Persuasive Writing 3

Day Two:

Objective:  Make observations about using an expert's opinion

Modeled Writing: Bottled Water versus Tap Water?

This modeled text is straight from Lucy Calkins.  Today, students will read this text together, highlighting expert opinions.  This is just a preview day, so students know what an expert is, how to use quotation marks around someone else's words.  Later we will explicitly teach it - today is just a preview.  

(1) Have students read the text silently for three minutes.  

(2) Have students tell a partner what they remembered from the text. (Make a round robin sharing?  Maybe put a chart in front of them and each kid has to write one thing they learned?) 

(3) Pass out highlighters and then re-read the text with students so the teacher is modeling fluent reading.  During this "shared reading" of the text, students are to highlight the words written by an expert.  Then, circle the types of punctuation used to signify the part was copied from someone else, such as the quotation marks, the commas, the name of the person, etcetera.

(4) Finally, have a mini-discussion about why the author would use an expert in their arguments.  You can chart student responses or you can simply discuss.  Ask questions like "How is this more persuasive with an expert?"  or "How is the argument more powerful with this quotation?"  Students should give answers like "Experts are smarter" or "The facts seems more credible when a scientists says them."  

Writing Time:

Using the article, kids have 15 minutes to write their opinion about it.  Is tap water safer?  They can list reasons, reference the article.  This is a free-write fluency activity, getting their ideas flowing.  

Research:

Today's research is going to be about water, using maps like Google Earth, and quick internet searches.  Use the worksheet on the right.  Depending on your class, you might want kids to work in pairs: One kid with the chromebook; the other kid with the paper to write it down. 

(1) Whole Group instruction:  In the very least, do the first question on the worksheet as a whole class.  The question is "Name the major fresh water sources in North America."   We want kids to know, from West to East, Yukon River, Columbia River, Colorado River, Rio Grande, Mississippi and Missouri and Ohio River, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River.

Print this map and have kids label the major fresh water ways in North America: Yukon River, Columbia River, Colorado river, Rio Grande, Mississippi and Missouri and Ohio River, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River.

(2) Now, you can have students finish the "American Water: Basic Facts" papers on their own.  Some sources have been listed for their own ease, but students are welcome to use, and find, other reliable sources.

(3) After this initial research is done, chat with the class about the best place to live water wise.  Honestly, California is one of the worst places to live because of our lack of fresh natural water and lack of rain fall.  The best place, is obviously near the Great Lakes.  However, the idea here is to get students looking at the map, making their own opinions and discussing it.

Writing Time:

After researching (either the same day or the next day) have students take that research and write in their writer's notebook about what the best place to live in the United States.

Extra Support:

For Kids that need more support, your language learners, your special needs kids or your low-level writers, I post this doc to their Google Classrooms: Sentence Starters for the Essay.   That way, they just need to complete the blanks, read it back to themselves.  The Structure is done for them!