Persuasive Essays   Purpose:  Convince Robinson Crusoe to go or not go back to sea   Audience:  Robinson Crusoe, who is currently a successful plantation owner in Brazil   Style:  Formal language, 5 paragraph essay     Step one:          Decide your position and create a list of reasons that support that position   Step two:          Look at your list and think of how you can break it into 3 categories                         Give each category a title.  This are you 3 main topics. Example:  Bad things will happen, people telling you not to, has been good so far.   Step three:        Write your thesis statement.  This is the first sentence of the paper that tells the reader what you position is and how you intend to support it (3 main ideas).   Example:  You should not go back to sea because terrible things could happen, you have had several warnings about this, and so far you have had nothing but bad luck.   Step four:         Turn your main topic into a sentence that could start off a new paragraph.   Example:         If you go back to sea, terrible things could happen to you.   Step five:          List supporting details for your main idea.   Example:         If you go back to sea, terrible things could happen to you.                         -shipwreck                         -pirates                         -death   Step six:           Repeat steps four and five for the other two main ideas.   Step seven:       You are now ready to write your rough draft!  Look at your organizer.  It is a simple outline of an essay.  -         Complete your first paragraph by putting each of the main ideas into a brief statement.  (example: Many bad things, like shipwrecks, happen to sailors at sea.) -         Turn each of you supporting details in the body paragraphs into sentences (example:  First of all, you could be captured by pirates and become a slave again.) -         Rewrite your intro paragraph into a closing paragraph.  It will be the same basic thing, just worded differently.