Persuasive Essays, Argumentative Essays, and Research

Persuasive & Argumentative Essay Overview and Resources

• "40 Writing Topics: Argument and Persuasion" via About
• "Argumentative Essays" via Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• "Argumentative vs. Persuasive (Essays)" via Anne Ridgway
• "Argumentative vs. Persuasive Writing" via Smekens Education Solutions, Inc.
• "Argumentative Essay/Argumentative Essay: Animal Testing" via Smekens Education Solutions, Inc.
• "Subtle, but Significant Differences Between Persuasive Writing vs. Argumentative Writing" [T-Chart] via Smekens Education Solutions, Inc.
• "Persuasive and Argumentative Unit Study Guide"

Persuasive Essays vs. Argumentative Essay Practice

• "Animal Testing Persuasive and Argumentative Essay Comparison"
• "Animal testing Persuasive and Argumentative Essay Comparison (Color-Coded)"

Argumentative Essay Project

• "Argumentative Essay Rubric"
• "Argumentative G.O."
• "Argumentative G.O. Example 'Cell Phones Are the Worst'"
• "Creating Hooks" (Use this document to have your students develop hooks for their argumentative essay.)

Research Project Background Information and Overview

This unit has been cross-curricular with Social Studies (Westward Expansion) one year and Military History (World War II) during another, thus the variant forms of presentations and assignments below.

• "ELA Research Project Rubric and Description"
• "World War II Topic List" H.O. (Use this document to have students select their top three topics for their research project)

Evaluating and Using Reliable Resources

• "Non-Fiction Text Features" H.O. (Review these text features, and have students find as many examples they can in a shared text using the following document.)
• "Non-Fiction Text Feature Scavenger Hunt Activity"
• "Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus" via Zapatopi (Use this site to show students that even sites that look reliable may be contain inaccurate information.)
• "MLA Website Evaluation"

• "Westward Expansion Paraphrasing and In-Text Citations Activity"
• "World War II Paraphrasing Assignment and In-Text Citations Activity"

Creating the Research Project

• "Research Project Rubric Checklist"