Electoral College Persuasive Essays

The Electoral College gets a good deal of press every four years and for good reason. The system by which we elect our president is very elusive to most people. Many Americans don’t really have a good idea of what the Electoral College is, let alone why there might be controversy about it. However, it is clear from the most recent presidential elections that the Electoral College should be more carefully analyzed and, perhaps, changes should be made by either a Constitutional amendment or via other state laws.

Division 2 students learned all about the Electoral College. They listened to a great podcast from “The Daily” of the New York Times called “A Peculiar Way to Pick a President.” They also read a number of sources both for and against keeping the Electoral College. They also learned about Ranked-Choice Voting, The National Popular Vote, and Congressional District Voting as alternative methods that could be used to elect the president.

After researching, students decided on the opinion they would take in their essay: Should the Electoral College be kept, changed or abolished? After choosing their opinion, they then needed to find quotes that would help them support their claims. The write thesis statements and then outlined their drafts with those integrated quotes (or quote sandwiches as we call them in class), topic sentences, and transition sentences. Students also wrote an opposition paragraph, making this slightly different than a traditional five-paragraph essay. Students needed to take one of the opinions that contradicted their head on.

Please enjoy our essays! Comment below! What do you think about the Electoral College or some of the alternatives discussed in the papers?