PURPOSE: The purpose of this essay is to argue and persuade. Keep in mind that you are arguing HOW the author builds their own argument, not providing your opinion about the topic they discussed.
AUDIENCE: Imagine that you are writing for a formal, academic audience of highly educated individuals (professors, Ph.D's, experts in their fields, etc.). Take into consideration how that will affect the voice, tone, and diction of the piece. You should not use first person, personal pronouns (we, us, you, yours, me, my, mine, our, ours, etc.), or contractions (don't, for instance, becomes "do not").
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Read through the prompts below and choose the one that you feel you can argue most passionately and efficiently.
- You may only choose one prompt.
- Before you begin writing, you should prewrite (make use of invention work): Brainstorm, freewrite, list, chart, outline, map/web or somehow organize your thoughts.
- Write an essay of 2.5 to 3 pages (including a strong main point/thesis that you prove with specific examples and convincing evidence). This should be in MLA format (typed, double-spaced, 1" margins all around, Times New Roman 12 point font).
- You should have a min. of 5 well-developed paragraphs. Details, specific examples, and SHORT quotes are important. Do not over quote. No more than 20% of your paper should be direct quote. The majority of your paper should be your own ideas.
- Underline your thesis/claim in the intro and in the conclusion.
- As noted below, your essay should not explain whether you agree with the author’s claims, but rather explain how the writer builds an argument to persuade his audience.
- PROOFREAD and REVISE before turning in your paper.
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Choose ONE of the following prompts:
Prompt 1:
As you read the passage below, consider how the author, Paul Bogard, uses:
- evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims.
- reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and evidence.
- stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed.
Adapted from Paul Bogard, “Let There Be Dark.” ©2012 by Los Angeles Times. Originally published December 21, 2012.
Passage from "Let There Be Dark":
At my family’s cabin on a Minnesota lake, I knew woods so dark that my hands disappeared before my eyes. I knew night skies in which meteors left smoky trails across sugary spreads of stars. But now, when 8 of 10 children born in the United States will never know a sky dark enough for the Milky Way, I worry we are rapidly losing night’s natural darkness before realizing its worth. This winter solstice, as we cheer the days’ gradual movement back toward light, let us also remember the irreplaceable value of darkness.
All life evolved to the steady rhythm of bright days and dark nights. Today, though, when we feel the closeness of nightfall, we reach quickly for a light switch. And too little darkness, meaning too much artificial light at night, spells trouble for all.
Already the World Health Organization classifies working the night shift as a probable human carcinogen, and the American Medical Association has voiced its unanimous support for “light pollution reduction efforts and glare reduction efforts at both the national and state levels.” Our bodies need darkness to produce the hormone melatonin, which keeps certain cancers from developing, and our bodies need darkness for sleep. Sleep disorders have been linked to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and depression, and recent research suggests one main cause of “short sleep” is “long light.” Whether we work at night or simply take our tablets, notebooks and smartphones to bed, there isn’t a place for this much artificial light in our lives.
The rest of the world depends on darkness as well, including nocturnal and crepuscular species of birds, insects, mammals, fish and reptiles. Some examples are well known—the 400 species of birds that migrate at night in North America, the sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs—and some are not, such as the bats that save American farmers billions in pest control and the moths that pollinate 80% of the world’s flora. Ecological light pollution is like the bulldozer of the night, wrecking habitat and disrupting ecosystems several billion years in the making. Simply put, without darkness, Earth’s ecology would collapse....
In today’s crowded, louder, more fast-paced world, night’s darkness can provide solitude, quiet and stillness, qualities increasingly in short supply. Every religious tradition has considered darkness invaluable for a soulful life, and the chance to witness the universe has inspired artists, philosophers and everyday stargazers since time began. In a world awash with electric light...how would Van Gogh have given the world his “Starry Night”? Who knows what this vision of the night sky might inspire in each of us, in our children or grandchildren?
Yet all over the world, our nights are growing brighter. In the United States and Western Europe, the amount of light in the sky increases an average of about 6% every year. Computer images of the United States at night, based on NASA photographs, show that what was a very dark country as recently as the 1950s is now nearly covered with a blanket of light. Much of this light is wasted energy, which means wasted dollars. Those of us over 35 are perhaps among the last generation to have known truly dark nights. Even the northern lake where I was lucky to spend my summers has seen its darkness diminish.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Light pollution is readily within our ability to solve, using new lighting technologies and shielding existing lights. Already, many cities and towns across North America and Europe are changing to LED streetlights, which offer dramatic possibilities for controlling wasted light. Other communities are finding success with simply turning off portions of their public lighting after midnight. Even Paris, the famed “city of light,” which already turns off its monument lighting after 1 a.m., will this summer start to require its shops, offices and public buildings to turn off lights after 2 a.m. Though primarily designed to save energy, such reductions in light will also go far in addressing light pollution. But we will never truly address the problem of light pollution until we become aware of the irreplaceable value and beauty of the darkness we are losing.
