I’m going to write a persuasive essay about starting times for high schools. The first question I will ask myself is “Who’s going to read this essay and possibly take action?” The answer might be parents, administrators, teachers, or students.

Boy with a “thinking cap” that has a light bulb, flashing lights, and knobs.

Source: Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Essential Questions

After choosing a topic, the next step I need to take is to ask essential questions. Essential questions provide direction when you write a persuasive essay. An essential question is an open-ended, broad question that requires action or decision making. Once you formulate an essential question, you can narrow the question down to a working thesis statement or your position/answer to the question.

Essential questions can start with stem words such as the following:

Which one
How
What if
Should
Why

Let’s see if we can turn my topic into an essential question. I’m interested in exploring the time that high school begins. Look at the chart below to see if you can decide which stem to use for my topic about school starting times. The chart demonstrates how to formulate these questions. Other issues or topics are provided as examples.

Start	Reason	Example
Which one	Collect information to make an informed choice	Which twentieth-century president did the most to promote civil rights?
How	Understand problems and perspectives, weigh options, and propose solutions	How can we solve the problem of drivers ignoring stop signs in our neighborhood?
What if	Use knowledge to propose a hypothesis and consider options	What if everyone refused to eat meat containing hormones and antibiotics?
Should	Make a moral or practical decision based on evidence	Should we clone animals?
Why	Understand and explain relationships to capture the essence of a complicated issue	Why should plastic bags be banned from retail and grocery stores?

Reread the list and the chart above. Which of the stems might be used for my topic?

In your notes, write down the stems that you think might be useful for the topic “high school starting times.” When you are finished, check your understanding to see sample responses.

Check Your Understanding

Sample Responses:

A possible question is “Which (one) hour is best for school to begin?” “Which one” doesn’t sound correct; I would have to look at every hour or at least compare several hours.
A possible question is “How should school start times be organized?” “How” doesn’t work either with my topic.
A possible question is “What if school started later in the morning?” “What if” would sound like I’m trying to persuade you to accept a different idea. That’s not my plan at all.
A possible question is “Should school begin later in the morning?” “Should” is a possibility, especially if I have a time in mind.
A possible question is “Why should school starting times be later in the morning?” “Why” might work also if I want to explore the way school starting times currently function and perhaps offer an alternative.

Using the example of high school start times, I’m going to frame the essential question using “Should.” It’s the question that prompts the most ideas about my topic.

Now that I have an essential question to help me think more about this topic, I will need to think about audience and purpose. Let’s imagine that you are writing for administrators and teachers who might have control over the time that school starts. Because this is a persuasive essay, your purpose is to convince your audience that school needs to begin later in the day.