Quarter 3
Persuasive Essay Prompts
As part of our Gatsby analysis, write a focused, well-supported (using varied evidence as presented
in class), multi-page persuasive (argumentative) essay, including a counter-argument, which
addresses one of the following topics:
1. Through The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald seems to
communicate a message about people’s failures to
accomplish their dreams—Nick, Gatsby, Tom, Daisy—they
all have ideas for the perfect life and none of them are able
to achieve them. Deeply explore one character—his/her
dreams, his/her attempts to accomplish those dreams,
his/her reasons for failure, and the message that Fitzgerald
might be communicating through this failure.
2. Throughout The Great Gatsby, the reader sees Nick cast in
different roles: semi-disinterested reporter to active participant,
reluctant tag-along to protector of Gatsby. While he tells us that
“I’m inclined to reserve all judgments” (5) and “I’m one of the
few honest people that I have ever known” (64), Nick eventually
says of Gatsby “I disapproved of him from beginning to end,”
(162) and he labels Tom and Daisy as “careless people... [who]
smashed up things and creatures” (187).Using specific
references to the novel, answer the following question: Who is
the real Nick Carraway?
3. Read the “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes. Notice that Hughes asks questions about
what happens to postponed dreams. Using specific examples from the novel show how
Fitzgerald examines this issue of deferred dreams. What do you think are the effects of
postponing our dreams? How can readers apply this lesson to their own lives?
Harlem
BY LANGSTON HUGHES
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?