Argumentative essay

We have a new essay that is coming up, and its an argumentative essay. We picked themes from the book Sula and were going to make a claim. Professor Wesley came into the class and said "I don't believe in God, we came from monkeys!" That was her claim, now she had to be able to back it up. She had to make us (the people who believe in God) agree with her. She also had to be ready for the questions that we were going to throw at her, the first one was "Why not?" In the argumentative essay you have to address all kind of people, ones that agree and disagree with you. Research is a really big part in the essay as well. You have to have research to help prove your point. The important thing to remember about an argumentative essay is that you are not arguing to win, you are simply arguing to get your point across or to change the mind of your reader. Its like you're sort of trying to persuade the reader to forget what they think about the topic and agree with you because you have proof to back up your opinion.