Write an essay in which you explain how Paul Bogard builds an argument to persuade his audience that natural darkness should be preserved. In your essay, analyze how the author uses one or more of the features in the directions that precede the passage (or features of your own choice) to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of his argument. Be sure that your analysis focuses on the most relevant features of the passage.
Your essay should not explain whether you agree with Bogard’s claims, but rather explain how he builds an argument to persuade his audience.
Prompt 2:
As you read the passage below, consider how the author, Dana Gioia, uses:
- evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims.
- reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and evidence.
- stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed.
Adapted from Dana Gioia, “Why Literature Matters” ©2005 by The New York Times Company. Originally published April 10, 2005.
Passage from "Why Literature Matters":
[A] strange thing has happened in the American arts during the past quarter century. While income rose to unforeseen levels, college attendance ballooned, and access to information increased enormously, the interest young Americans showed in the arts—and especially literature—actually diminished.
According to the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, a population study designed and commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts (and executed by the US Bureau of the Census), arts participation by Americans has declined for eight of the nine major forms that are measured....The declines have been most severe among younger adults (ages 18–24). The most worrisome finding in the 2002 study, however, is the declining percentage of Americans, especially young adults, reading literature.
That individuals at a time of crucial intellectual and emotional development bypass the joys and challenges of literature is a troubling trend. If it were true that they substituted histories, biographies, or political works for literature, one might not worry. But book reading of any kind is falling as well.
That such a longstanding and fundamental cultural activity should slip so swiftly, especially among young adults, signifies deep transformations in contemporary life. To call attention to the trend, the Arts Endowment issued the reading portion of the Survey as a separate report, “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America.”
The decline in reading has consequences that go beyond literature. The significance of reading has become a persistent theme in the business world. The February issue of Wired magazine, for example, sketches a new set of mental skills and habits proper to the 21st century, aptitudes decidedly literary in character: not “linear, logical, analytical talents,” author Daniel Pink states, but “the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative.” When asked what kind of talents they like to see in management positions, business leaders consistently set imagination, creativity, and higher-order thinking at the top.
Ironically, the value of reading and the intellectual faculties that it inculcates appear most clearly as active and engaged literacy declines. There is now a growing awareness of the consequences of nonreading to the workplace. In 2001 the National Association of Manufacturers polled its members on skill deficiencies among employees. Among hourly workers, poor reading skills ranked second, and 38 percent of employers complained that local schools inadequately taught reading comprehension.
The decline of reading is also taking its toll in the civic sphere....A 2003 study of 15- to 26-year-olds’ civic knowledge by the National Conference of State Legislatures concluded, “Young people do not understand the ideals of citizenship… and their appreciation and support of American democracy is limited.”
It is probably no surprise that declining rates of literary reading coincide with declining levels of historical and political awareness among young people. One of the surprising findings of “Reading at Risk” was that literary readers are markedly more civically engaged than nonreaders, scoring two to four times more likely to perform charity work, visit a museum, or attend a sporting event. One reason for their higher social and cultural interactions may lie in the kind of civic and historical knowledge that comes with literary reading....
The evidence of literature’s importance to civic, personal, and economic health is too strong to ignore. The decline of literary reading foreshadows serious long-term social and economic problems, and it is time to bring literature and the other arts into discussions of public policy. Libraries, schools, and public agencies do noble work, but addressing the reading issue will require the leadership of politicians and the business community as well....
Reading is not a timeless, universal capability. Advanced literacy is a specific intellectual skill and social habit that depends on a great many educational, cultural, and economic factors. As more Americans lose this capability, our nation becomes less informed, active, and independent-minded. These are not the qualities that a free, innovative, or productive society can afford to lose.
Write an essay in which you explain how Dana Gioia builds an argument to persuade his audience that the decline of reading in America will have a negative effect on society. In your essay, analyze how the author uses one or more of the features in the directions that precede the passage (or features of your own choice) to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of his argument. Be sure that your analysis focuses on the most relevant features of the passage.
