Teachers Can Help Students
Develop Ability to Write Persuasively

An integrated language arts curriculum that includes speaking, listening, viewing, and reading activities will best prepare students for the ACT Writing Test, as well as for the writing that will be required of them in college and in the workforce.

Students should feel comfortable writing descriptive, narrative, informative, and persuasive pieces. As they prepare for postsecondary opportunities, persuasive writing becomes particularly important. Teachers can help students develop their ability to write persuasively by choosing issue-oriented content that interests students and encouraging students to take positions on issues. Here are some activities teachers might consider.

Analyze Political Debates

Watching televised political debates provides students with opportunities to identify and analyze each speaker's position and presentation. Students can take notes and identify the effectiveness of arguments and word choices. They can write their own commentary on the debate or any of the issues featured. Or they could stage their own debate in class.

Create Advertisements

Studying advertisements in print and broadcast media allows students to identify and analyze target audiences. They can describe age ranges, gender, socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicity, interests, and audience needs.  Ads and public service announcements are excellent examples of persuasive writing. Students may try creating and producing their own, perhaps for local events or non-profit groups.

Read Newspapers and Magazines

Periodicals offer widely varied content and plenty of writing styles to imitate. Editorials, letters to the editor, and opinion columns can spark discussions of how to take a stance on an issue and effectively support a position. Students can analyze articles for organization, style, detail, and objectivity. Magazine features might be used to illustrate a variety of creative approaches to presenting material or investigating subjects in depth. Students can then write their own editorials, letters to the editor, opinion, news, or feature pieces.

Study Persuasive Essays

Students can read essays that argue for or against a controversial issue. They also can  practice writing essays by working in teams of two—one writing from one point of view, the other from an opposing view. They then can exchange the essays and read the drafts aloud. Listening to an essay helps writers learn about fluency. They can discuss where the ideas and language are particularly persuasive and where the draft needs improvement. By reading each other's essays aloud, the partners learn to listen and think critically.

Address Community Issues

Teachers can ask students to brainstorm a list of current issues and transform one into a question. For example, a question about a proposal to increase parking fines could be posed as: Should parking fines be increased? Students can create a chart listing the reasons for and against the increased parking fines.

Then they can list possible audiences they wish to address and analyze each one: What is the audience's interest in this topic? What information or background knowledge do they already have? What would persuade them to support or not support increased fines?  Students might conduct a survey of community opinion on the issue. Based on their research, students could take a stance on the issue and write a letter to the appropriate groups or officials.

Write About Literature

Literature offers many opportunities for persuasive writing. Students can analyze text, read literary criticism, and write their own interpretations of a book or poem. They can read, perform, and write dramatic pieces. They can compare and contrast different interpretations of great works of literature.

No matter what activities are used, an integrated language arts curriculum should provide students with opportunities to speak, listen, view, read, and write. By using print and nonprint texts, teachers can increase students' understanding of persuasive language in all media.

Improving students' ability to think and communicate is central to English language arts curriculum. Through effective writing instruction, teachers help students find their own voices and views on significant issues and enable them to succeed in school, at work, and on the ACT Writing Test.

For more information on the ACT Writing Test go to www.act.org/aap/writing or call 319/337-1712.