The Best Pet

Persuasive writing is writing that defends an opinion. The goal of a persuasive paper is to convince the reader that your thoughts on a subject are correct. Persuasive writing can be challenging. It’s one thing to have an opinion on something. It’s something else to convince someone else about it.

Your assignment this week is to answer the question, What kind of animal makes the best pet? But wait; that’s too easy. We’ll make this a little more interesting by making one rule: you can’t choose an animal that is normally considered a pet. No dogs, cats, hamsters, fish, horses, or lizards. Feel free to choose rhinoceroses, brontosauruses, alligators, worms, or fleas — any creature that normal people don’t have as pets.

Have fun with this. You can be serious or funny – just be sure explain the reasons for making your choice as “best pet.” You should have at least three good reasons to support your opinion. Explain each of these reasons in your paper. Give specific examples when possible.

Don’t be anxious; this is a first try. The main idea here is to give your writing coach a chance to see what you can do. This paper won’t be given an assessment score, and you’ll only be asked to do this one draft.

Don’t worry about doing it “the right way” either. There’s no single right way to create a paper like this. We want to see what you can do so that your writing coach can help you improve from here on.

Suggested Length: one to three pages        

Be sure to follow the formatting guidelines.