Focus the essay on a narrowly defined and arguable claim (meaning that someone in the conversation would disagree with you) about a language issue. You can argue for a particular point-of-view on an issue ("Speech codes are beneficial to college campuses"), a solution to a problem ("Instituting mandatory speech codes is the best way to curb racism on campus"), or the validity of an analysis ("We haven't thought carefully enough about how campus speech codes affect communication in college.