Through the process of writing the persuasive paper, I learned a lot of strategies to help me read and identify credible sources that would aid me in my research. I learned how to organize my thoughts and make them flow together in a logical way so that every point that I wanted to make was hit. One thing that I learned about myself as a writer is that if I break the paper down into paragraphs and do a paragraph a day, my paper comes out more organized, and I pay closer attention to details. As a student, this paper helped me learn how to prioritize my time better, and I learned how to organize my writing in a logical way.
During this assignment, I struggled with portraying all that I wanted to say without going into a lot of unnecessary details. I had so much that I wanted to say, and it was hard for me to break it down into simpler terms and pick out the main points from each idea. When I caught myself going into too much unnecessary detail, I allowed myself to write the paragraph how I would say it if I were telling it to a classmate or family member. Then I went back and cut out the "fluff", highlighted the main points, and summarized them in a shorter, more condensed version. This helped me get all of my thoughts out on papers so that I didn't feel like I was missing something.
Through this writing process, I really dug deep into the facts and opinions that I found through my research, and I tied them into my own feelings and beliefs, so that I could strengthen my credibility with the quotes and facts from other people. I looked into other questions along the way that popped into my head, and I think that it helped me come to a better solution in my mind than I had originally started out with. When I found a source, I analyzed it, and found how it would help my argument, and then I incorporated it into my evidence as persuasion. I felt like I had a harder time when it came to picking a side, because I went into this knowing what my personal thoughts were, but the opposing views were very convincing, and they all made sense. In the end, I had to ask myself, "What would you do in this particular situation to address the problem?" In other words, would I let my adopted child meet their biological parents or not? By doing this, I was able to look at it from a personal level, while also keeping the opposing views in the back of my mind. I really enjoyed this assignment, and persuasive writing is one of my favorite types of writing now.
This is excellent! Thanks for sharing, Allison! I might steal some of your strategies to share with students in the future. I love how you broke it down into paragraphs and how you described writing a paragraph as you would tell it to a family member and cutting the "fluff". What a great idea! Thank you, again, for all your hard work!
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