Help needed with an impossible idea

[Wallywobbles]

DD2 has to write a 3 minute speech using satire and fable to present the ideas that support the death penalty.

And then just a fable presenting the ideas against the death penalty.

The timing for each part is 3 minutes.

I am finding it really difficult to come up with an idea that works for the pro death penalty.

Can anyone creative / brilliant / kind etc help.

Whew, what an assignment! I’m not sure how it can be both pro the death penalty and satirical... Could she write something along the lines of “an eye for an eye” (fable teaching that bad actions have consequences), so someone is sentenced to death for killing someone, but then the executioner is also sentenced to death for killing someone, and on and on (making it satirical)?

Fables usually feature animals, but I’m not sure how you’d incorporate that too! Unless the judge is a wise owl or something.

Try reading Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’, it’s in a similar vein and might inspire her (if age appropriate!).

How about letting DD2 do it?

@VeniVidiWeeWee she will do it. But I want to help. She's 15 and not a great reader. But a hard worker.

Thank you for your suggestions - I've suggested on the animal theme for fable that when a human is killed by an animal we then kill the animal. That the death penalty is about putting order into chaos. Refinding balance. Thé satire élément has escaped me. In Cold Blood and The Exectioners Song are 2 examples of littérature on the theme. But Google has not been very helpful.

She has a bit of time to do it but it just seems like a hard assignment made impossible.

Thanks again.

Dear God. She's 15! Let her get on with it. No wonder young people today are so useless.

Wow @VodkaSlimline that's pretty judgemental.

She's really not useless. Very far from it. But this is not one of her strengths. I'm not proposing to do it for her. And she hasn't asked me to, but I want to help her come up with an idea.

I'm finding it hard to think of something so understand why she does.

But isn't coming up with the idea part of the assignment? And it's her assignment. Not yours.

Wow vodka, what an asshole! OP is just being a supportive parent trying to gather ideas to share and discuss with her daughter so she can have a go at what sounds like a pretty difficult assignment theme.
OP I opened the thread because I normally enjoy thinking about stuff like this but I am truly stumped!

No @Lostinacloud, she's being a helicopter parent, and although she has good intentions she's not doing her DD any favours. DD could be at university in 3 years - what then? If DD really can't figure out how to do the task on her own, the OP could encourage her to ask her teacher for guidance.

Some sort of repetitive theme that demonstrates the (presumably killers) heart still beating thoughought the poem?
Demonstrating the victims no longer is?

Is there a satirical angle on 'people learn by example' so if we 'kill people who break laws' we are teaching that
'Killing people is fine if they upset our values'
or - a totally different tack
'Killing criminals is not punishment enough; living in confinement is a bigger punishment'

What about looking at the pro argument from the point of view of the victim’s family who are left behind? How far does their need for justice push them? Do they leave it to the law of the land? Do they take revenge? How far would they go to feel that justice is done for them? Do they want public retribution (selling tickets to watch/participate) or quietly private justice? There may be some satirical pieces on the US systems of carrying out the death penalty online...

What a sweeping generalisation VodkaSlimline . Young people today are not 'so useless', that's just a lazy stereotype. Nothing wrong at all with the OP helping her daughter on the basis she has outlined.

No wonder young people today are so useless.
Better than being miserable n aggy.

Nothing wrong in helping - it helps them with discussion and collaborative skills. It also shows them you care enough about them to be interested in helping. I’d rather that than see my kids suffer in silence on the pretence that I’m teaching them to stand on their own two feet by making them do their work on their own. That’s why some kids struggle because they are too scared to ask for help...

@VodkaSlimline

Dear God. She's 15! Let her get on with it. No wonder young people today are so useless.

So then everyone your age is bitchy and spiteful

No, you can coach and support them to do the work themselves without coming up with the ideas for them. That doesn't exactly boost their confidence, does it? But clearly OP's not the only defensive helicopter parent here... look how merely pointing out that she's over-involved has brought out shrieks of "arsehole", "miserable and aggy", "bitchy and spiteful" and meanwhile another coddled generation grows up to be... yup, useless.

Trouble is Vodka, you come across as if you don’t give a shit about helping your kids - rather that you’ll get them to the age of 15? 16? or even 18? with hopefully no mishaps, and shove them out when your work as a parent is done. Plenty of vodka filled child free time then, eh?

I don't remember getting any help from my mum at school! Friends and teachers maybe... I kind of agree with Vodka here.

@VodkaSlimline

No, you can coach and support them to do the work themselves without coming up with the ideas for them. That doesn't exactly boost their confidence, does it? But clearly OP's not the only defensive helicopter parent here... look how merely pointing out that she's over-involved has brought out shrieks of "arsehole", "miserable and aggy", "bitchy and spiteful" and meanwhile another coddled generation grows up to be... yup, useless.

I'm not a helicopter parent at all, and I didn't "shriek". I didn't like your unfair generalisation. You spouted crap basically, just because a parent asked for some to ideas to get her DD going on some homework.

DS hates creative things & would have floundered at an assignment like this.
No - he's not going to university either!

Just because your mum didn’t help you doesn’t mean that you don’t have to help your own kids... that’s a fucked up way to parent.

I expect the assignment has been set in the confident expectation that the teenagers’ parents will steam in, take over and do their kids’ homework for them, and that is why the subject is challenging. I bet the teacher is drinking gin and laughing. I would be. With @VodkaSlimline.

Nothing like an alcohol obsessed cool mum to lecture on parenting - right on sister, mines a cheeky snakebite whilst the kids are out asking their friends parents to help ( note, help, not write the whole thing ffs) them with a tricky bit of homework

You are funny. You have misunderstood. I’ll explain it to you.

The teacher is, I suggested, having a drink and laughing at the parents doing their kids’ “impossible” homework.

Nobody has suggested that the parents get drunk and refuse to help their kids with their homework. Although maybe you should try it. You sound as if you need lightening up.