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Another high school writing topic: persuasion
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I am finding that writing across curriculum (like writing narrations and essays in history, science and literature) does not lend itself very well to writing persuasively. My high school boys write lots of narratives of events (like how something was invented or discovered) or descriptions of things (like bacterial colonies or the pyramids Seneferu built). Occasionally, they give me opinions about the books they read (16yo just wrote one about how unrealistic Little Men is because the boys are never really punished but consequently are “good-hearted” anyway). But I am having a harder time coming up with persuasive topics for them.
Would anyone be willing to share some examples of persuasive writing or narration topics they’ve had their high school kids write? Maybe if I see how others are taking a bunch of info and turning it into something persuasive, I’ll be able to do the same.
Example: if my son reads a history lesson, say, about Winston Churchill, how could he write persuasively about that? Argue that he was or wasn’t a good leader? Argue that a decision he made was right or wrong?
Example: if my son reads a history lesson, say, about Winston Churchill, how could he write persuasively about that? Argue that he was or wasn’t a good leader? Argue that a decision he made was right or wrong?
Exactly! A persuasive essay is simply an essay where the writer is trying to persuade the reader.
I’ve found it best to have my kids write persuasively when they have a strong opinion about something. Today, my daughter began a persuasive essay to convince her readers that Mr. Darcy (from Pride and Prejudice) is a better hero than Mr. Knightley (from Emma). It ended up being a compare and contrast essay as the more she wrote she realized she couldn’t bring herself to pick one. She still is a bigger fan of Mr. Darcy but really, who could give Mr. Knightly the short end of the stick? He’s just so, well, knightly. 😀
We are not to higschool yet, but my oldest is working through Jump In by Apologia, they give examples of persuasive writing and the student practices writing their own. What I like is that it gives “do” and “do not” suggestions such as do not be vague or do not talk down to the reader or say they are not smart because they do not agree with you, and things like remember your audience, make sure you can back it up with facts not just opinion (depending on the type of persuasion writing you are doing).
Sorry rambling on… 🙂
Persuasion is persuading someone to agree with you on what ever topic it could be. Why a books is good, why a movie is not good, why they believe what they believe about a subject. Why this person was a good or bad leader, why a book is a can’t miss or needs to be skipped. It does not always have to be a positive it can also be a negative.
Haha, Melanie, that’s cute about Darcy vs. Knightly!
Thanks for the replies. I think when I do my weekly essay topic planning, I just have to make a more concerted effort to think about persuasive topics. The examples are helpful!
Sonya wrote a great blog post about raising the bar with narrations. There are some wonderful ideas concerning the persuasive method.
Thanks, Tamara. I did see that blog post and looked at the suggestions for persuasive writing. However, it made me realize the real problem I have with persuasive writing in general: I wonder if our/my expectations are too high.
Sometimes I think we are expecting high school students to be some kind of very mature academic-types that they just aren’t (I know some are but mine aren’t). I mean, if my son were to use one of the prompts on that list – evaluate some current political figure’s scheme and how it’s working – there is no way he could do it. My son doesn’t know enough about political figures in order to have an opinion about any of them. I mean, even as an adult, I’m not sure I could accurately assess such a thing. I just know what the media tells me, and I’m not counting on that to be exactly factual or the whole story. I would have to do a lot of research on said political figure before I knew enough to have an opinion and write about it.
He can tell me why he thinks geometry is better and more useful than algebra, or why winter is way more fun than summer, or the reasons he doesn’t want to farm (we live on a farm), because those are things he actually cares about and knows something about (he’s written essays about all of those). But if he reads one lesson in his history book about Winston Churchill, and from that information tries to assess whether he was a good leader or not, I’m not sure that’s possible. It would require a lot more research.
I’m not sure what I’m concluding from all this, though. Do I have a very immature student? I don’t know because I have no one to compare him to, but that could be. Or do persuasive topics just require a lot of research? Does using textbooks mean you only get an overview of a topic so there isn’t ever enough info to form a good opinion? Maybe that is one advantage to using living books for history and science in high school – you actually read enough about the topic to be able to form opinions.
Should I just stick to topics that seem doable for my kid? Or do you tackle those difficult topics anyway and just not expect as much as you would if you were reading about it in an opinion/editorial piece in a newspaper?
I think that’s why I have trouble coming up with realistic topics for him to write about.
Am I way off? Do other people have these concerns?
Erin it sounds to me like you are doing a great job! My son hasnt even attempted a persuasive essay yet. We are still working on more than one paragraph in his narrations. He has pencil phobia. I think deciding what skill you are trying to teach might help your direction. If your goal for the assignment is a written persuasive essay, maybe a simple topic like why Nikes are better than Adidas (or whatever is very familiar) might be appropriate. If you are trying to teach deeper thinking maybe start out with oral persuasive narration. Gradually transitioning to deeper writing as their opinions mature. Just a thought, I am certainly not there yet on the writing, but my son is similar when it comes to what he has opinions about.
Erin-I agree with you! Some kids just aren’t ready for those type of assignments. Honestly, I know many grown people who still wouldn’t be ready for many of those essay topics!
My son didn’t do so well with those type of questions. I gave him topics that he could relate to and then allowed him to mostly write narrative essays. He also enjoyed writing fictional stories. As long as he was writing regularly I was happy. He is a good writer and I enjoy pulling his papers out and reading them every so often. He ended up going straight into the work force (as you probably remember) but I am confident that he would have adapted quickly to college level writing simply because he was a good writer.
My daughter is different and she really enjoys persuasive essays and compare/contrast essays. She also likes to do response papers. She can’t stand writing fiction. She has composition scheduled once a week at this point. On that day, I sit down with her and we brainstorm together until we hit upon an essay topic she is interested in writing about. I’m a big believer in letting kids choose their writing topics. Then she writes the complete essay that day.
My son spread his essay out over the whole week and worked on it about 30 minutes a day and then turned it in on Friday.
Different approaches for different kids!
Erin, you are not alone in these concerns. I agree that the examples given in Sonya’s blog post would be too much for the average high school student. I don’t see how they could come up with that level of material from one day’s reading.
This is where I think even the CM purist can benefit from a curriculum. I think narrations work great for narrative, expository, descriptive and even compare/contrast. But I turn to a curriculum for persuasive.
Rod and Staff 8 has good persuasive writing lessons. We are also using lessons from Essentials in Writing. Not every day. Just lessons here and there.
Thanks, ladies. I appreciate your responses. I think I need to just come up with more persuasive topics and keep on having him try them out. The way I have his essays set up now is that I give him two or three choices to write about and he picks one. So there is some choice. Of course, today when he picked a topic, he completely avoided the persuasive one! So I will have to make sure that he writes some of those at some point this year.
The other thing I thought of while thinking about this thread is that even if he doesn’t write persuasively about a topic that’s very academic or mature, like a political figure, he can still learn the skills involved, even if he’s only writing about which dirt bike is better. 🙂
Keri, thanks for mentioning R&S 8. I don’t have that book, but I do have the R&S English handbook so maybe I should look in there. I’m pretty sure there are essay writing guidelines in there.
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