Persuasive Writing: Ideas

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Persuasive writing is writing used to persuade or convince someone to agree with your opinion about something you think, feel strongly about, or something you believe.

1. The first thing you have to do when you write a persuasive piece is to brainstorm an idea to write about. It could be something you want to change at home, school, your community, or even the world! Make a list of the different ideas that you possibly want to write about.
2. Then, select the idea that you feel most strongly about. This will be your topic. Now you are ready to do your prewriting and planning.

Take out a piece of paper and pencil. As you watch Persuasive Writing for Kids: Planning & Pre-writing, from Teaching Without Frills, take notes on steps to follow in planning your topic:

1. The first thing you need to consider when you are doing your planning is to decide who your audience is. In other words, who is the person who can make the decision to change what your topic is about? If your topic is doing fewer chores at home, then your audience would be your parents. If your topic is having less homework, then your teacher would be your audience.
2. The next thing you would do is think about the reasons you would use to convince your audience. As you think of your reasons, write them down on a piece of paper; you might even want to draw a quick picture to help you remember the reason. Try to include at least three reasons. Later, when you complete the writing phase of the writing process, you will write a letter to the person who can make the change using the reasons you listed.

Use the same piece of paper you used for the first video to take notes on how you can make your reasons better. Watch Persuasive Writing for Kids: Reasons from Teaching Without Frills:

When you write your reasons on your paper, you want to make sure they are good reasons. If they are only personal opinions, then you might not convince your teacher to give less homework, or your mother to give you less chores. You want to do some research so you can give your argument some proof that it is not simply your opinion. You will give the source of your information and what the research says about your topic.

You also want to consider what reason the teacher might have to say, "No." You have to anticipate reasons your teacher or mother or whomever you are trying to convince might give back to you. For instance, your teacher might say you need extra practice in math and, therefore, you need to do homework. If you think about those things ahead of time, then you can address those in your letter so they can see you are thinking about the things they might feel they need to say to you.

After you write your reasons, you will write your conclusion. In your conclusion, you want restate your opening opinion with an appeal for the person to agree with you.

Before you move on to the Got It? section, discuss the answers to these questions with your teacher or parent:

1. What is the first thing you need to do before writing?
2. What does it mean to "decide who your audience is"?
3. How many reasons should you include in your writing?
4. Why do you need to give proof for your reasons?
5. What is the purpose of the conclusion?

Now that you have reviewed the steps in writing a persuasive paragraph, continue to the Got It? section, where you will select your topic and write down your reasons.