River Model-First Try at a Persuasive Writing

On Wednesday, Marie and I were all set to have the children compose a persuasive piece to be edited and used in a "brochure". This would give the students the experience/practice of using what they have learned about Main Idea and details as they write in a persuasive style, which they hadn't yet done. We talked about who their 'audience' would be (people that would come to visit the river) and the purpose of the writing (to convince those people to visit their river). We had a four-square with the general topics already put in to hand out to the kids. We had decided to use this opportunity to have the kids show what they understood about landforms (the first square); the source (the second square); and the mouth (the third square); as they tried to persuade people to visit their river.

As the lesson progressed, we could see that merging the idea of a persuasive piece with and informational piece (the landforms, the source, the mouth) was confusing for the students, and their writing was not focused. This was certainly a moment to reflect for me as a teacher! The students struggled through trying to include information as they tried to persuade, and the writing pieces needed so much support that I decided to simply use it as writing practice, and to start from scratch on Friday with a more defined writing task.

On Friday, before Marie arrived, I introduced a graphic organizer that was specific to a Persuasive Writing. I modeled the purpose of a persuasive (in this case a brochure) and filled in a large graphic organizer that had 3 Main Reasons, each branching off into 2 details. We decided on the 3 main reasons someone should visit the river would be 1) what you can do there 2) what you can see there and 3) how easy it is to get there. I used the kids ideas to fill in the 2 details for each of these Main Ideas, and reiterated the fact that the conclusion would restate the main purpose-Visit My River.

I then modeled writing each main idea as the beginning of each paragraph as a full sentence, and then added each detail as full sentences. I reminded them to add even more details, if they thought they could. I gave another mini-lesson on using a Thesaurus to find better (expensive) word choices to make their writing more interesting to the reader. I then handed out the blank version of the graphic organizer I had used on the board.

Now the students had 2 tasks to focus on, the persuasive writing and using better word choices. The persuasive writing and the searching for better word choices had also both been modeled. Now, the task began to move smoothly! By the time Marie arrived, most of the students were done the graphic organizer and ready to begin the writing. Marie explained how they would make the brochure, and noted the visual elements that would draw "potential visitors" to take a brochure and then perhaps decide to visit the river. She explained how just as the writing was important, so was the decorative aspects of the brochure. She encouraged them to look closely at their writing to choose what to decorate the brochure with (we were using lots of stamps of Naure); again connecting the art to the writing.

Danielle is ready to put her text and picture into her brochure cover

The lesson went smoothly, as each child finished their rough draft, they came to me for editing and then to Marie to embellish the brochure. As in all writing tasks, each child moved at their own pace and the classroom was full of children at different steps of productivity! The writing in the brochures was now more focused and lots of students actually used the thesaurus to change particular words!

Note: I should mention at this point that this particular group of third graders came in September as Basic and Below Basic Readers and Writers, and 1/3 of the class have IEP's that entitle them to extra support from a Resource Room Teacher. Math is also challenge for them. I have adjusted my teaching style since September to accomodate the types of learners in this classroom, we move steadily and methodically, with lots of visual prompts and reminders.