This is a past essay that I think I did pretty well on! I think I was pretty convincing! :)

Your opinion of the book, The Pigman, forms depending on your personality. I personally, don’t think that The Pigman should be taught in school. It is a poor excuse for a book (I think) because when I think of books, I think of excitement, romance, intensity, “cute stories”, or “tummy-ticklers”. When I read a book I want to be able to feel like I am watching the book as a movie. Like it is playing over in my head and I can picture exactly what the scenes look like, and what the characters look like, and what the colors are. I want to also feel the emotion. I want to cry when someone dies, or when someone looses a friend, or when someone leaves forever and never comes back, or when the characters are heart-broken. I want to be scared when a stranger is in the house or someone was murdered. I want to have “tingles” in my “tummy” when someone just had their first kiss. The Pigman however did not do one thing for me. It wasn’t exciting, descriptive, intense or anything like that, but it also had a poor story line. First, John and Lorraine are bad examples on teenagers today. Second, there isn’t any point to the story. Third, they create an illusion about life. I don’t think that this book has any importance.
The first reason this book should not be read in public schools is that John and Lorraine are bad examples and influences on teenagers today. John drinks alcohol and smokes, which may influence the readers. They may think that because they are reading a book in school and a character makes a bad choice, that makes it ok. They may also get the impression that because John and Lorraine skip school, our schools must be sending a message that it’s ok to do also. This is one negative demonstration in this book, but is not the only one.
Second, this book has no point to it. Just because two teenagers had a certain experience and want to write it down, doesn’t give this importance. The story takes a long time to get to the point. John and Lorraine write about how they met, and the porcelain unmentionable bomber, and the cricket, but not Mr. Pignati. I would have liked if they would have given us more background on him, if they insisted on telling their whole life stories. After reading the book, I still don’t understand what the point of it was. Was the point to tell us that Mr. Pignati died? Or was it because they felt guilty and felt that they needed to give us excuses why they didn’t kill him? They tried to make us believe it wasn’t their fault.
Third, they create an illusion about life. They make it seem like life is easy. They make it seem like adults are always horrible. They make it seem like they can avoid parents. They want us to believe that even if you make a bad choice and get in trouble, that your parents won’t care.
In conclusion, The Pigman should not be taught in schools because John and Lorraine are bad examples teenagers, the story is not important, and they create an illusion about life. The Pigman is not a good book to be taught in schools.