Persuasive essay examples, annotated, from middle school to college

Last March, Dani, a junior in my chemistry class, failed the stoichiometry test the morning after a pipe burst in her family's apartment. She spent the next two weeks relearning the unit, scored 94 on the lab practical that tested the same skills, and still finished the semester with a C, because a test grade at Ridgeline High never moves. Our grading treats every student as if they all had the same Tuesday. The faculty council should give every student one retake per course each semester, earned by correcting the original test, because it lets grades measure learning instead of timing, it makes students study their mistakes, and the teacher who tried it here last spring found it cost less time than he expected.

A grade is supposed to tell parents, colleges and the student what the student knows. Dani's C says she never understood stoichiometry. Her lab practical says she did. When one sitting counts forever, the grade records a bad week as a gap in knowledge. A retake lets the final grade report what a student knows by the end of the unit, which is the point of the course.

Right now a returned test is a dead end. Most of us glance at the score, skim the red marks and file the paper in a binder. A retake that has to be earned turns the test into a study guide: to qualify, a student must rework every missed problem and explain each error in a sentence. When Mr. Okafor piloted this in his two algebra sections last spring, 41 of his 58 students turned in corrections at least once. The semester before, he says, almost no one looked at a returned test twice.

The strongest objection comes from teachers. Retakes mean writing and grading a second version of a test, and students might coast the first time if they know a second chance exists. Both concerns are fair, so the policy should be built around them. One retake per course per semester, not per test, limits the extra grading to one paper per student. Requiring corrections first means a student still has to study, just later. Capping the retake score at 85 means a student who coasts cannot finish ahead of one who prepared. Mr. Okafor estimates the pilot added about two hours of grading across the whole semester.

We are not asking for easier grades. We are asking for grades that measure what we learned instead of the week we had. I ask the faculty council to approve a one-semester trial of the retake policy this fall and to review the results at its January meeting. If the trial fails, the council will know. If it works, students like Dani will finish the semester with the grade they earned.

At Lakeview Middle School, sixth graders go from first period to last with one 25-minute lunch and no recess. Fifth graders at Lakeview Elementary, right across the parking lot, get 20 minutes outside every day. Nothing about us changes over one summer except our schedule. Lakeview should give sixth graders 15 minutes of recess after lunch, because it would help us focus in afternoon classes and give us time to make friends at a new school.

By sixth period, half my science class is watching the clock. Last year, coming back inside from recess felt like a fresh start. Recess is also the only time to meet people outside your classes, and most of us came from three different elementary schools. Some teachers worry that recess would take time from lessons. It doesn't have to. The fifteen minutes could come from the time we already spend in the lunch line, if classes went to the cafeteria in two groups.

Please try recess for sixth graders for one month. If grades or behavior get worse, you can end it. I think you will see a calmer, friendlier sixth grade.

Most instructors at Calder University post their lecture slides after class, and the reason is a fair one: if slides are available in advance, some students will skip the lecture and read them instead. But the policy protects attendance at the expense of the students who come. Students who have seen the slides can spend the hour listening and asking questions instead of copying bullet points, and a student who uses a screen reader can arrive prepared rather than behind. The faculty senate should recommend that instructors post slides at least 24 hours before each lecture, because it makes the hour more useful to the students in the room and asks instructors for nothing they are not already doing.

The objection deserves a direct answer: some students will skip. A few already do, slides or no slides, and no posting schedule will bring them back. For everyone else, the question is what a lecture offers that its slides do not. If a lecture can be replaced by its slides, the problem is the lecture, not the posting schedule. Worked problems, discussion and answers to the questions students bring are reasons to attend that no file can replace.

• Weak: "Homework is a big issue for students today." It names a topic, not a position.
  Stronger: "Ridgeline High should cap homework at one hour a night across all classes, because longer assignments crowd out sleep and after-school jobs without raising test scores."
• Weak: "Plastic bags are bad for the environment." Most readers already agree, so there is nothing to persuade them of.
  Stronger: "The Harmon city council should charge ten cents for every plastic bag at checkout, because a small fee changes habits faster than a ban and pays for the town's recycling pickup."

• A scene: "Dani failed the stoichiometry test the morning after a pipe burst in her family's apartment."
• A question: "What does a test grade measure if a student can fail the test and ace the lab on the same material two weeks later?"
• A surprising detail: "Last spring, 41 of Mr. Okafor's 58 algebra students reworked a test they had already handed in. Nobody assigned it. They wanted the retake."
• A concession: "Teachers are right to worry that retakes invite students to coast."
• The request itself: "Ridgeline High should let every student retake one test per course each semester."

• Vague: "To sum up, retakes are a good idea and the school should think about them."
  Specific: "I ask the faculty council to approve a one-semester trial this fall and review the results in January."
• Vague: "Everyone should care more about the environment."
  Specific: "Come to the council meeting on May 6 and speak for the bag fee during public comment."

Persuasive: "Dani knew stoichiometry. Her lab practical proves it. But one bad morning wrote a C into her transcript, and our policy says it can never come out. You would not accept a gradebook in your own class that mistook a bad week for a lack of knowledge. Give students one retake and let the grade say what they learned."

Argumentative: "Supporters of fixed test grades argue that retakes reward procrastination, and the concern has some basis: a student who knows a second attempt exists may prepare less for the first. The Ridgeline pilot is mixed on this point. Average first-attempt scores in Mr. Okafor's sections fell by two points, while final unit scores rose by six. A retake policy appears to trade a small loss in first-attempt effort for a larger gain in what students know at the end of a unit."