Persuasive Essay About Why School Should Start Later
Table of contents:
It’s one of the favoured topics among high school students. You’re tired. After being up late last night, your school day started at 8:30 am this morning, and you want to know if anything can be done about it. Or perhaps you’re an early bird and like the time that school starts in the morning. Well, you can write a persuasive essay, and maybe if it’s good enough, your voice will be heard, either way.
Start off by taking a firm stance with your thesis statement. Whether you feel school should start later in the morning, or should not, you need to figure out why, and the reasons and benefits (or negatives) in your own mind, first of all. Make a quick outline with your statement of purpose at the top, followed by each point you want to make and the evidence you are going to use to support each point. Remember that you can use any evidence you like in a persuasive essay; it need not be restricted to facts and figures, but can be anecdotal, emotive, or statistical. Think of yourself as a politician trying to persuade an audience to vote for him or her.
Introduction examples
Pro: It’s been proven in many studies that teenagers do better with a later start to the day. With this in mind, why do we still start school at 8:30 in the morning?
Con: Starting later in the day at school interferes with parents’ working days, encourages students to stay up late, and would cause problems with after-school practices for sports.
Moving on into the body of your essay, carry on following your outline, setting up each point and presenting your evidence as you go. Have a look at potential titles, too, which should be reflective of your thesis statement.
Body paragraphs examples
Pro: Teenagers in high school should start at about 10 am. This would allow for a leisurely morning, making the day start off less fraught and stressful. A teenager could stay up until midnight or 1 am and still get a decent amount of sleep, which doesn’t happen when they have to wake up at 6:30 or 7 am. Traffic, too, will be more spread out, easing congestion, and students can take the time to get a good breakfast and be really mentally prepared for the day.
Con: Parents worry about getting themselves to work on time even when school starts at 8:30. A lot of working days would have to change significantly for people to get to work on time if high school started at 10 am instead. This could lead to large amounts of business disruption, and possible discrimination against parents for needing more flexible working hours.
Your conclusion is your last chance to leave an impression on your audience, so make it significant and meaningful. Start by briefly reiterating what your points were, and finish with a bang by calling on your audience to take some action in response to your essay.
Conclusion examples
Pro: Starting later results in benefits for teachers, benefits for students, and also for parents. Think about how rested you’d feel if you had a full eight hours or more sleep each night, and how much more you could get done in your day.
Con: A later school start will throw Australian cities into chaos and maybe even cause some parents to face consequences at work. The way things are now is fine, and there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken.
