October 7: Persuasive essay

Today we took a closer look at the assignment sheet for your persuasive essay in light of your reading assignment on arguments (Ch. 3 in HTWA). We talked about the audience for your essay and how you would establish your authority. You have an academic audience for this essay (me - as I stand in for faculty members at Kean University)and you listed Ryan and Zimmerelli's book, other tutoring manuals, and references to your personal experience as ways to establish your authority. We then began listing some of the topics from Chapters 4 & 5 that you might take a position on.

We also talked about the models for persuasive essays that were presented in HTWA - and I suggested that the essay from personal experience was probably most relevant to the kind of essay you would be writing. I pointed out that a 5-paragraph essay with a three-part thesis would not be appropriate for this assignment. You may be expected to use that form for persuasive essays for other courses - but we are working on a more flexible approach to deciding how to build arguments.

In this class - you are learning to make case-by-case decisions about how to focus, organize, and develop essays so that they respond to a particular audience and serve a particular purpose.

The assignments for Tuesday are DIFFERENT from what is written on the calendar. Do what I have listed below.

For Tuesday:

Write: Send me your Thesis statement (the position you will take in your persuasive essay) and a list of your claims (the points you will argue to support your thesis). You should include points that respond to arguments from the "other side."

If you have chosen a different topic than the topic for your initial brainstorming - you might also want to include brainstorming for your new topic.

The object of this writing is so that you can receive some feedback before writing your whole paper.

Read: HTWA, Chapter 3. Bring your book to class.