Persuasive Essay
This week, we’re reviewing persuasive essay strategies and craft. Students, so far, have completed the following assignments:
4/30: “Passions” and “Peeves”: Brainstorm a list of things that really annoy you or things that you really are passionate about, then sift through the list to identify ideas about which you really want to convince someone of something.
4/30, Homework: Choose two items from the “Passions” and “Peeves” list, then write 3/4 to a half a page about EACH idea…use as much detail as possible and explain why you think others should agree with you. Due 5/3.
5/4: “Persuasion & Evidence” Choose one of the two ideas you wrote about for 5/3 homework…be sure to choose the one that you think will work best as a persuasive topic. THEN, create a notebook entry with the following:
- The topic of your piece
- Your target audience (be as specific as possible…you should not say “people”)
- Your position. Your position statement–the main point of your essay–must contain the word “should.”
Using six to eight sticky notes, jot all the reasons why you think someone should agree with you. Be sure to include ideas that you came up with in your homework writing from the weekend. If you come up with opposing ideas, include them, also, but group them together in on the bottom of the page. We will use these in crafting counter-arguments.
5/4: Sifting & sorting–organizing our ideas to create a strong argument. Review your sticky-note ideas from 5/3 and group them together if you see ideas overlapping. Then, choose the three strongest ideas for your target audience. In other words, what ideas will do the best job at convincing the people you want to convince? Then…
Complete the prewriting worksheet.
5/5: Draft three body paragraphs. Be sure to include 5-8 sentences in each paragraph, and at least two pieces of evidence to prove the main idea for the paragraph.
Presentations 4/26 & 4/27
Book report presentations will take place on Mon-Tue, 04/26-27. Students will be assessed on the Presentation Rubric, Focus on Presence, Language & Time.
Students do NOT need to have the book report project in order to complete the presentation. Presentations will occur in lottery order, but students who’ve dressed-up for the presentation on Monday will be giving first priority.
The book report is due, in final form, on Tuesday, 04/27.
“Talking back” final draft requirements
AFTER receiving peer review and REVISING your letter, submit it in the following order:
- Clean scoring rubric on top (get a new one from Ms. Lima)
- Final draft of letter
- Scoring rubric completed by a peer reviewer
- First draft on bottom.
4/22-23, Work time in class & peer feedback
Purpose: I can make judgments about an author’s argument…in order to respond critically with evidence.
Wednesday through Friday this week students had independent work time to complete the “Talking Back” letter to the author. Students who completed the assignment on time will earn full credit for their grade, and they earned 10 extra credit points in addition. While late assignments will be accepted, students who did not complete the assignment on time will receive a 10% grade reduction on a late assignment.
I will offer students one more class period to work on this assignment in order to receive peer review and revise their work. This means that once a student has completed a draft of the letter, he or she must find another student complete the following peer review:
- Read through the paper and highlight evidence in each paragraph. Evidence includes personal connections, prior knowledge from other classes/movies/books/etc., reference to other articles, and reference to statistics or data obtained from credible internet sources.
- Assess the paper against the scoring rubric.
- Identify (by underlining) and note:
* incomplete, confusing or run-on sentences.
* places where you have questions. - Give feedback:
- * What do you appreciate in the letter? (“I appreciate…”)
* What areas are weak and could use work? (“A weak area that you could improve is…”) - Then, show Ms. Lima the draft with feedback for credit.
4/20, Talking Back Assignment
Purpose: I can make judgments about an author’s argument in order to respond critically with evidence.
Today, students started drafting letters to the feature article authors. The purpose of this assignment is to allow students to demonstrate the critical reading that they’ve reached through the Feature Article Study as well as prepare for persuasive essays, beginning next week. Please see relevant documents:
4/19, Schedule changes
Students need to note schedule changes in the planner. Book report presentations and the final due date have changes.
Presentations: Book report presentations have been rescheduled to Mon-Tue, Apr 26-27.
Drop-dead due-date for book report: Tue, Apr 27.
Turn in the book report by Fri, Apr 23 for 10 extra credit points.
“Talking Back to the author,” the final assignment for our feature article study, is due Fri, Apr 23.
4/20, “Talking back” to the author
Purpose: I can make judgments about an author’s argument in order to respond critically with evidence.
Today, students received the final assignment for our feature article study. It’s been exciting to hear students talk about their opinions and challenge evidence in the text. This “Talking Back” assignment allows students to express their strong views in “letter” to the author.
After studying Ms. Lima’s example (Talking Back to Barbara Kingsolver) for structure and strategies, students organized their thinking around the following questions in order to plan for the assignment:
- How is the author trying to make me feel about the issue?
- What omissions are most important?
- What counterarguments are weak?
- What is your final response?
In addition, students should ask themselves the following questions for elaboration:
- What questions do I have for the author?
- Is there another article that has evidence I can use to support my position?
- What connections can I make that will support my thinking? (prior knowledge from other classes, movies, books, real-life experiences, etc.)
- What quotes can I provide as evidence?
4/19 Omissions & Counterarguments
Purpose: I can identify clue words that indicate omissions and counterarguments in order to understand author bias in my feature article.
Today, we revisited “Back to the Tap” in order to review how to use “clue” words to help us think about what the author is leaving out of her arguments. These are words like most, perhaps, many, several, others, estimated, average…any word the is intentionally vague. We also looked for clues to identifying counterarguments and discovered that “but” is often used when the author is trying to defeat an argument against them. Our co-constructed class chart shows examples of omissions or counterarguments in articles we’re reading in class.
The assignment today is to make a t-chart with five clue words (either for omissions or counterarguments) and what they indicate about author bias. Students absent from class will complete this work independently.
4/14, Preparing to collaborate with others
Today, students met in the computer lab in order to create accounts for an online forum where we can discuss articles with students in other classes. For this electronic forum, we’re using wikispaces.com, and in order to join, students needed to access their email accounts. Since some students didn’t have an email account prior to our work, they created email accounts (or used a parent account where necessary) and this allowed them to join the forum. Email accounts were necessary only today; future work in the forum will not require access to email, ever. In addition, students will have opportunities to contribute to online discussions at school; home access is helpful and beneficial, but not required.
4/13, Understanding Social & Political Issues
Purpose: I can identify social & political issues in my article in order to understand bigger ideas about why they matter.
Today, students worked to identify social & political issues throughout the articles we’re reading in class. This follows earlier assessment that students have difficulty telling the difference between the topic of an article and the underlying social and political issues that are implied. As reflection, students identified topics for their articles and at least one underlying social or political issue for each article, then they created a “big” question to help them think about interpretations on the larger issue. Co-constructed charts with student thinking show their progress in the lesson.
Ms. Lima’s example:
- Article: A Howl of Protest
- Topic: Aerial shooting of wolves in Alaska.
- Underlying social or political issue: Overpopulation of animals & control of wild species
- Big question: How much should humans interfere with animal population control?
A student absent today needs to complete this work in her/his notebook:
- Article title:
- One topic in the article is:
- An underlying social or political issue in this article is:
- One “big” question I have about the issue is:
