Argumentative Essay Prompt and Rubric
Write a third-person argumentative essay in favor of one of the following options:
Attending college after high school
Entering a career immediately
Continuing to trade school
Reference the rubric(this link opens in a new window/tab) for your assignment as you work on it.
For this graded project, your prompt has been chosen for you. You must choose one position:
Argue for going to college after high school.
Argue for starting a career after high school.
Argue for going to trade school after high school.
For an assigned prompt, pay attention to signs that it’s asking you to take a position. You’re being asked for your opinion, so you must pick a position on what should happen and make an argument for it. This prompt requires a multi-paragraph essay response that should include the following:
Your position
A main claim
The provided sources to gather evidence to support your claim
Your argumentative essay should include the following:
An introduction paragraph
Five to seven body paragraphs with provided resources
A conclusion paragraph
For this argumentative essay, you must use the provided resources as your information. Here’s all the information you need to create both in-text and Works Cited page citations. Remember that you must use at least three of these sources in your paper. You can use more than three if you like, but only include in your Works Cited page the sources that you reference in the text of the paper.
Source 1: After decades of pushing bachelor’s degrees, U.S. needs more tradespeople(this link opens in a new window/tab) (Article)
Source 2: College or Career?(this link opens in a new window/tab) (Article)
Source 3: Do You Really Need a College Degree to Have a Successful Career?(this link opens in a new window/tab) (Video)
Source 4: Is a College Education Worth It?(this link opens in a new window/tab) (Article)
Your rubric for this portion of the project contains specific criteria you should follow for each of these elements of your argumentative essay. In your writing exercises, you’ve drafted your argumentative essay by writing an outline of what you’re planning on writing about.
Recall, outlines help writers organize ideas into a logical flow. Remember that your outline can be as simple or detailed as you want it to be, but it’s usually a good idea to review your source notes as you fill it in.