Persuasive Writing

Student Handout

Content Area: Language Arts
Grade(s): 4, 5

Rationale

Invitation
How does one know that Ivory is better than Zest or that Gatorade is really the thirst buster? Are these advertisements true or are they just deceiving the reader? Can it all be in the persuasive writing? When one writes persuasively, the negative facts about a given subject are left out and the positive is accentuated. In this unit, fourth grade students learn to recognize persuasive writing and produce their own writing from different points of view, using the book Doctor De Soto as as springboard.

Tools
Computers,printer, wordprocessing software; Template: Persuasive Writing; Doctor De Soto by William Steig, examples of persuasive writing

Learning Environment

Situations
This unit occurs in the classroom and in the library. The unit requires two class periods for reading the book; one period for planning the cooperative story; and four periods for drafting, word processing, peer editing, illustrating, and printing the stories.

Interactions
The students read Doctor De Soto in cooperative groups and collaborate to determine the point of view from which they write their own stories. The teacher assigns the students to cooperative groups and models the use of the Persuasive Writing template. She facilitates group participation during the writing process and monitors and answers questions as needed.

Unit Description

Standards (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills)
The students generate, organize, connect and express ideas in a variety of ways. The students interpret, produce, and evaluate visual images for meaning. The students write for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Tasks
The class reads Doctor De Soto, discusses the different characters in the story, and completes a story web.The students research foxes and then write a persuasive continuation of the story. The students peer edit stories, type them on the computer and illustrate them.

Assessment
The students peer edit the stories. The teacher bases her assessment on the position, the strength of the reasons supporting the position, and the story's conclusion.