Diagnostic Writing Prompts

The prompts below were designed to provide nearly identical challenges as each asks the student to support or oppose a specific policy and provides the student with a description of the audience to be addressed. Faculty are free to use these (or any other) prompts for the diagnostic essay which is recommended at the beginning of all sections of Academic Writing. Faculty are then free to do whatever they see fit with the diagnostic writing samples the students produce, except assign a grade that counts toward the student's course grade.

In addition to the four prompts below, we have access to hundreds of "Issue" and "Argument" prompts from Educational Testing Services. These prompts are the ones that students who take the GRE will use in order to demonstrate their ability to write and evaluate arguments. As such, each of these prompts has passed muster with ETS as one that should be relatively fair in terms of not privileging any particular groups of students because of cultural biases. Each prompt should also yield responses that, in a normal population of student writers, evenly fill the range from strong to weak examples of argument or analysis of argument.

Prompt 002

Imagine you are a student at a college which does not currently have a physical education requirement but is considering adding one to the General Education curriculum. Write an argument in which you attempt to persuade the Student Senate (a body of elected student representatives from each of the four years) that they should support or oppose the addition of one 3 credit hour physical education course required of all students. You have 40 minutes in which to write your essay. You should try to write approximately 300 words, and your argument should be written in Standard English.

Prompt 003

Imagine you are an employee at a business which does not currently have a mandatory drug test but is considering adding one as a condition of continued employment. Write an argument in which you attempt to persuade the management (a collection of individuals ranging from the personnel manager up to the president of the corporation) that they should support or oppose the addition of a drug test required for all employees. Your argument will be submitted to the employee newsletter, either signed or anonymously. You have 40 minutes in which to write your essay. You should try to write approximately 300 words, and your argument should be written in Standard English.

Prompt 004

Imagine you are a student at a college that does not currently have a computer literacy requirement but is considering adding one to the General Education curriculum. Write an argument in which you attempt to persuade the Student Senate (a body of elected student representatives from each of the four years) that they should support or oppose the addition of one 3 credit hour computer literacy course required of all students. You have 40 minutes in which to write your essay. You should try to write approximately 300 words, and your argument should be written in Standard English.

Prompt 005

Imagine you are a voter in a town that does not currently have a local sales tax, but is considering adding one as way to fund improvements to the local library, which has not been expanded or modernized since it was built in 1960. Write an argument in which you attempt to persuade your fellow citizens (the typical mix of young adults, families, and retirees found in the average residential community) that they should support or oppose the addition of a 1% sales tax for library improvements. Your argument will be submitted to the opinion page of the town newspaper. You have 40 minutes in which to write your essay. You should try to write approximately 300 words, and your argument should be written in Standard English.