Writing Assignment: Show What You Know About Persuasive Writing
This assignment is valuable because the better you get at editing your papers, the better your writing will become. An initial draft is just that. A final draft is one that has been revisited, revised, edited, cut, pasted, rewritten, torn apart, and stitched back together. It doesn't matter how messy the process gets. What matters is that the final piece of writing you submit is solid. Do not be afraid to revise your paper so much that it no longer resembles your initial essay 

For this piece of persuasive writing, you will address the following concern: 

Many people believe that academic achievement will improve by requiring high school students to pass a standardized test before being awarded a diploma. Other people disagree with this approach. You will prepare a persuasive essay arguing your position on this topic. 

•Determine what you think about this issue.
•Brainstorm and then research to gather supporting evidence for your persuasive essay.
•prepare your first draft.
•Revise the draft-you may want to ask a friend, parent, or teacher to review your draft at this point.
•Edit.
•Proof your work one more time and then submit your final essay.
Getting started is one of the hardest parts of writing. To help you get started on this assignment, you may want to use the cause and effect, or fishbone, interactive below. You can type directly on the chart on this page. Or you can print it out to prepare on it. To complete the chart, your "spine" is your stand on the issue. So, if you believe that academic achievement will improve by requiring students to take a standardized graduation test, you would type that in on the spine of the fish. Then, you will brainstorm and research to identify the causes and effects of that decision (e.g., a cause might be the U.S. High School students were scoring lower than their peers in college entrance exams in China, Japan, and India). An effect might be that the U.S. began to assess students to see if the school curriculum matched up.