According to the authors, teachers often read about inspiring lessons in which historically marginalized students find their voices through assignments and projects that centralize issues of importance to the student. This article describes the authors' revision of a persuasive writing unit to scaffold not only writing skills but also students' experience with and participation in democratic systems. The unit was taught at a Midwestern high school that is 50 percent Latinx, with 55 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school divides English classes into three tracks, and this unit was carried out with two tenth-grade "focused" classes, the name for the track that teaches students with the lowest scores on standardized assessments. In these particular classes, the average student reads about three years below grade level. In revising this persuasive unit, selecting new assignment topics was not the biggest challenge. Rather it was making the social aim of the unit -- an increased understanding of writing as participation in democratic processes -- achievable for students who articulated skepticism about the value of writing in general and civic participation specifically. Thus the authors' persuasive unit began not by having students write about a widespread social or political issue, but by assigning a formal email to the principal about a school-based concern. While addressing a school issue is not overtly political, the authors hoped this would serve as a tangible illustration of the ways in which everyday citizens, in this case students, can engage power structures through the written word. This was a unit that evolved over several years of attempting to engage students in purposeful persuasive writing. The authors found that both the authenticity of the tasks and the scaffolding fostered greater engagement throughout the writing process. Compared with previous iterations of this unit, more students brainstormed eagerly, drafted fluently, engaged with sources, and revised with a real audience and purpose in mind.