Executive Summary

Phoebe DiSalvo-Harms
Syracuse University

Executive Summary
To answer your need of meeting Common Core Standard CC.4.W.1 Text Types & Purposes:
Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information I
have gathered a variety of resources, including books, websites, articles, and databases, for you, to
help you plan your lesson, and for your students, to help them learn.
To aid you in planning your lesson, I have found multiple sources, the first being Persuasive
Writing by Tara McCarthy, a book full of activities and reproducibles that break down teaching and
learning persuasive writing into three manageable steps, including understanding the mechanics of
persuasion, recognizing them as the audience, and then finally purposefully picking one to suit your
current topic. The book neatly covers all three topic areas, giving you a diverse range of activities to
choose from for each step. Likewise, Readwritethink.org gives general teaching strategies for this
topic as well as several applicable fully outlined lesson plans, created and tested by educators like you,
complete with detailed descriptions of the prep work needed, the full instructional plan, and the
additional standards met. Relevant lesson plans include Can You Convince Me? Developing
Persuasive Writing, Dear Librarian: Writing a Persuasive Letter, Vote for Me! Developing,
Writing, and Evaluating Persuasive Speeches, and The Magic of Three: Techniques for the Writer's
Craft. Other related content includes an interactive persuasion map to help your students build their
arguments, peer review guidelines for persuasive letters to foster your students' critiquing skills, and a
persuasive strategies Microsoft PowerPoint to help you teach the basics.
To engage your students, I have also found Readingrockets.org and the scholarly article 'Let
Me Tell You About Dogs.' Persuasive Writing and Picture Books both of which outline potentially
useful picture books for you to consider integrating into your lesson plan, such as Otto Runs for
President, How Oliver Olson Changed the World, Heckedy Peg, The Old Woman Who Named Things,
and others. The former also includes general strategies and useful handouts, including a list of
persuasive words your students can use in their own writing, a guide to writing persuasive letters to
help your students organize their thoughts, and a persuasion map planning sheet to aid your students'
argument building, as well as techniques for differentiated instruction so all your students can learn in
the best way possible. The latter briefly summarizes all the suggested books as well as potential ways
to integrate them into your lesson plan in the sections entitled Something Old, Something NewResources for Persuasive Writing and Classroom Experience with Persuasive Writing to help you
choose the best book for your class and your students.
Additionally, I have collected resources for your students to engage and enrich their learning.
To begin your lesson and excite student interest, I suggest using either Doreen Cronin's Click, Clack,
Moo: Cows That Type or Diane Stanley's The Giant and the Beanstalk to introduce the topic of
persuasive writing to your students through the attention grabbing medium of picture books, as
mentioned above. Use the former to generate a discussion about how to be persuasive effectively and
generate the change you want by comparing the persuasive efforts of the barnyard animals vs. those of
Farmer Brown when a group of literate cows get their hooves on an old typewriter. Use the latter to
generate a discussion of perspective and viewpoint and how that informs our opinions by sharing the
central point of view inversion of this classic fairytale as we hear the story of Jack and the Beanstalk
from the perspective of Otto, a polite misunderstood giant who only wants his dearly loved hen back.
Generally, to foster student inquiry and their personal research into debated topics, I suggest

two databases: Gale's Opposing Viewpoints in Context and Gale's Kids InfoBits. Students can use
these resources to find topics of interest to them to see firsthand the mechanics of persuasion or to
inform their own concluding opinion pieces. Alternatively, you can use these resources to select
articles relevant and authentic to your students, which they can then analyze in detail to understand
how persuasion works by identifying the opinion being argued and the reasons supporting it. I suggest
the articles Which Side Are You On? from Scholastic Choices/Current Health, Do Smartphones =
Smart Kids? from Junior Scholastic, and Do Kids Need Their Own Cell Phones? from Time for
Kids Almanac 2014 as ways to get this process started through a topic engaging and relevant to your
students, namely if students and children should have smartphones in school or otherwise. Crucially,
these sources also discuss the topic nearly entirely through student voices, teaching your students
through their peers how to express their opinion and build their argument appropriately and
effectively. Additionally, to further foster inquiry driven learning among your students, let them
browse the Time for Kids Almanac 2014 in its entirety for topics to pursue in their own writing. Deal
with real world issues in their Computers and Communication, Geography, Energy,
Environment, Government, and Weather sections or let students share their opinions on popular
media topics- as long as its with evidence- such as why one film should have won a particular award
over others.
Finally, through Change.org, students can see how their opinions can make a difference today.
Using this source, you can culminate your lesson with real world change with student writing directed
to a real world audience. To get an idea of how to do this and to share with your students the
difference they can make, read specifically the very successful petition Dunkin' Donuts Stop Using
Styrofoam Cups by the Park School kids, with the guidance of their teacher, to learn about how these
students think Styrofoam is detrimental to the environment, to animals, and to us. Consider a similar
activity with your own class and see the difference an authentic learning experience can make with
your students.