Micro Argument: The American Bison and the 15 year old American Boy

Prologue:  I am the mother of two boys.  One of which is now 23 and the other is 16.  About 10 years ago, an email popped up from my older son's English teacher.  My oldest had asked his English teacher if he could write his comparison contrast paper over his mother (Me) and the Devil.   The teacher wanted to know if this was okay with me; of which I responded, "Only if I get a rebuttal."  That was when I first drafted this post.  Well, my son chose a different topic because, "I just could not find enough mom."   Step into your time machine and move to present day.  I am currently teaching a micro argument unit in my Senior English course and have found that the students are really struggling with the concept of a micro argument, how to embed quotations, and even more importantly, how to find credible information on the Internet.  So, it was time to dig out the comparison/contrast rebuttal that I had written ten years ago and turn it into a micro argument for my students to use an example.

Micro Argument Example

There is little difference between a 15 year-old American Boy and the American Bison and these differences go much deeper than that of just height and smell of.  The confusion can be easy to see because the average height of the American Bison nears six foot ("American Bison") and the average height of the 15 year old American Boy ("Americans Slightly Taller, Much Heavier Than Four Decades Ago") in 2002 was five feet eight and half inches tall.    And there is the obvious identifier in that both are part of the Linnaean Scientific Classification System in the Mammalian Class/Chordate Phylum/Animalia Kingdom ("American Bison Fact Sheet")(O'Neil).  Beyond that, if an individual has not tended to the American Boy, the similarities are not as evident. At first smell, the individual not familiar, may think that there is a herd of American Bison near.  But no, you have entered the sacred pasture of the American 15 year old boy.  Now their pastures will appear very different.  For the American Bison, they are known to have lived in the open grasslands of the United States and are typically nomadic ("American Bison Fact Sheet").  The American 15 year old boy inhabits a number of pastures.  Having been spotted during daylight hours within the halls of numerous American high schools, but their main pasture is that of their parent’s home.  This pasture of the parent’s home does set the American Boy apart from the American Bison.  This is commonly referred to as a mama’s boy syndrome which is contrary to the nomadic life of the bison, but one can easily segway back to the commonalities.  For example, both have a keen sense of smell.  For the American Bison, their keen sense of smell enables them to detect the odor of other animals up to 1.2 miles away from them ("American Bison") and the American Boy can do the same when detecting the smell of food.  Both male American Bison and the American Boy are known to mark their areas.  While the American Bison male will wallow, wallow in others and then urinate in the wallow to mark it ("American Bison Fact Sheet"), the American Boy does wallow but this is typically seen during athletic endeavors such as football or wrestling.  The American Boy utilizes their pungent body odor to mark their territory that is typically the result of their aversion to water which is evident by their lack of showering; but it can be noted here that the American Bison is known to be very fond of water ("American Bison Fact Sheet").  If these have not made a convincing argument, we can go with simple numbers as presented in the San Diego Zoo’s “American Bison Fact Sheet”.  While the American Bison adult male can grow to be 1200 to 2000 pounds, this compares to the amount of trash that the American Boy can generate and keep in their living space (typically, known as their bedroom).  Why they feel compelled to keep this amount of trash is one of many questions the American Mother goes to her grave with unanswered.  When born, the American Bison weighs approximately 35 pounds which compares to the amount of food that the American Boy can eat in one sitting.  Typically, this is in the form of pizza, hamburgers, and fries.  The American Bison male matures some 3 years later than the female of their species which mimics the similar maturation milestones met by the American Boy in relation their species counterpart, the American Girl.  Whether it is the height of the two, to the weight comparisons, to the ability to smell or to be smelled; the evidence is in the numbers that the 15 year old American Boy the American Bison are indeed very similar creatures.

Works Cited

"American Bison Fact Sheet." American Bison Fact Sheet. San Diego Zoo, Mar. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

"American Bison." Webpath Express. Canadian Musuem of Nature, 09 Jan. 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

"Americans Slightly Taller, Much Heavier Than Four Decades Ago." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 04 Jan. 2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

"Classification of Living Things: Linnaean Classification of Humans." Classification of Living Things: Linnaean Classification of Humans. Ed. Dennis O'Neil. Palomar College Department of Behavioral Science, 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.