Persuasive Essay

Having escaped rule from a tyrannical British government, the United States was founded on ideals of freedom and equality for all people. These fantasies of universal egalitarianism turned out to be merely that: fantasies. American history is full of stories of the oppressed struggling to get the rights they deserve and of the controversy over these issues that consequently ensues. “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” by Frederick Douglass and “We Shall Overcome” by Lyndon B. Johnson are two speeches made confronting two of these issues. Douglass’s speech, delivered in 1852, condemns the institution of slavery and maintains that slaves are men and are therefore entitled to freedom. Johnson’s speech, on the other hand, was written in 1965 and discussed the civil rights movement. In it, he implored local governments to allow all American citizens, regardless of race, to vote. Despite the significant gap in time between these two addresses, both speakers use similar persuasive techniques, including ethos, pathos, and parallelism, to convince their audience that change needs to be implemented in America.

The cost of college tuition is continually on the rise and has placed many burdens on high school students as well as their families. Some of the burdens that are placed are a result of parents putting pressure on their children to earn scholarships. Some of the burden is a result of students putting pressure on themselves to earn scholarships. Then, there is the burden of high college debt once the student graduates. Is this pressure really helping our students or is it hurting them? The bottom line is college tuition is skyrocketing out of control and something must be done before it destroys our families and our children.

It’s time for change across the nation. Bullying has been a problem for a millennia, however, in recent years, it has now been focused mostly at schools. There are school policies in place to both punish and prevent bullying from happening. Anti-Bullying strategies aren’t enough to be properly used by the nation successfully and need to be changed. Rules need to be altered for better ones.

“Your assignment is to write a persuasive essay and present it to the class in a week. You will be graded based on how convincing it is. Today we will be choosing topics,” announced Mr. Bowerbank, my 7th grade English teacher and ruler of classroom 110. My class simultaneously groaned at the prospect of work. I simply lifted my head with intrigue as it was already May and about time we had our first essay. He then proceeded to give examples of topics we could choose and gave us some time to think before we had to tell him our topic. My classmates were already rushing to tell the teacher their idea lest someone else steal it. That meant the usual abortion, death penalty, or drug use topics were out. I really couldn't think of anything and the teacher was slowly making his way through the remaining students like an executioner beheading criminals in a line. I have always thought that he would make a marvelous supervillain if he had a curly mustache, a tophat, and a cape. Eventually my name was called. I slowly dragged myself over to his desk. Even sitting down, he still seemed to tower over me. “What is your topic Cindy?” As usual in such desperate times, my mind turned to food. “Waffles are better than pancakes.” I figured that a waffle was just a differently shaped pancake with a nicer texture. “Hmm. Excellent topic. I look forward to your essay!” I survived to live yet another day.

In today’s society, many people struggle to love themselves. What does it take to truly be open with who you are and to be confident enough to deal with anybody’s judgement in this world? With models all over social media, magazines, television, and loved ones always staring and judging, it is hard for one to truly feel accepted in this world. There will always be people in the world who will shame those who are a little too over weight, those who are too skinny, those who choose the wrong person to love, those who are too confident or too insecure...the list is endless. Nobody in this world should have the right to decide what you should look like, how you should act, and who you should love, except for you. What does it mean to be “too this” or “too that” anyway? Rick Warren once said, “Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. I don’t know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone.” Society has its own ideas on what perfection really is and what it looks like, making it hard for humans to truly love themselves the way they are. Why is that? Why do we shame others for being themselves after continuously telling them to “Be Yourself.”

Source: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Health, United States, 2002. Flegal et. al. JAMA. 2002;288:1723-7. NIH, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, 1998.

Paul Sheldon: Decides to kill off the main character (Misery Chastain) from his most popular series in pursuit of writing new stories

The words engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty by Emma Lazarus; “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free…” Her torch lights the way to liberty and freedom. Nearby this beacon of hope, elite industrialists, academics, and law makers were creating ways to achieve racial purity and rid the American landscape of the mentally ‘unfit’. With the use of forced sterilization, jailing and institutions, this would ensure those that are deemed ‘unfit’ for society would be stripped of their freedom to procreate. It was this American model, that a young German Nationalist would use against Jews. America was pioneering in eugenics to rid the populous of the unfit and to ensure the most-worthy would excel. Could courts use eugenics today, to cut spending needs for the almost 700,000 children of abuse and neglect? From an emotional standpoint, most would favor any abuser not having the right to procreate. However, most states see forcibly sterilizing abusers as unconstitutional. Society should be cautioned in using shortcuts to reduce costs when constitutional rights are involved.

