Sample Persuasive Literary Essay

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Offensive Language in Literature

        In Mark Twain’s classic 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, regional and time-specific language is used in a way that offends some 21st century readers. Particular words are so disturbing that individuals across the country are still, to this day, attempting to have the book banned in schools and libraries. The idea that any book should be tucked away in a vault, let alone an example of a beloved American classic such as this, is ludacris and against what America stands for. Works of art, like this book, should be used to learn and to open up dialogue and analysis on both the piece itself and the society from which it came. With this particular Twain novel, we should be having a discussion about why the offending words are so offensive, and why it’s important that a record of these words and attitudes exist.

Words carry weight, and the weight of the “N” word in Huckleberry Finn is heavy and dripping with sordid history. It is a term that holds an impassable amount of cultural appropriation and painful association. The word, used in a classic literary context, is then a perfect way to open up a dialogue about issues that are difficult to talk about. Political correctness, racial slurs, America’s dark past—these are all topics that can be used to teach young people how to have a gentle conversation about a torrid subject matter. Instead of banning the book and ignoring the past, we should be embracing the story and teaching people how to deal with the words in a tactful and progressive way.  

Moving forward from America’s shameful history of racism is difficult and taxing. But the

only way we make steps to a new and more comfortable future is to learn from our past mistakes. Twain was a product of his time, putting words into the mouths of his characters that would easily have come from the mouths of real people. It’s also important to remember that the character of Huck Finn himself is anti-racist, so teaching the book to young people is not teaching racism, but acceptance. It is imperative to connect with the period of history that Huckleberry Finn comes from because shoving it to the side will only render us blind.  

Banning books is an effective way to censor, and censorship goes against a lot of what Americans believe to be a very important personal right. The right to free speech is sacred, and it is mostly untouched even in circumstances where highly polarizing or hateful words are being used. A work of fiction that integrates dialogue containing the “N” word may seem hateful to some, but it is certainly the intention of the author to use it in a context of satire. Censorship will just close the book when what we really need is to open it up in a different light.

At a time when it is nearly impossible to find an adult engaged in a healthy debate or discussion, teaching our children how to think and speak analytically and fairly is a dire need. Using fictional novels such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a jumping-off point of what used to be, and what has become, is the perfect opportunity for creating the ability to do this. By keeping books deemed controversial in rotation and out of the vault, we can begin to understand the preciousness of our own rights to speak our mind, as well as being able to speak to others with respect and with knowledge of the past.

Sample Persuasive Historical Essay

A New Constitution and a History of “Democracy”

A glance at the late 18th century U.S. political system reveals that the new Constitution was the law of a highly undemocratic land. The early United States was a society in which entire sections of the population were denied basic human rights, where the institutions of the new government were not derived from egalitarian principles, and where millions of people did not receive adequate political representation. As the overarching political instrument of the era, the Constitution bears responsibility for a society in which the many toiled without representation for the benefit of a powerful few.

Perhaps the most egregious example of the Constitution’s anti-democratic features was its sanction of the widespread practice of slavery. Rather than ending slavery, the Constitution allowed planters and others to hold their fellow human beings as chattel. Not only did the Constitution permit the existing system of slavery to continue, it permitted the Atlantic slave trade to keep “importing” slaves for 20 more years. It counted a slave as three-fifths of a human being; moreover, this provision was inserted not to protect the rights of the enslaved but to boost the electoral power of the slave states. Such a provision was not the only institutional failure of the Constitution.

The arrangement of the new federal government in the Constitution was highly unrepresentative. The president was elected indirectly through the Electoral College, while the Supreme Court was completely appointed. In the remaining branch

of government, the upper house, the Senate, provided for each state to have equal representation without regard for how many people lived in the state. By diluting the power of the franchise, the Constitution made a system that was destined to be unrepresentative even more undemocratic. Only the House of Representatives nominally derived its power from the people, and its character was deeply affected by who could and could not vote.

The Constitution allowed states to set norms for who could vote in elections and who could not. In the early United States, that meant that people who did not own sufficient property, enslaved people, and women were denied the vote. A government allegedly founded on the idea of “no taxation without representation” violated this rallying cry of the American Revolution. As a result of the Constitution, a majority of people in the early United States could not vote for their representatives.

Rather than promoting a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” the Constitution sanctioned practices and structured institutions that were unrepresentative. Ordinary people, whether because they were enslaved, because they were women, or because they were working-class people, lived and worked without any real power. Instead, a small minority of wealthy and powerful men ruled over the majority of the population; the source of their power was the undemocratic Constitution of the United States.

