Persuasive Writing
In Room 12, students have been working on what it means to be a persuasive writer. Over the course of the last few weeks, students have engaged in a number of different learning tasks that have helped them to better understand what it means to write in a persuasive manner and why it is an important skill. In Grade 3, students are beginning to access information from a variety of sources to help them expand their knowledge on a specific topic and use their research to create a written text that is appropriate for an audience. Persuasive writing helps students formulate specific reasons for their opinions, and provides an opportunity to research facts related to their opinion.
Success Criteria: English Language Arts- I can create written texts for a variety of audiences and purposes.
- I can use organizational processes, methods, or tools to support the creation of written texts.
- I can create drafts of writing that maintain audience interest by focusing the number of ideas in sentences and limiting repetitions.
- I can include a range of sentence beginnings and types to vary and add interest to writing.
- I can revise my written texts for accuracy, clarity, or appeal by adding, removing, or changing words or sentences.
- I can edit my writing for spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
- I can read my written texts aloud to check for writing fluency.
- I can access information from a variety of sources to answer questions or expand my knowledge.
- I can use research to create written text that is appropriate for an audience.
We began by watching a short video that identified what persuasive writing is and when it is used. Check out the link here: What is Persuasive Writing
Once we had an idea of what persuasive writing is, we began to think about what topics we might be interested in writing about. We had been reading the book, “There’s an Owl in the Shower” in class to help us better understand the reciprocal reading skill (questioning). In the story we learned that the main character’s dad had recently become unemployed due to the banning of cutting trees in the Old Growth Forests in the northern part of California. This got many of our students asking questions about logging and identifying the pros and cons of logging. In addition to this, we also viewed a news clip about the pros and cons of marine aquariums. This clip also got students in Room 12 critically thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of aquariums in North America. From this, stemmed our persuasive writing topics.
Once students had decided on a topic and formed their opinions, they were asked to research their topic more thoroughly to ensure they had specific facts to back-up their opinion. Next, students were required to complete their graphic organizer and formulate a topic sentence. From here, students then wrote their first draft. Students used their “Helpful Prompts” page to help them organize and structure their drafts.
Students then read their written texts aloud to peers and received constructive feedback on 1-2 changes they could make to improve their persuasive writing. Asking their peers the question, “Did it convince you?” Then students received a “Persuasive Writing Checklist” to help ensure they had successfully met all of the listed criteria. Students also utilized Mrs. Swan’s modeled example to help them compare and contrast their own writing. Once students were happy with their edits and revisions, they then published their writing in their Visual Journals. Students were then invited to enter into Room 12 Persuasive Writing Competition. This was optional. Students who chose not to enter into the competition became the judges. After much debate and reflection, students selected four students to receive medals (platinum, gold, silver and bronze). One judge per medal was asked to give a detailed explanation of why they felt that student was worthy of a medal. It was quite an exciting and nerve racking moment for all of our finalists. 
Next week, students are working to publish one more persuasive writing example into their Visual Journals. Some students are in the middle of writing a convincing letter to Mrs. Swan to help convince her that students in Room 12 should be given one hour of class time to build a Leprechaun Trap as it supports S.T.E.A.M. Other groups of students are writing persuasive letters to try to convince Mrs. Scarrow to allow the Grade 3’s in Room 12 to run two fundraisers. One fundraiser would help students purchase two omnikin balls for the whole school and the other to raise enough funds so that our class could donate $240 to qualify for Unicef Canada “Paddington’s Postcards”. Contributing to this cause would help some children around the world have their rights, education and safety improved. In addition to this, students would receive a postcard from Paddington Bear each month where we would get to learn about a different country and a child who lives there. It is all so exciting! Please stay tuned.
