3 Great Places to Find Persuasive Essay Topics for High School English Class


Students first assigned to write persuasive essays can struggle to find a topic to write about. One of the biggest reasons they have trouble is because they aren’t sure of what interesting topics there are to write about. This simply isn’t true, however. There are plenty of topics that would make great persuasive essays; it’s just a matter of knowing where to look.

Here are three great places to find persuasive essay topics for you high school English class:

Online Journals


Online journals will likely already have several topics that are worth discussing in your persuasive essay. The best essays are ones that introduce new ideas or take existing topics and present an argument from a fresh angle. Keeping this in mind you should be able to find a wealth of topics that already give you great starting points to begin your research and present you with a basis to develop your argument from. When browsing through online journals to start your research from, you may want to stick to nationally accredited ones instead of gossip journals or regional periodicals. National journals will present more credible facts and will likely provide their sources.

Media (TV News, Newspapers, etc.)


There are literally hundreds and hundreds of potential persuasive essay topics to be found in today’s media. Everything from school lunches to capital punishment to police car chases can be great subjects from which several essay topics could be developed. If you are unsure how to do this just ask yourself a few questions about to determine how you feel about a news story. Next consider what position you would take on a given topic and think of ways someone would disagree. Write all of this down because this is just the kind of writing that would be your brainstorm.

Student Discussion Groups


Sometimes your friends and fellow students can come up with some great ideas. What’s great about a persuasive essay is that it’s up to you to take a position on a topic and attempt to persuade your reader that your opinion is correct. This is already what goes on in a lot of high school English class – or outside – discussions. Next time you are studying with a group of friends ask them about a topic. Listen to their arguments and try to formulate your own thoughts and opinions. If you decide to write on a topic that someone else will be writing on then you’ll know how you can make your arguments more effective than someone else’s.