Step 1: Write the thesis statement for a persuasive speech topic of your choice that you think your classmates would be interested in.

Step 2: Comment on two other students’ posts with which appeals would persuade you to take their side of the issue and why. Consider the 16 basic desires, as listed by Steven Reiss, an American psychologist:

• Acceptance, the need to be appreciated
• Curiosity, the need to gain knowledge
• Eating, the need for food
• Family, the need to take care of one’s offspring
• Honor, the need to be faithful to the customary values of an individual’s ethnic group, family, or clan
• Idealism, the need for social justice
• Independence, the need to be distinct and self-reliant
• Order, the need for prepared, established, and conventional environments
• Physical activity, the need for work out of the body
• Power, the need for control of will
• Romance, the need for mating or sex
• Saving, the need to accumulate something
• Social contact, the need for relationship with others
• Social status, the need for social significance
• Tranquility, the need to be secure and protected
• Vengeance, the need to strike back against another person

And Abraham Maslow’s model of needs in order from low to high level:

• • Physiological needs: Food, drink, sleep, sex.
  • Safety needs: Personal protection and safety from threat, crime, dangerous weather, loss of property, etc.
  • Love and belonging needs: Love, affection, belongingness.
  • Esteem needs: Desire for stable, high evaluation of the self and acceptance by others.
  • Self-actualization needs: The need to achieve our highest sense of who we can become.

Example Post 1: Recycling is step one towards saving the planet and preventing climate change.

Example Response 1: Love and belonging would be an effective appeal to make with recycling. You can show that everyone is interested in preserving the planet for future generations.