Unit Design
This unit will be covering persuasive writing and the strategy of how to read persuasive
writing, how to spot persuasive language, and how to write persuasively. Smagorinsky
(2008) talks about strategy units as ways to reinforce a particular way of approaching
reading and writing and that it should focus on a particular skill (pg. 47), in this case
persuasive writing. Overarching questions for this unit would include: What is the
difference between opinion and fact? How do writers elicit emotion from their audience?
How do writers use evidence to prove their point? How can persuasive writing convince a
skeptical audience to change their position on a heated topic?
Unit Goals
By the end of this unit students will be able to write their own persuasive editorials and
letters. They will be able to read persuasive writing and identify the author’s position and
their use of persuasive language. Students will be able to tell the difference between
persuasive writing and other forms of writing previously studied (i.e. narrative,
informational). Students will also be able to use persuasive writing to write editorials for
their school newspaper focusing on school-wide issues that concern them.
Texts
Speeches:
Martin Luther King Jr. - I Had a Dream
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Inaugural Address
Barak Obama - Inaugural Address
Magazine Ads:
Students will bring in their own texts and analyze advertisements
Editorials:
Local, National, and World Newspapers
Magazines – Library search or brought into class
Debates:
2012 Presidential Debates
Debate Team
Grammar Incorporation
In grammar, parallelism is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or
clauses that have the same grammatical structure. For example: lacking parallelism is
“Corey admires people with integrity and who have character”, with parallelism it would
look like: “Corey admires people with integrity and character” or “Corey admires people
who have integrity and character.” Using parallelism can help create a rhythm or balance
that will help students be more persuasive and elicit stronger emotion from their audience.
Teaching parallelism will give students a wider variety of sentence patterns to work with
and will help them to be better persuasive writers. Also, persuasive language and it’s use in
writing will greatly help improve student writing. There is a wide range of persuasive
language techniques. I would use this website to show examples:
changingminds.org/techniques/language/persuasive/persuasive.htm
Writing Prompt
An editorial is a brief persuasive essay that presents and defends an opinion. For the school
newspaper, write an editorial that deals with a school-wide issue or concern (ex: hall
passes, truancy, dress code, standardized testing, cafeteria, and more!). Make a clear
opinion statement, letting your audience knows your stance on the issue, and provide
evidence that supports your opinion. Be convincing! Use persuasive language and
parallelism to convince your audience. Also, think of your audience, who (ex: teachers,
students, parents, principal) are you trying to convince?
Writing Prompt Parameters
 Has a clear opinion statement
 Provides evidence that supports your position
 Argument anticipates and answer any readers’ objections (counterarguments)
 Argument is made with a specific audience in mind
 Introduction begins with a hook or attention grabber
 Organization
 Persuasive language and parallelism are used to add force and emotion to
your argument
Evaluation
Students will be evaluated by their ability to create an effective persuasive
argument in regards to a school-wide concern. Students must pay attention to their
use of persuasive language to elicit emotion from the reader, their use of evidence to
support their position, and their introduction, which must contain a hook or
attention grabber common in editorials. Writing will also be evaluated on how well
the student understands the audience that is reading their editorial and how well
their argument tries to convince that audience. Students will also be evaluated on
grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. They must show at least one example of
parallelism and a couple uses of persuasive language.
Goals to Guide Teaching
The major goal of this unit is the strategy to analyze and interpret persuasive writing. As
the teacher, it is your goal to expose students to a wide variety of persuasive writing to
allow students to see how persuasive writing is used and how it differs from other writing
styles covered in class. The goal is to give students the strategy to analyze persuasive
writing and thus create their own persuasive writing. Teaching should focus on how to
identify persuasive language, how to identify opinions versus facts, and how to identify the
audience for each text.
What does the teacher need to teach students to do?





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Identify parallelism and persuasive language in texts
Analyze texts for opinions
Identify opinions versus facts
Write for a specific audience
Create a clear and concise opinion statement
Use evidence to support their opinions
Criteria for assessment: Writing Prompt Rubric
Category
1 – Below
Expectations
Opinion
statement has
no clear topic,
focus, or author
position. No
introduction
hook. Does not
grab audience’s
attention at the
beginning.
2 – Approaching
Expectations
Opinion
statement has a
clear topic but
focus and
author’s position
is not stated or
unclear. The
author has an
introduction
hook but it does
not connect to
opinion
statement.
Evidence
Evidence is not
relevant, not
present, and/or
not explained.
Audience
and
CounterArguments
Not clear who
the audience is.
Counterarguments are
not addressed.
Evidence is
present but is
not relevant or
connected to the
author’s
position. No
explanations on
why certain
evidence was
used.
Potential
audience is
understood.
Counterarguments have
been made but
show no
Introduction
and Opinion
Statement
3 – Meets
Expectations
The opinion
statement names
the topic and
focus but the
author’s position
is unclear. The
introduction has
a hook or
attention
grabber, but it is
weak or
inappropriate
for the audience,
shows little
connection to
the opinion
statement.
Evidence is
relevant to
author’s position
but is not
specific.
Explanations of
evidence is given
and supports
author’s position
4 – Exceeds
Expectations
The opinion
statement names
topic, focus, and
author’s position.
The introduction
has a strong hook
or attention
grabber that is
appropriate for the
audience and
connects to the
opinion statement.
Clear who the
audience is.
Counterarguments are
used and are
appropriate for
the intended
Clear who the
audience is.
Persuasive
language is used to
specifically target
that audience.
Counter-
Evidence is
relevant, specific,
and connected to
author’s positions.
Clear examples are
given to connect
evidence directly
to author’s
position.
Grammar
and
Mechanics
No use of
persuasive
language or
parallelism.
Contains many
spelling and
grammatical
errors.
connection to
the potential
audience.
audience.
Uses persuasive
language but no
clear use of
parallelism is
present. Some
spelling and
grammatical
errors.
Uses both
persuasive
language and
parallelism. Few
spelling or
grammatical
errors.
arguments are
appropriate for the
intended audience
and used to help
further support
the opinion
statement.
Uses persuasive
language and
parallelism to
create a balance
and rhythm to the
writing. None or
almost no spelling
or grammatical
errors.
How does this writing prompt map onto the unit goals?
This writing prompt is a culminating assignment for a unit on persuasive writing.
Throughout the unit students would have been exposed to different types of persuasive
writing and would have been working on how to identify opinions and positions. By doing
this writing prompt, students will be taking the strategies they have learned to identify
persuasive writing and using them to create their own positions and opinions. The prompt
is meant to give students the freedom to choose their own topic but focused on a schoolwide concern to help focus their attention on how editorials can be used to bring up
concerns and opinions. Students will be expected to use sentence patterns and persuasive
language covered in class in their writing thus giving them the chance to diversify their
own writing style.
Reference:
Smagorinsky, P. (2008). Teaching English by design. Heinemann; Portsmouth, NH.