Persuasive Writing & Common Core W.1

Helping Students Write about Their Opinions

Getting students to write about their opinions is difficult enough, add in a research aspect, and things can get really tricky. It always helps to encourage students to use graphic organizers to help organizer their thoughts.

To help students organize information they have during the research process, check out the “Objections Chart”, “Pro-Con Chart”, “Problem-Solution Chart”, “Supporting Reasons” organizer, and “Response form from Great Source iWrite. I also like to have students write facts down and record their source information. I have created a very simple organizer for this. For research with a book, students can use my Book Organizer and for a website, they can use the Website Organizer.

Writing, of course, is a whole different issue. If you’re struggling getting started or just looking for a new approach, you may want to check out Read Write Think, Can You Convince Me?. The persuasive technique PowerPoint, may come in handy and the Persuasion Map interactive could also come in handy. Time for Kids Persuasive Paper Homework Helper is another great resource for helping students to plan arguments. I’ve also got a link to a Persuasive Planner that I modified from one I used with high school students.

Some websites to check out for persuasive research

Time for Kids There are a lot of great articles on this site. To use it go to the site, then type your topic in the SEARCH box on the top right hand side of the screen.

ProCon.org Scroll down and see if your topic is in the list of 44 topics that this website has information for. If not, you might try to use the SEARCH box on the top right.

Top 100 Debates from iDebate Scroll through the list of debates and read the topics. If you find one that is similar to your topic, click on the link, and you will go to another page with additional topics. Click on the topics to see pros/cons about the topic, and a list of details. You can also use the SEARCH box in the top right corner to search for your topic.

Persuasion Starter Links Scroll down until you see a list of controversial topics. Look to see if your topic is on the list. There are links under each topic heading that might be helpful.

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