Persuasive Writing

When trying to write to persuade someone or to build an argument, it is really hard to write down your reasoning in a way that makes sense. I mean, that can be hard to do as an adult, let alone in middle school!

When I sit down and talk to my students, it is so easy for them to tell me what they are thinking (HAHA) because let's face it, they all have opinions! But this doesn't always come off in their writing.

So, I got to thinking. They have so much good stuff to say, maybe what is getting them is how to organize their thoughts into writing....

Generally at the middle school level we expect the students to have 3 reasons to support their opinion and we want evidence to back up that opinion.

Common Core Standards even state even in third grade, students should be able to write with reasoning to support their opinion/argument/persuasive piece. Not only that, but they should be able to develop those reasons with FACTS, DEFINITIONS, and DETAILS.

After third grade, they should be able to develop their reasoning with facts, definitions, details, QUOTATIONS, or other examples related to the text.

After looking and looking I couldn't find anything that I thought would really help the kids organize what they had to say and ensure they had reasoning to back up their arguments so I created this guy

This is PERFECT for the brainstorm process of writing a persuasive/argumentative piece of writing because......

1. It gives students a place to write down their argument, which helps them stay focused during their planing. 

2. It gives students 3 places to provide reasoning for their argument or persuasion. Each of those sections should become their own paragraph if they are writing at least 5 paragraph essays. 

3. It gives students lines to provide reasoning for their argument. This is where they should use textual evidence. This could be paraphrasing or it could be direct quotes. Such an advanced, yet required, skill in middle school! 

If you would like to download this organizer, click HERE!