1. Writing Workshop Persuading with Cause and Effect
Feature Menu
Assignment
Prewriting
Choose a Situation
Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone
Analyze the Cause and Effects
Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Write Your Opinion Statement
Decide on a Call to Action
Practice and Apply

2. Persuading with Cause and Effect
Assignment: Write an essay in which you examine the causes and effects of a situation and persuade the reader to take action to change it.
When you look around your community and your school, you probably see that things are not perfect. What can you do about a situation you think needs to be changed?
You can start by asking a few questions: What caused the situation? What negative effects is it having? What action could fix it?
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3. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Choose a Situation
Change agents are people who make things happen, often by persuading others to take action. Become a change agent by writing a persuasive cause-and-effect essay.

4. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Choose a Situation
Look at the world around you. Think about situations you think need to change.
Brainstorm with other students about local situations or problems.

5. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Choose a Situation
Make a list of promising topics for your essay.
school lunches not nutritious enough
new housing infringing on coyote habitat
community center short on resources
no late buses for after- school activities
not enough city parks
Choose the one that
you find most interesting
might inspire the strongest response in your readers
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6. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone
Your essay will have a dual purpose:
To explain the cause and effects of a situation
To persuade your readers to take a specific action to change that situation

7. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone
Think about what your readers, or audience, will need and want to know. Ask yourself
How much do my readers know about the situation?
Include any background information necessary to persuade your audience.

8. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone
What are my readers’ concerns or biases about the situation?
Anticipate any objections—or counterclaims—your audience might have, and plan to address those in your essay.
Counterclaim
How to Address
The expense of keeping the community center open will cause local taxes to go up.
The center is well worth the investment; it will keep kids out of trouble, make our community safer, and lead to greater productivity.

9. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone
Tone is the attitude you convey toward your subject or your audience.
For this essay, use words, details, and sentence structures that create a slightly formal tone. Your audience will take your ideas more seriously.
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10. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Analyze the Cause and Effects
Think about the cause-effect relationship that created the situation. Ask yourself
What is the initial cause of the situation?
Analyze the cause so that you can explain to your readers why the situation exists in the first place.
Last year the city cut funding for the Heights Community Center. Because of these cuts, the center has been forced to eliminate its tutoring program and reduce its hours of operation.

11. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Analyze the Cause and Effects
What are two or three significant negative effects of the situation?
Identify negative effects to persuade your readers that the situation needs to change.
Many students’ grades are falling because they are no longer able to get tutoring at the center.
More kids are getting into trouble after school because they have too much idle time.
Young people have fewer opportunities to pursue hobbies or find mentors.
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12. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Provide evidence to support your explanation of the cause and effects. Make sure your evidence is precise and relevant.
Kinds of Supporting Evidence
Expert opinions are statements made by an authority on a subject.
Quotations present a person’s word-for-word statement on a topic.
Facts are statements that can be proven true; statistics are facts in numeric form.

13. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Kinds of Supporting Evidence
Anecdotes are brief stories that illustrate general ideas.
Commonly held beliefs are ideas that most people share.
A case study is an individual example used as the basis for generalizations.
An analogy is an explanation of something readers do not understand in terms of something familiar to them.

14. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Make notes to record your evidence. Pair each piece of evidence with the effect it supports.
Effect: Many students’ grades are falling.
Evidence: Since the city made cuts to the center’s funding, 68 percent of students who had once received tutoring there have seen their overall grade-point average decrease by at least half a point. (statistic)
Logical Reasoning

15. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Use rhetorical devices to shape your explanations for the negative effects.
Effect: Falling grades for students
Logical Appeal
A study conducted by Bright Futures showed a strong correlation between high school grade-point averages and earning potential.
Emotional Appeal
Angela is worried that her grades won’t be good enough for her to earn a scholarship. “I’m really struggling now that the tutoring program has been canceled,” she lamented.
Ethical Appeal
The community has a responsibility to give its young people every opportunity to succeed.
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16. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Write Your Opinion Statement
Write an opinion statement in which you share your perspective on the changes needed for a situation.
The Heights Community Center was established to help young people succeed at school and become more productive members of society. Citizens must pull together to make sure the center can fulfill that mission.
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17. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Decide on a Call to Action
Finally, decide what action your readers should take to improve the situation. Write a sentence that clearly states your call to action.
Concerned citizens should write or call their city council members and urge them to restore funding to the Heights Community Center.
Hint
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18. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Practice and Apply
Use the information in this presentation to plan a persuasive cause-and-effect essay.
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19. The End

20. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Expert Opinions
Officer Jody Mundez with the Heights police department reports that the number of calls related to juvenile crimes has increased since the center reduced its hours.

21. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Quotations
Officer Mundez commented, “The center is very important to the people of this community. Both the kids and the community are suffering from the cutbacks. It’s a shame. Funding for the center should be a higher priority.”

22. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Facts
Sixty-eight percent of the students who had received tutoring at the center have seen a drop in their grades.

23. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Anecdotes
When the school day ends, Henry Grenda, a sophomore at Hilltop High School and the son of working parents, has the option of going home to an empty house, roaming the streets, or making his way to the Heights Community Center. Henry usually chooses the community center. However, now that the center has reduced its hours and closes at 5:00 P.M., Henry still faces an empty house when he gets home.

24. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Commonly Held Beliefs
Everyone wants young adults to do well in school and learn the skills they need to be successful and productive adults.

25. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Case Study
Last year, Breanne was consistently making the honor roll. This year, things are different. Without the free tutoring services she once received at Heights Community Center, Breanne’s grades have slipped. And she’s not alone. Many local students are in the same situation.

26. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Analogy
For the children and teenagers who go there, the Heights Community Center provides a calm harbor in today’s turbulent seas.

27. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Logical Reasoning
Make sure to structure your evidence in a logical fashion. Group the evidence for each effect, and present one effect at a time. Good organization will help your readers follow your logic.
Effect 1
evidence
Effect 2
evidence
Effect 3
evidence
Need for
Change + + =

28. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence
Rhetorical Devices
Each type of rhetorical device affects the reader in a different way.
logical appeal—speaks to readers’ common sense and logic
emotional appeal—targets readers’ hearts; speaks to emotions
ethical appeal—addresses readers’ sense of right and wrong

29. Persuading with Cause and Effect Prewriting: Decide on a Call to Action
Hint
You may want to offer a choice between two possible courses of action.
Concerned citizens can help improve this situation by taking one of the following actions:
Contact city council members to urge them to restore funding to the community center.
Volunteer a few hours a week as an instructor or mentor at the center.