Your essay should not explain whether you agree with Gioia’s claims, but rather explain HOW he builds an argument to persuade his audience.
Prompt 3:
As you read the passage below, consider how the author, James A Baker III, uses:
- evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims.
- reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and evidence.
- stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed.
NOTE: James A. Baker III was U.S. secretary of state from 1988 to 1992.
Passage from "End All Ivory Sales Worldwide":
Throughout my life, I have been an avid hunter, fisherman and outdoorsman. I hunt quail, wild turkey, dove and other birds. I’ve been on safari in Africa a number of times to hunt Cape buffalo and other plains game. I hunt elk in the Rocky Mountains every year. In my native Texas, I fish the Gulf Coast’s bays for redfish and trout, and I fish Wyoming’s cool streams for freshwater trout.
Like most sportsmen, I am also a conservationist. From the days of Teddy Roosevelt, American hunters — and, indeed, the Republican Party that Roosevelt represented — have held a deep reverence for nature and the wildlife found there. Roosevelt had a hand in the creation of 23 national parks. A half-century later, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
So it was with great satisfaction that I carried that mission forward as secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush. Responding to the rampant poaching of elephants, we joined representatives of the diplomatic and conservation communities in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, to call for a total ban on ivory trade through the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). We were particularly proud that the United States paved the way for this historic agreement though a unilateral ban on ivory imports.
Yet while the ivory trade ban at first enabled some elephant populations to recover, the past decade has seen a resurgence in poaching that has sadly reversed that trend.
Elephant poachers today are meeting a growing demand by consumers in Asia and other places where ivory is a symbol of status and wealth. As the ivory market has become more lucrative, more nefarious players have entered the trade, posing a threat not only to elephants themselves but also to the stability and security of communities where they live.
In contrast to the situation decades ago, when many participants in the sordid ivory trade were driven largely by practical motivations such as feeding their families, poaching today is driven by organized crime syndicates, and the global wildlife trade has taken its place alongside trafficking in weapons, drugs and human beings. Local militias such as the Sudanese Janjaweed and Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, equipped with modern weaponry, have joined the illegal wildlife trade to finance their terrorist activities.
The result has been devastating to elephants and the courageous wildlife rangers who protect them — to say nothing of the communities through which these militias rampage, sowing fear and instability. Today, up to 35,000 elephants are killed annually in Africa. The Wildlife Conservation Society has reported that fully 65 percent of all African forest elephants were lost between 2002 and 2013, and numerous wildlife guards are killed each year.
The killing and the trafficking in ivory must end. As secretary of state, I urged the U.S. Defense Department to provide surplus Army helicopters to Kenya to help Richard Leakey’s fight against elephant poachers. While prohibitive maintenance costs made that idea unfeasible at the time, we should revisit this idea today by passing the Eliminate, Neutralize and Disrupt (END) Wildlife Trafficking Act.
The legislation, led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), would bolster wildlife trafficking law enforcement and increase support for wildlife rangers, including the transfer of military equipment for ranger use. Importantly, the law could enable the prosecution of wildlife crime through laws targeting racketeering, which carry stiffer penalties.
Meanwhile, as global conservation leaders convene in Johannesburg this September and October for the next CITES meeting, any call for legal ivory sales should be opposed. One-off sales of African countries’ stores of confiscated ivory in the past two decades — which were permitted under the assumption that they would drive down the price of ivory — instead appear to have had the opposite effect. Poached ivory looks nearly identical to legal ivory, enabling vast amounts of illicit material to be laundered and sold openly — further driving trafficking and the poaching of elephants. It is time to end all ivory sales worldwide.
Teddy Roosevelt long ago cautioned us not to leave our wild places more diminished than we found them. If we extend that idea to an increasingly interconnected world, we must acknowledge a collective responsibility for the survival of elephants as a species.
Since the dawn of human civilization, these magnificent, awe-inspiring creatures have been with us. Let us not be the ones who let them disappear forever on our watch.
Write an essay in which you explain how Baker builds an argument to persuade his audience that the the killing of elephants and trafficking of ivory must end. In your essay, analyze how Baker uses one or more of the features in the directions that precede the passage (or features of your own choice) to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of his argument. Be sure that your analysis focuses on the most relevant features of the passage.
Your essay should not explain whether you agree with Bakers’ claims, but rather explain HOW he builds an argument to persuade his audience.
