Examples that show the thinking.
534 examples and lessons to explore. Find an approach, follow the thinking, and try it in your own writing.
Public Opinion and Officials’ Judgment
An argument that elected officials should generally exercise independent judgment while remaining accountable to constituents, with particular attention to constitutional design, rights, expertise, and urgent decisions.
Does a More Complex Present Make History Irrelevant?
An evidence-based argument that modern complexity limits simple historical analogies but does not make historical knowledge irrelevant to important decisions.
Can Consumer Choices Alone Solve America's Waste Problem?
An argument that consumer decisions can reduce waste but cannot solve it without product design, collection infrastructure, and coordinated public action.
Common App Belief Essay: A Time You Reconsidered an Idea
An illustrative reflective essay about questioning the belief that asking for help reveals a lack of ability, and learning to treat questions as part of careful thinking.
Testing an Argument: Must It Persuade Someone Who Disagrees?
A model argumentative essay arguing that persuasion is a useful but inadequate test of argument quality. It distinguishes sound reasoning from audience response and shows why engaging opposing views matters.
A Place That Feels Like Home
An illustrative first-person descriptive essay shows how an ordinary kitchen can feel like home through repeated actions, sensory details, and a growing sense of belonging.
Artificial Intelligence in Everyday American Life: Benefits and Risks
An explanatory essay distinguishing AI’s useful assistance from reliable judgment, using U.S. teen chatbot adoption, NIST’s voluntary risk-management framework, and NHTSA’s driver-assistance examples to examine benefits, risks, and limits.
Public Arts Funding and Unmet Basic Needs
An argument that governments should protect urgent basic-needs support while judging arts funding by its costs, purposes, and effects rather than suspending it automatically during hardship.
Compromising Personal Beliefs: When Is It More Harmful Than Holding Firm?
An argument that distinguishes surrendering a core principle for convenience from revising one’s approach to protect a deeper commitment or prevent harm.
Reform Movements and Industrialization in the United States, 1820–1900
An evidence-based comparison of labor organizing, child-labor reform, and farmers’ campaigns against corporate power, showing how reformers used petitions, legislation, and political pressure to address industrial change.
Climate Change and Water: Why Warming Alters More Than Temperature
An explanatory essay on how human-caused warming changes evaporation, precipitation, and water availability, with examples from U.S. regions and a discussion of uncertainty in marine heatwave analysis.
UC PIQ 7: Making Your School or Community Better
An illustrative response showing how to identify a community need, collaborate on a practical response, describe an observable benefit, and reflect on what changed.