Persuasive Writing

Planning

What is the purpose?

P - persuade someone to do something or think the same as you

I - inform (You'll give us new information.)

E - entertain (It's for fun!)

Who is my audience?

students: about school or free time, reasons that kids care about, lots of anecdotes
adults: polite, lots of reasons or facts that adults care about, adult examples

Choosing a topic

What do you wish was different in your world?

What do you think can be changed if only you talk to the right people?

Look at these speeches by students for inspiration.

Greta Thunberg's first language is not English. She is talking to world leaders about why kids are frustrated that adults are not fixing the environment. She wants governments to care about the environment.

Some schools in the US do not have recess. This boy is talking to teachers and principals. He has a lot of facts about why recess is important.

Malala Yousafzai's first language is not English. She is passionate about female education. Where she grew up, sometimes young women were not allowed to go to school and she fought for their rights.

Introduction

Your introduction needs to be a paragraph by itself. Do not start your ideas here.

You need to make your position clear in one sentence.

I believe that we should have an art room in the school.

Then grab your reader's attention and make them care about the issue too.

1) You can try this with a question.

Have you ever finished a day at school and then looked around the classroom in despair because it is a big mess?

2) Or you can try an anecdote (short story.)

Imagine you have finished classes for the day and you look around.... There are bottles of paint that you have to take back downstairs. You see brushes and cups that you have to find room for in your crowded cupboards. Not to mention the watery mess that got all over the math homework you were supposed to mark.

Tell your reader what to expect.

I will tell you how an art room will improve life for you and your students.

Main Ideas

Make sure that you have 2-3 main ideas that are different from each other. If they are similar, it will become confusing. Each point should be a separate paragraph.

Not so much mess in our classroom so we don't mess up our other work
Easier to store and find supplies so we can do more interesting projects
You can put up art posters, art vocabulary, and colour charts on the wall so we will learn more

Think of facts, examples from your life, and anecdotes to help each argument become stronger.

Counter-argument & Rebuttal

Think about someone telling you that you are wrong. What might they say? What would be their strongest point? It is a good idea to anticipate what someone would say to argue with you. That way, you can stop them with some good reasons. This is called a "rebuttal."

Some people might think that an art room is a waste of money on extra space when we can just use our classrooms. However, they would be mistaken. Firstly, we could all use the same resources and they could always be easily found. This would cut down on waste from buying the same thing over and over again. The cost savings would be huge! Secondly, custodians would not have to spend extra time cleaning multiple classrooms. They would just have one space where glue, paint, clay, and glitter would be used. That would save cleaning costs. As you can see, it would actually save us money!

Conclusion

This is your last paragraph.

Tell us what the main point of your argument was again.

In conclusion, I think that we should have an art room in our school.

Then, tell your reader what you want them to do.

Bring up this idea at your next teachers' meeting. I'm sure the other teachers will agree that it is a good idea. Then you can start finding a space for an art room.

Remind them why they want to do this.

It will make your work life so much better.

Conventions

Audience & Voice

Include your audience by talking to them!

Use words like, "you" and "we."
Ask them questions to make them think about how it affects them.
Make sure your examples and facts are for the right audience!

Read your work out loud and notice where you put emphasis and where you pause. You want to make your reader do the same thing. You want to make your reader think and feel like you do! Remember, only highlight the important words.

It would be FANTASTIC to have more space to really get to work on our art! I'm sure our art would get better and BETTER.