Cruz 1

Melissa Cruz

Professor Batty

English 101

29 May 2019

Persuasive Essay Reflection

My persuasive essay on the issues of LGBTQ+ students is an essay that I find very

personal. Although it was not my best, I was still proud I was able to educate myself even more

on LGBTQ+ issues that occur in the school system. To begin with, I changed the title from

“Vulnerable: The Challenges of LGBTQ+ Students” to “I Will Survive: LGBTQ+ Students.” I

thought the original title was a bit too negative and uncreative. It focused more on the negative

feelings of LGBTQ+ students. Thus, I chose to change it to “I Will Survive” because it almost

seems like you have to survive in college and many LGBTQ+ students do. That’s something we

should be proud of. Next, I completely rewrote my intro but still kept the key details from the

original. In addition, I fixed my thesis. My original thesis included the solution but was not

specific enough. In my new thesis, I specifically explained the problem, why it’s important and

the single solution. I chose to keep my second paragraph about Ana’s experience the same. I

think it made the essay a lot more personal and real. I also think it was very important to hear

Ana’s story and what she endured. For my third paragraph, I wanted to focus on Tyler

Clementi’s story instead of my own. In my original essay, I told some of my experience and very

little of Tyler’s. This time I really wanted to expand on the details of Tyler’s story to really show

the effects of harassment against LGBTQ+ youth. For my fourth paragraph, I really tried to write
 Cruz 2

about the many benefits that LGBTQ+ clubs have to offer. I also took out Ana’s experience

because I felt like that would go better in the reply to the counterargument. For the fifth

paragraph, I completely changed my counter argument. My original counter argument was that

people would oppose of LGBTQ+ clubs because of homophobia. Although that is true, Professor

Batty reminded me that there is no logical way to respond to homophobic people and I had to

agree. For my new counter argument, I decided to focus on my friend, Anthony’s negative

experience while being in an LGBTQ+ club. My reply to the counter argument stayed somewhat

the same. However, instead of just repeating the benefits of LGBTQ+ clubs, I wrote about Ana’s

positive experience being in an LGBTQ+ club to really demonstrate the benefits. All in all, this

essay was very fun to revise and change. I really feel as if my new essay is much more organized

and specific than my original one. Revising this essay, also allowed me to see how much I

learned this semester.