. If we're going to be real, if we're going to be honest, we would go ahead a appropriate the money for that border wall. It's absolutely essential."
Apr. 23, 2017

Pro

Daniel Horowitz, Senior Editor of Conservative Review, in an Aug. 25, 2015 article, "The Case for the Border Fence," available at the Conservative Review website, stated:

"Nowhere is the case for the double-layered security-style fence more compelling than with the Israel security fence. Between 2000 and 2005, suicide bombers infiltrated Israel almost on a daily basis. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed and countless thousands wounded - the equivalent of 42,000 fatalities and hundreds of thousands wounded in America if extrapolated from the population size. The situation was desperate....until they built their security fence. After construction of the fence, a double-layer barrier with a security zone in the middle - similar to the San Diego fence, suicide attacks perpetrated by Arab terrorists declined by well over 90%...

It has been said that no fence can stop the determination of illegal immigrants seeking job prospects or drug running and human trafficking opportunities. But nobody is more determined than Hamas terrorists willing to die for their cause of killing Jews. While nothing is full-proof, the double-layered security barrier stopped the terrorists; it will stop illegal immigration."
Aug. 25, 2015

Pro

Duncan D. Hunter, US Representative (R-CA), in a July 5, 2014 article, "Duncan D. Hunter: Fence Is Right Fix for Nation's Border Problems," available at the San Diego Union Tribune website, stated:

"One of San Diego's greatest assets is the double-layered border fence that extends inland from the Pacific Ocean. Fencing and infrastructure alone are by no means enough to stop illegal crossings, but the presence of physical impediments at the border, when supported by manpower and technology, create barriers that make entry increasingly more difficult and sometimes impossible...
[O]n land, infrastructure is a force multiplier. Fewer agents are needed in fenced areas than unfenced sections of the border. With the addition of cameras and sensors, border agents are not only better protected, but also more effective...
Either the mandates of the Secure Fence Act should be reinstated, which I have proposed, or the Obama administration should utilize existing authority to finish the job that the Bush Administration halfheartedly started. Either way, this is one initiative that, after almost 10 years since the Secure Fence Act was enacted, needs to be completed - the way it was intended."
July 5, 2014

CON (no)

Con

Nancy Pelosi, US Representative (D-CA), in an Apr. 23, 2017 interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, a transcript of which is available at nbcnews.com, stated:

"The Democrats do not support the [border] wall. And I think that the Republicans on the border states do not support the wall... The wall is, in my view, immoral, expensive, [and] unwise... The President talks about how tall it is, who's going to pay for it, and all the rest of that. But you have to understand this part of the country. There's a community with the border going through it. The President, I think, talking about this wall is expressing a sign of weakness. He's saying, 'I can't control our borders. I have to build a wall.' We certainly would like to- We have a responsibility to control our borders. Building a wall is not an answer, not here or any place."
Apr. 23, 2017

Con

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board, in a Mar. 25, 2017 editorial, "Pretty Much the Only Thing Trump's Border Wall Will Block Is Common Sense," available at latimes.com, stated:

"If it's built, the project will be a boondoggle of legendary proportions and likely will become the subject of historic ridicule. Why? Because Trump's silly wall can't possibly address much of the problem he seeks to fix... Trump has milked the melodrama of a border wall, but he ignores the likelihood that it would be ineffectual at stopping people from entering the country without permission. Human migration routes are like rivers: If they hit an obstacle, the flow finds a way around it. So a wall will just lead smugglers to find new routes and methods - planes, boats and 31-foot ladders for a 30-foot wall - even as it is being built, further undercutting confidence in the barrier's effectiveness. Nor would Trump's wall address the growth in illegal immigration from Asia, which outpaces immigration from Latin America... Perhaps most important, a wall could do nothing to halt the growing trend of people entering the country legally (often by plane) and then not leaving, which by some estimates accounts for as much as half of the undocumented immigration."
Mar. 25, 2017

Con

Ruben Navarrette, Jr., journalist, in a Aug. 24, 2015 article, "Just Build Trump's Stupid Wall Already," available at the Daily Beast website, stated:

"For instance, those 1,954 miles cover just about every sort of terrain you can imagine-valley, mountain, desert, river, Indian reservation, private land, state property. Ever try to build a wall on a river, or atop an Indian burial ground, or through the library of a state university? It's tricky. And once the environmentalists and the EPA get involved, it's nearly impossible.

Then there's the fact that no one seems to know what it would cost. In the last six years, estimates for building a fence-which is probably much cheaper than building a wall-have ranged wildly from $1 million per mile to $15 million per mile, depending on where the fence goes. At that price, fencing for 2,000 miles would cost between $2 billion and $30 billion...
[W]alls don't just keep people out but also pen people in. So those 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already here won't feel so inclined to go home to Mexico for Christmas or Mother's Day, like they used to, and where there was always a chance that some of them would stay. Now, unsure that they'd be able to return if they left, they'll just resign themselves to putting down roots and staying on this side of the border." Aug. 24, 2015

Con

Felipe Calderón, MA, MPA, 56th President of Mexico, in a Feb. 8, 2016 CNBC interview, "Mexico Won't Pay a Cent for Trump's 'Stupid Wall,'" available at cnbc.com, stated:

