Of Mice and Men : Persuasive Essay
Purpose : The purpose of this essay is to persuade your audience to agree with your position on a controversial subject.
Audience
: Your audience is any adolescent or adult who has read the book. You may assume your audience knows the book’s plot and characters, though a brief, focused review of the event you will be discussing is required to give your essay context. Always keep in mind that although your audience is anybody who can read Of Mice and Men , the evaluator is your English teacher, so your level of diction, depth, and sentence style should meet academic standards. Do not use 1 st or 2 nd person pronouns.
Focus : Is Curley’s wife to blame for Lennie’s death? If so, why? If not, why? Answer yes or no – mixed answers will not be accepted.
Organization : Your essay will be organized in traditional, five paragraph persuasive form. You will have an introduction that gives the essay context and ends with a thesis, three support paragraphs joined by effective transitions and ordered from weakest to strongest, and a conclusion that restates your thesis and gives the essay relevance.
Support : Support for your position comes from you and from quotations you take from the book. No outside research is required or allowed. Each body paragraph will use a relevant quotation to serve as evidence that that paragraph’s topic is justified.
Format : As always, your paper should be formatted in proper MLA style. Proper in-text citations for your quotations and a Works
Cited page for the book are required. Use http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ if you have any questions or concerns with how to cite.
Grading : See rubric below. Please see me with any questions or concerns you have about how you will be graded.
Appropriate Organization introduction, body, conclusion
Exemplary Proficient Developing Beginning clear thesis, placed at end of the introduction restated thesis, placed at the beginning of the conclusion overall focus, unity, and coherence using effective transitions and other transitional techniques
Effective Support of Position is well-developed using appropriate support types for essay type: examples, textual evidence, cause & effect, analogies, logic textual evidence is clearly explained and connected to the essay’s thesis excludes irrelevant information uses persuasive language effectively but not unfairly; avoids uncontrolled errors of logic and language fairly and effectively accounts for the opposition to the writer’s position is properly documented and formatted in MLA form
Exemplary Proficient Developing Beginning
Writing Conventions proper academic voice – avoids first person sentence variety and style
Diction (vocabulary) meets length requirement of five paragraphs
Exemplary Proficient Developing Beginning

Of Mice and Men : Persuasive Essay
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Of Mice and Men : Persuasive Essay
Essay Configuration : Use the graphic organizer below to create your essay.
Paragraph 1 : Introduction

Start with an attention-getter like a rhetorical question, dialogue, flashback, description of how readers respond to the book, a shocking generalization, etc. that is relevant to the topic of your essay.
Example : Can you hold the fate of another in your hands without realizing it?
My attention-getter :
 Mention the author’s full name (John Steinbeck), the underlined title of the story (Of Mice and Men), and a brief plot summary that serves to focus your paper on whether Curley’s wife is responsible for Lennie’s death.
Example : People control their own fate. Just because someone is in relation to the outcome of a situation, that doesn’t mean they controlled one’s fate. We all have the ability to choose and make our own decisions. In Of Mice and Men , John Steinbeck illustrates this point by Lennie’s fate. Although Curley’s wife did put herself in a situation that made Lennie vulnerable, not only did she not realize his violent past and his true character, but she was only trying to get attention.
My plot summary with mention of book and author :
 End with your thesis: your position and the three reasons you are right. Make sure it doesn’t sound “tacked on.”
Make it flow.
Example : In the end, Curley’s wife is not responsible for Lennie’s death because she didn’t realize the severity of his mental disability, didn’t mean to cause trouble and can’t control Lennie’s violent actions.
My thesis :
Paragraph 2: First support paragraph – the weakest of your three points

Start with your topic sentence, which focuses your paragraph on one supporting idea. Notice that the topic sentence begins with a transition that indicates that your argument has started. (One reason, to begin, first of all, first…)
Example : One reason Curley’s wife is not responsible for Lennie’s death is because she didn’t realize the severity his mental disability.
My Topic Sentence :

Develop your paragraph giving reasons why this point is correct and using a quotation from the book to support it. Notice that before the quotation, there is an introduction for the quot. so the reader understands its context, and that after the quotation, there is an explanation of why the quot. is relevant to the paragraph’s topic.
Example : Had she known what he was capable of and of his past, she would not have messed with him or put herself in such a vulnerable situation. Not knowing such pertinent information, she innocently talked to him because she desperately wants attention.
One cannot blame her for wanting someone to talk to besides Curley. Curley’s wife was starving for attention that she got, but then paid the price for.
My reasoning supported with a quotation that I explain and connect to my thesis :

