Teaching Practice Finding the Words to Change the World STEP GUIDES
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS ABOUT OPINIONS
These twelve essential questions about opinions acted as springboards into the realm of creating change through persuasion. I arranged the students into small groups and dispersed the questions equally. The groups brainstormed on their sets of questions, and we proceeded with class discussions.
AD CAMPAIGNING: ONE PRODUCT, TWO TARGET AUDIENCES
I distributed this handout on the first day of the ad campaigning project. I could see the students' gears in motion as we read the handout as a class. Students were quick to scan the room for peers to work with– I thwarted hasty decisions by going into an explanation about the peer assessment factor (see assessments). We had done group work in my class before, and my students knew as well as I that some friends didn't make good group-work members. Once the students chose their groups, the process of deciding on products and target audiences was rapid.
LOGICAL FALLACIES
Students exhibited great critical thinking and observation skills with this activity. I talked about the fallacies and gave descriptions of each. The students came up with examples from their experiences. The attachment here shows a handout that I gave the students as a reference (they saw only the eight fallacy names and their descriptions). The examples (in pink and green) are last resorts I brought to class in case students didn't contribute in giving their own examples- I didn't need to use these.
PERSUASIVE PIECE OPTIONS
I distributed this handout to my students a week before rough drafts of their persuasive pieces were due. I collected the lower half of them the next day, and put together resource packets for my students based on which formats they chose. For example, for students who chose to write application letters, I photocopied pages from several writing guides (from my personal collection) which demonstrate how to write professional letters and give models (see Resources for books used). Other resources that I used included newspapers (great for movie reviews, personal commentary, and letters to the editor), writing guides from Writers Inc, and magazines. One hitch I ran into was the back-and-forth decision making of my students– several of them switched formats once they began researching their topics. I suggest making some extra copies of resources to have on hand.
Author:Sarah
Hatch (e-mail) School:Oyster River Middle School Organization:University of New Hampshire Credits: Paula Ickeringill, ORMS Language Arts Teacher
Mike Middleton, UNH Internship Supervisor
Jason Demers, ORMS Science Teacher and Technology Wiz
