English IV – Fall Advance Assignment  

Updated July 2014

Required Advance Assignment:

Persuasive Essay

Prior to exam day, complete the following assignment. Bring your finished project to the testing site and turn it in to your test administrator.

Select a social/political issue/problem that is raised in Current Issues and Enduring Questions by Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau (9th ed., 2011). Read additional essays on the same topic (for a total of 5‐7 resources), and write an in‐depth, well developed argumentative essay based on your opinions related to the issue.

Remember to:

• Gather information from a range of relevant print and electronic sources.
• Include a “Works Cited” page.
• Categorize research information thematically to see the larger constructs inherent in the information.
• Distinguish between useful and non‐useful sources (including reliability and validity).
• Integrate quotations and citations into the written text using MLA format.
• Use the elements of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing) to compose your text.
• Revise your draft to improve style, word choice, figurative language, sentence variety, and subtlety of meaning.
• Edit your draft for grammar, mechanics, and spelling.

Important Note: You will need to refer to these texts in order to complete another part of the exam on the exam day, so you must bring them with you. (Hard copies only; no electronic devices permitted.)

• Excerpt from Beowulf
• The Tragedy of Macbeth