Alice R. Smee
Starting in seventh grade, students are required to write persuasive essays for both district and state tests. In order to guarantee a successful score on these tests, students have been taught a no-fail, five-paragraph formula for writing a persuasive essay. This unit incorporates visual stimuli, such as television, Internet, video, etc. into the lessons to help students connect images and text, and it uses them as tools in visualization and elaboration. One of the main goals of this unit is to have students write a persuasive piece using visualization and descriptive writing while still meeting district and state standards. The unit helps students to formulate a persuasive piece that allows them to write beyond the no-fail formula and without using "my reason is°"
(Developed for Language Arts, grades 7-8; recommended for Writing and Language Arts, grades 7-8)
