Persuasive essay

Objective:

Having focused on the foundational elements of purpose, audience, and tone. Here, we will be testing our abilities to achieve a specific purpose, to an audience that we will imagine writing to, and with a tone that will be appropriate. Also, we will be testing our ability to gather our ideas into an organized structure that will both support our purpose and be clear to our audience.

The premise:

A hypothetical school publication has just been created in order to empower student voices, publishing to the students, faculty, and staff within the entire district, though also available to the larger Fresno area. Its objective is to demonstrate the academic writing capabilities of the district’s students, their ability to join in the larger conversations, and to develop their own ideas. Currently, it is calling for works that highlight the issues students care about and the stances they’ve taken, based on their own reasoning and research. This offers the opportunity to influence the many minds within the local area, which in turn, motivate their beliefs and actions.

The task:

With an appropriately academic structure, we will be introducing a relevant issue, taking a specific stance, and providing evidence for a persuasive argument to the whole school audience. We can then assume that many of our audience might be inclined to disagree, at least at first, so we will need clearly explained evidence to support our claims. Of course, it will be helpful to acknowledge the opposing ideas, but we will ultimately use them to strengthen our own positions.

The minimum requirements:*

• Five full pages (not counting Works Cited)
• At least four credible sources
• MLA formatting (or APA)
  • This includes font, spacing, margins, page number, title info, etc.
• MLA Citations
  • In-text citations
  • Works Cited

*Not meeting the minimum requirements results in a 25% deduction to the final score