Of Mice and Men : Persuasive Essay

End by connecting your paragraph back to your thesis.
Example : Because George covered up their past and was not honest with the men on the ranch about why they left Weed, he put
Curley’s wife in danger.
My paragraph conclusion that connects everything in this ¶ back to my thesis :
Paragraph 3: Second support paragraph – the 2 nd best of your three points

Start with your topic sentence, which focuses your paragraph on one supporting idea. Make sure that the topic sentence begins with a transition that creates coherence with your previous paragraph (next, in addition, similarly, another reason, along with that…).
My Topic Sentence :

Develop your paragraph giving reasons why this point is correct and using a quotation from the book to support it. Make sure that before the quotation, there is an introduction for the quot. so the reader understands its context, and that after the quotation, there is an explanation of why the quot. is relevant to the paragraph’s topic.
My reasoning supported with a quotation that I explain and connect to my thesis :

End by connecting your paragraph back to your thesis.
My paragraph conclusion that connects everything in this ¶ back to my thesis :
Paragraph 4: Third support paragraph – the strongest of your three points

Start with your topic sentence, which focuses your paragraph on one supporting idea. Make sure that the topic sentence begins with a transition that creates coherence with your previous paragraph.
My Topic Sentence :

Develop your paragraph giving reasons why this point is correct and using a quotation from the book to support it. Make sure that before the quotation, there is an introduction for the quot. so the reader understands its context, and that after the quotation, there is an explanation of why the quot. is relevant to the paragraph’s topic.
My reasoning supported with a quotation that I explain and connect to my thesis :

End by connecting your paragraph back to your thesis.
My paragraph conclusion that connects everything in this paragraph back to my thesis :

Of Mice and Men : Persuasive Essay
Paragraph 5: Conclusion
 Begin your conclusion by restating your thesis, usually without the second part of the two part thesis. You’ll add that after this first sentence. Two things to always remember in your conclusion: 1) Be absolutely sure you don’t just repeat the thesis you used in your introduction, and 2) Do not introduce any new information in your conclusion.
Example : While Curley’s wife didn’t go out of her way to stay away from trouble, she never would have messed with Lennie if she would have known it would lead to her death.
My restated thesis :

Briefly remind the reader of why you are right by summarizing your arguments. Be sure to state these briefly and differently than in your original thesis or support paragraphs or you will sound redundant.
Example : Had she known of the severity of Lennie’s mental disability and violent actions, she would have stayed out of trouble.
My argument summary to remind the reader why I am right :
 End with the usual flair of the “So what?” conclusion. Tell the reader why they should care: give them something to think about, challenge them to do something in response to your paper, make a prediction, connect them to your side of the argument.
Example : So before condemning Curley’s wife for Lennie’s death, think of the important information she didn’t know that would have changed her interaction with Lennie a great deal. She didn’t mean to cause trouble, she just wanted attention.
My statement of relevance :

Of Mice and Men : Persuasive Essay
There are some actions that can almost unquestionably be labeled plagiarism. Some of these include buying,
stealing, or borrowing a paper (including, of course, copying an entire paper or article from the Web); hiring
someone to write your paper for you; and copying large sections of text from a source without quotation marks or proper citation.
But then there are actions that are usually in more of a gray area. Some of these include using the words of a source too closely when paraphrasing (where quotation marks should have been used) or building on someone's ideas without citing their spoken or written work. Sometimes teachers suspecting students of plagiarism will consider the students' intent, and whether it appeared the student was deliberately trying to make ideas of others appear to be his or her own.
However, other teachers and administrators may not distinguish between deliberate and accidental plagiarism. So let's look at some strategies for avoiding even suspicion of plagiarism in the first place
The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied. Many professional organizations, including the Modern Language
Association and the American Psychological Association, have lengthy guidelines for citing sources. However, students are often so busy trying to learn the rules of MLA format and style or APA format and style that they sometimes forget exactly what needs to be credited. Here, then, is a brief list of what needs to be credited or documented:
 Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
 Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing
 When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase
 When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials
 When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media, including images, audio, video, or other media
Bottom line, document any words, ideas, or other productions that originate somewhere outside of you.
There are, of course, certain things that do not need documentation or credit, including:
 Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject
 When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments
 When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc.
 When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
 When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generally-accepted fact.
Generally speaking, you can regard something as common knowledge if you find the same information undocumented in at least five credible sources. Additionally, it might be common knowledge if you think the information you're presenting is something your readers will already know, or something that a person could easily find in general reference sources. But when in doubt, cite; if the citation turns out to be unnecessary, your teacher or editor will tell you. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/