We jumped. We played. We screamed. We tried to kill each other. Bloodthirsty, 1 person was the monster. The rest tried to survive. It was a game that kinda went like duck duck goose. But if I would have known what would happen next, I never would have sat down. Never would have put my hands under me. Never would have played that game that day.

In motorcross it's all about the bike you ride. With so many manufacturers it’s hard to decide which bike you want. Each manufacturer has different tools to persuade people to buy their newest greatest bike. Between commercials, free giveaways, meet and greets, and short videos posted online, they have a good chance of winning some buyers. Personally the biggest advertisement that grabbed my eye as a young teenager was the posters sold. As a thirteen year old American teenager, I wanted to cover the walls in my room with my favorite bands, zombies, and motorcycles. So I would always buy these posters of a professional rider standing next to the newest bike, or them jumping a new bike across an enormous jump.

Today’s society is run solely on technology and social media; at least it seems like it. Everything you want to know can be found on the internet; dating, cooking, college courses, essays and other things you can imagine. It is a great thing and also a bad thing. Everything should not be on the internet. However, some people can do more online than in person due to lack of transportation or sometimes disabilities. Some people work online from home, which is a great way to earn money for people with disabilities, household responsibilities or do not have transportation.

Words leave the mouth but cannot be heard. Nothing can be heard amongst all the noise. Music blares, and people cheer. Everyone stands and puts their hand to their hearts. But the players, the people kids everywhere idolize and look up to, kneel down. The few players stick out like a sore thumb in the wave of fans standing around them. This has been the cause for huge debate, but the question is, is this okay? Many problems have been caused when the world of politics mixed with America's favorite pastime; sports. Most of the problems originated when Donald Trump became president. The issues causing the most commotion among people are professional athletes of all different sports deciding to take a knee during the National Anthem, and the decision of The Golden State Warriors refusing to go to the white house. Although these are only some problems concerning this matter, they seem to be the most popular among the people of America.

To many people I’m always smiling, bringing people in. I welcome everyone into my life. Yet, I get betrayed and pressured into wrong things. Useless opinions cloud me like what people think the color of my room should be, the friends I choose, the places I go. This might be why I’m always in my pink rosy room, wasting away the days I should be happy but, I can’t smile forever, right? There is this girl named tiffany. We played every weekend. We played barbies all night. But then one day she left me. Completely. I miss her. I think that I can never be happy again like how I was with her.

All over the world, citizens’ desire to talk about sensitive subjects, such as race, sexual orientation, and death, has diminished in the last decade. The modern trend is to avoid certain topics so as not to offend anyone. Unresolved subjects, however, require person to person communication in order to minimize their damaging effects. One major topic of conversation that is avoided by people every single day is suicide. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States today and takes the lives of about 44,193 Americans every year. For some in this world there seems to be no hope, no relief from their upsetting feelings, but this is a growing trend that needs to stop before it takes the lives of more because despite what they may believe, there is hope in and for the world we live in.

Imagine white sand in between your toes as you drink coconut milk fresh from the tree as waves crash ten feet in front of you. You’re on a beach lounging in the sun while your friends are falling asleep in language arts. As a thirteen year old boy I got the chance to go and spend a week on the tropical island of Maui with my grandparents. I had to save up some money to get to go and by working all that summer I finally saved enough money. We started in the nearby town of Saint George and waited in the terminal for our little plane to arrive. We flew over Las Vegas and saw all the fancy hotels. Eventually we arrived in LAX to switch to the big jet to fly over the ocean. I’ve always been pretty good with directions, but in the noisy and chaotic bustling of that airport, I had no idea which way was out. All I saw were the faces and backs of people running around. Eventually I boarded the plane and flew to that mystical place known as Maui.