Through grades nine through twelve, you will be given a large variety of different high school essay prompts.  No matter whether you are a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, or a senior, your high school teachers are trying to teach you some very important things about writing.  Early on in your high school career, they are trying to teach you technical writing.  You will learn about punctuation, grammar, flow, structure, and even spelling, but what you learn will be much more in depth than what you were taught during elementary and middle school.  As you continue on, however, your teachers have something much different in mind.  Namely, they are preparing you for the essays and research papers you will be faced with in college.  As such, they seek to teach you the fundamentals of persuasive, expository, and personal essay writing.  So, how about we take a look at a few such prompts?

As stated, you will be dealing with various high school essay prompts.  The topics will differ just as much as the preferred format.  It is likely that you will begin to deal with expository essay prompts during your sophomore year, at the very least.  These are especially important, because they teach you how to really explain your point.  Possible writing prompts of this nature include:

Example 1: Being tolerant of someone else’s opinion and point of view is important.  Write an essay which explains why it is so important to try to see things from someone else’s viewpoint.

Example 2: Consider the importance of music in one’s culture.  What is your own culture?  Explain the type of music which is important to your culture and what role that music plays.

Example 3: Using examples from books, television, movies, or your own experiences, write an essay explaining the lengths people may go to in order to survive a particular situation.

Persuasive high school essay prompts are also important.  These will particularly come in handy when you start submitting college applications.  The writing prompts seen there generally you to persuade someone that you are a good candidate for that school.  Possible persuasive essay prompts include:

Example 1: In some countries, young people have to serve time in the military.  Do you think the United States should implement such a requirement?  Why or why not?

Example 2: Your city council is thinking about implementing a curfew for teenagers.  Do you agree with this?  Write an essay persuading your town council to consider your opinion.

Example 3: “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.” Do you agree with this statement?  Explain your position and convince your readers why they should agree.

These are not the only types of high school essay prompts, of course, but they are the two most common.  You are also likely to see personal essay prompts, which tend to be extreme.  That is, students either find that they are the easiest writing prompts or the most difficult. Learn more about essay help you can get online.

Today we are going to discuss the benefits of writing prompts, namely by taking a look at several research paper examples.  Prompts are extremely beneficial in any number of ways.  When we reach a certain age, they may seem a little unnecessary.  After all, these are things that we have to deal with when we are in grammar school and middle school – and sometimes in high school as well.  We generally view them as tedious, but then, all school and homework assignments are rather tedious, aren’t they?

However, writing prompts are actually going to help you.  In fact, they are a tool used by your teachers, in order to groom your writing style.  You see, they teach you how to come up with thought provoking ideas on your own.  They also give you a chance to form your own style and tone as a writer.  Furthermore, they teach you quite a lot about form, structure, and format as well.  These lessons are invaluable, and trust in the fact that you will be very grateful for this knowledge when you get to college, where just about every other class seems like it is writing intensive.  It may be heard to believe, but these prompts are actually the foundation for the writing you will do later in your academic career – such as with essays and research papers.

Having said that, let’s take a look at a few sample writing prompts.  First off all, here are a few expository essay prompts, which will later be incredible invaluable.  After all, in most if not all academic writing, you are going to be asked for factually explain something.

Example 1: Write a clear how-to guide describing how to either: change a tire; train an athlete in the sport of your choice; or drive on dirt roads.

Example 2: Your class is making a time capsule.  It is going to be opened fifty years from now.  Choose some items that will tell people in the future about the year 2008.  Explain what you want to put in the capsule and why.

Example 3: Consider something you have made yourself, with your own two hands.  How did you make it?  Is there anything you would change?  Write a clear explanation so that someone else could easily build the same item.

Next, we are going to examine some persuasive essay prompts:

Example 1: Your teacher has decided to give your class three tests on the same day.  Write an essay persuading your teacher to give the tests over several days instead.  Explain why it is necessary.

Example 2: A new scientific study has found that students need to be in bed by 8:00pm every night.  They cannot watch TV, read, or even have the lights on past that hour.  Your parents are thinking about following this.  Persuade them into changing their minds.

Example 3: Your school/school board is thinking about implementing school uniforms.  Do you think this is a good idea?  Write an essay explaining your views.

Now, let’s look at some personal essay prompts:

Example 1: Many children have a problem with their parents’ rules.  Think about a rule you once had a problem with and write a personal essay explaining what happened when they enforced that rule, how you reacted, and why you did not like it.

Example 2: Write a personal essay describing a time in your life when you were very anxious.  Explain what made you feel nervous, how you reacted, and what ultimately happened.

Example 3: Write a personal essay wherein you describe your most memorable vacation.  Was it good or bad?  What happened during the vacation?  How did you react?

As you can see, although simplistic in nature, writing prompts can help you learn how to create your own topics and ideas.  Moreover, essay prompts show you exactly how to explain something to your reader, in order to get him or her interested in reading.  Aside of format and structure, that is the most important aspect of academic writing.

Persuasive essay prompts are actually devices which can help you in almost every facet of literature and writing.  Naturally, they can help you to craft better essays and research papers, as well as term papers, theses, research proposals, and dissertations.  They can also help you create solid yet interesting topics for your research papers et. al.  There is no disputing those facts.  However, they can also help in your personal writing.  After all, in writing a poem, a short story, a book, you do have to persuade your readers to go along with the tale, do you not?  Besides, personal writing does not always mean fiction; some of us may go on to write articles and essays in professional journals, to write anthologies, text books, examples of papers, et cetera.

Does it seem silly to think that persuasive essay prompts, those tools we are generally given in middle school and high school, to which we usually wave good bye as we move on to college?  Not at all!  We can never consider such writing aids silly.  They were invaluable in your early academic years and they are invaluable now, even if you are no longer in school.  Actually, using a prompt even when you have a case of writer’s block can help kick start your imagination, wake up your muse.  Besides, we know well that they help in later academic writing – just think about persuasive research papers!  Persuasive prompts are quite helpful in that area.  Being able to persuade your readers to see things from your point of view, to see the value of your research, et cetera, can ultimately be beneficial for both your grade point average and your future.

At its heart, research paper writing is no more difficult than the smaller essays and papers you write in middle school and high school – even grade school, when three pages seemed like a lot.  It is simply more detailed, it involves more work.  Still, by the same token, even the persuasive prompts you had as a younger student can, even now, be shifted and crafted into interesting research paper topics.  To demonstrate, take a look at the following sample persuasive essay prompts.

Sample 1: Your English teacher often plays classical music softly in the background while your class has free work time.  The music is not particularly popular with you and your classmates.  You would prefer to hear a different type of music.  Write a letter to your English teacher, persuading him or her to play that music when the class has independent time.

That could actual translate into persuasive research papers which look into the idea that playing classical music, especially Mozart, for a child will make it more intelligent – with the writers persuading the readers whether or not that is actually true.

Sample 2: Your family has just moved to the United States from Brazil, and you are the only person in the family who knows how to speak English.  Your parents do not feel the need to learn the language.  Write a letter to them describing the benefits of learning English.

Persuasive essay prompts like this could lead to a discussion on the small controversy surrounding the prevalence of the Spanish language within the United States at all.  Many people think other languages, on signs, in school, et cetera, are a matter of course, polite, respectful, and necessary.  Others … well, they do not.  The point is, you can easily see how prompts can translate into interesting research paper topics.  Likewise, they will be tremendously beneficial as you continue on through school, up to college and graduate school, where research paper writing will be a huge part of the curriculum.