"Mexican people, we are not going to pay any single cent for such a stupid wall! And it's going to be completely useless... The first loser of such a policy would be the United States. If this guy [Donald Trump] pretends that closing the borders to anywhere either for trade (or) for people is going to provide prosperity to the United States, he is completely crazy."
[Editor's Note: In an Oct. 26, 2006 CTV (Canadian National Broadcast News) article, "Mexico Urges Canada to Help Oppose Border Fence," Calderón stated: "It is deplorable to go ahead with this decision of the wall at the border...The wall will not solve any problem.
Humanity made a huge mistake by building the Berlin Wall and I believe that today the United States is committing a grave error in building the wall on our border. It is much more useful to solve common problems and foster prosperity in both countries."] Feb. 8, 2016

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Should the United States Continue to Build a Fence or Wall along the US/Mexico Border? - Immigration - ProCon.org

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Pete King, JD, US Representative (R-NY), stated in an Apr. 23, 2017 interview on Sunday Morning Futures, as printed in the show transcript titled "Rep. Schweikert Talks Spending and Health Care Negotiations; North Korea Threatens to Sink US Aircraft Carrier," available at foxnews.com: "[T]here's nothing racist or bigoted about having a border wall.

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Debate continues over reparations for slavery.

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Debate continues over reparations for slavery.

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Making Amends
Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery

Listen to a Morning Edition report by NPR's Cheryl Corley.

Listen to a Justice Talking debate on reparations.

Listen to Philip Martin's report about reparations debates at Ivy League schools.

Aug. 27, 2001 -- The U.S. government's first reparations plan to compensate African-Americans for the legacy of slavery was 40 acres and a mule apiece -- that was Gen. William Sherman's promise to former slaves shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865. His order set aside land on the Georgia and South Carolina coasts for the settlement of thousands of newly freed families. But the promise was quickly recanted and the land was taken back, with no other plans for reparations.

Since then, the issue has been revisited time and again by leading civil rights activists. In 1963, for example, Martin Luther King Jr., called Sherman's promise "a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'" King called instead for "a check that will give (African-Americans) upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."

Support from the White House and Congress still remains weak: President Bush is said to oppose paying slave compensation, and U.S. Rep. John Conyers' proposal to set up a commission to study the impact of slavery has languished for over a decade.

But the movement has been gaining momentum elsewhere, most notably in the courts. There is now an increased focus on getting compensation from corporations that once profited from slavery. And a major legal battle may be waged early next year when a group of Harvard University professors plans to file a class action lawsuit to seek restitution.

The supporters of reparations face many hurdles, however. Critics say it will be difficult to determine plaintiffs and defendants, arguing that non-black Americans living today are not responsible for slavery and that their tax dollars should not be used for compensation.

This week, NPR takes a closer look at the slavery reparations movement as part of its special report on the United Nations World Conference Against Racism. On Monday, Cheryl Corley gives an overview of the issue on Morning Edition.

The coverage continues on Tuesday, when NPR airs part of a debate sponsored by Justice Talking, a radio program created by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. NPR's Margot Adler moderates the debate between two leading activists, Adjoa Aiyetoro and Robert Sedler.

Aiyetoro is a legal consultant to the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. She is also a former adjunct professor at American University's Washington College of Law, where she taught courses on the legal issues surrounding reparations.

Sedler is currently a professor at Wayne State University Law School, where he teaches constitutional law and conflict of laws. He has litigated numerous civil rights cases and has received the Presidential Award from the Detroit Branch of the NAACP.

Other Resources

Visit the U.N. World Conference Against Racism Web site.

Visit the Human Rights Watch Web site on Racism and Human Rights.

Visit the Web site of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, who has pushed legislation since 1989 calling for a commission to study reparations for African Americans.

Read TransAfrica President Randall Robinson'sRestatement of the Black Manifesto, calling for slave reparations, from his book, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. And read the transcript of a TransAfrica Forum roundtable discussion January 2000 onThe Case for Black Reparations.

Read conservative columnist David Horowitz's article in FrontPage Magazine, titled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks -- and Racist Too."

Read the recent New York Times article titled " Calls for Slavery Restitution Getting Louder." (Registration required.)

See the results of a recent poll on the issue of reparations conducted by BlackVoices.com.

Read " Repairing the Past," a November 2000 article in the American Bar Association Journal.

Visit the Web sites of the Coalition of Blacks for Reparations (N-COBRA) and the African Reparations Movement.

Read articles on reparations fromThe Detroit Free Press and The Kansas City Star.

Listen to a Morning Edition report Aug. 2, 2001, on the debate leading up to the UN Conference Against Racism, including the issue of reparations for the legacy of the slave trade.

Listen to an All Things Considered report March 22, 2001, on the controversy over a Brown University newspaper's decision to run an ad opposed to U.S. reparations for slavery.

Listen to a Morning Edition interview Feb. 10, 2000, with Randall Robinson, author of The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks.

Listen to an All Things Considered report June 27, 1997, on the debate over U.S. Rep. John Conyers' call for a presidential apology for slavery.

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Making Amends Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery Listen to a Morning Edition report by NPR's Cheryl Corley. Listen to a Justice Talking debate on reparations. Listen to Philip Martin's report about reparations debates at Ivy League schools. Aug. 27, 2001 -- The U.S.