In our last blog post we discussed why persuasive writing is important for our kids to learn. Now, we’re going to turn our attention to some tools that we believe will help your kids with their persuasive writing. Below are four instruction pages that you can print out as PDF files.
Framework
First, your child needs to formulate his or her ideas. This framework page will help them do that. Having filled it out, they can then start writing the speech, article, letter or other piece of persuasive writing.
Sentence starters
When your kid is ready to start writing out the piece, that’s where the next two pages come in handy. Here’s a page on sentence starters. Basically, they are prompts to help your child start the introduction, reasons and conclusion paragraphs.
Word bank
Persuasive writing requires some strong words to convince the reader. Here’s a page of strong words for your child to consider in her or his writing.
Checklist
Finally, we have put together a checklist for your child. We suggest you read it before embarking on the writing and then after to check that you fulfilled the criteria for the persuasive writing piece.
Now you just need to pick a topic. There are so many, but we suggest that you pick something your child is interested in. If you can’t think of anything, perhaps the following topics will spark your thinking:
- Why recess (is/is not) important to students in school. (There’s been some debate recently about schools stopping recess and breaks during school hours.)
- The (importance/unimportance) of learning a second language.
- Fast food (should/should not) be banned.
- Cell phones (should/should not) be allowed at school.
