Recently my seventh and eighth grade English classes reviewed making outlines. The assignment in the book looked a little boring; we did this instead. They were having a blast coming up with ideas, then we put them all in the correct order in our outline. I let each student come up to the board and make one entry, putting the numeral or letter with the period behind it in the right column with the correct alignment. It was fun, and students learn more when they are enjoying the subject matter.
I wish I had taken a picture of the eighth grade outline. At the beginning of class we were going over our vocabulary words. I always have them write a sentence using the word correctly and then call on different students to read theirs to the whole class. One student read his: "Little Kim may empower his army to release nuclear missiles," or something close to that. Then other students used this topic for other vocabulary words: "Some countries have despotic leaders," etc.
We were on a roll.
Next came the outlining assignment. We glanced at the topic in the book and instead came up with our own. After brainstorming several aspects, we came up with something that looked like this.
Possible War with North Korea
I. Little Kim and North Korea
A. Despotic leader
B. Nuclear missiles
C. Threats
II. Trump and America
A. Trump's reactions
B. Nuclear missiles
C. Trade sanctions
III. Other countries
A. China's reaction
B. Japan's reaction
We had a good discussion, made a decent outline, used some vocabulary words, learned about current events, and all the students were engaged and interested. The suggestions in the book are good, but sometimes it is permissible, and even advisable, to deviate from that a little.