Other essay

Every year, thousands of new high school graduates pack their bags, move to new cities, and sign papers accepting loans they might not be able to pay back. Without proper education

on personal finance, especially as it relates to paying for college, young adults are ushered into faulty loan plans that result in years of debt post college. In order to set students up to succeed financially, it is important to educate students and parents on their financial options before school in the fall. The best way to support families headed to college is to require that every high school student take a personal finance class before graduation. This will help smooth the transition into adulthood.

The average student takes out at least one loan to cover the costs of their education each year. In 2014 the average student graduating from college carried a negative balance of about $20,000 in debt, often spread over multiple lenders (Washington 23). Upon graduation, students rarely know exactly how much money they owe, and because even bankruptcy cannot wipe out student loans, these students spend much of their adult lives paying off the balance and interest accrued.

A personal finance courses would teach students how to manage their income and expenditures, while helping to significantly reduce the amount of debt students carry into adulthood. By teaching students how to save money and live within their means, this course will provide the next generation with a foundation to progress financially. Students choosing to get a job straight out of high school would also benefit from finance education for these very reasons. With education on how to manage their finances, all young people will have the knowledge to make healthy decisions, leading them to accrue good credit and purchase needed items likes cars and homes with skill and confidence.

While not every young person makes financial mistakes, those who do can face years of difficulty trying to get their finances back under control. Rather than help them through these hard times when they happen, we should try to prevent them from happening at all. Making the completion of personal finance coursework a requirement for graduation would ensure that young people are at least aware of the basics of maintaining a financial stability.

Why Students Should Travel During a Gap Year

For many students in the U.S., studying in high school today is easier than, say, a hundred years ago. Indeed, due to advanced technologies which can be used for studying, being a student today is hardly a dilemma. In addition, high school students do not have to rush into choosing their future fields of expertise and entering a university; instead, they can take a so-called gap year, to relax, earn some money, and see what they would like to be doing before studying further. And in my opinion, one of the best ways to spend a gap year (at least half of it) is to travel around different countries.

Travelling is not about simply having fun; in fact, it is a serious survival school, especially for a young person who got used to being taken care of by his or her parents. It does not mean that a teen must cook food on n open fire or sleep in dire woods; actually, in the 21st century, Master Card allows a person to comfortably live almost in any country of the world. By survival, I mean the necessity to make independent decisions and take responsibility for them by facing the consequences. Where to eat or what to cook;

which transport is cheaper; how to buy something you need when the retailer does not speak any language you know; where to stay for the night; how to get from point A to point B – these, as well as many other questions a traveler solves every day, and there is no one around to tell them whether their decision is true or false. For a young person, the ability to make life-affecting decisions can be invaluable (TravelStudentsF).

Travelling not only makes a teen more decisive, but also more communicative. When you go to a foreign country, you know almost nothing about it. Even if you have searched some information about it, 90% of it is useless when you arrive to the new place. Therefore, you need help, and the only assistance you can get in a foreign country is from locals; in case if you travel to a non English-speaking country, you should also be prepared for the fact that people will not understand you. This can easily become an emergency case, because even basic communication phrases like “I need a doctor” or “I need help” suddenly become a challenge; therefore, a traveller has either to learn phrases of the local language, or try to explain what they need with gestures. Both ways are fun, and contribute to making a person more easygoing and able to communicate with almost anyone. For a person who has lived for half a year in, for example, Nepal, communicating with English-speaking people after returning back home is easier (IFR).

Also, travelling makes people more open-minded. When living in an homogenous environment, a young person rarely has an opportunity to see beyond conformed norms of behavior, etiquette, or morals. Homogenous environments usually make people more conservative. Instead, imagine that you suddenly

arrive in a completely new surrounding, with a totally different culture, traditions, attitude, outlook, and way of life. You will either have to adapt to it, or return back home, because frustration from the fact that foreign people do many things in a way different from what you got used to at home can be intense. Fortunately, the majority of travellers not only adapt to new rules, but enjoys embracing them, which makes them more open-minded, ready to experiment, and spontaneous (StudentsAroundF). No need to say that all this can be useful for a person regardless of where he or she lives, or what he or she does.

Modern students can enjoy the possibility to travel around the world before entering a university and thus choosing their future life path. Travelling during a gap year (or at least several months) can make a travelling student more responsible and decisive, communicative, and open-minded. These skills and qualities can be invaluable for a person throughout their entire lifetime.