Persuasion

I finally, finally, FINALLY, scaffolded a lesson properly. Took me long enough.

We write a lot of persuasive essays in my district: a lot. And students have a really tough time figuring out how to persuade anyone. They don't quite understand evidence and they certainly don't get the whole "counterargument" thing. So I finally designed a lesson that was a scaffold, that used writing to build speaking AND speaking to build writing (a biggie in the ELL circles), accessed kinesthetic learning, and had a modicum of fun to it!

I designed sentence frames for them (another ELL plus). I agree/disagree because... My evidence is... My opponents might argue that... but they are wrong because... Then I wrote some provocative topics. OK, so the first one was practice: Michael Jackson is the greatest pop star ever. But also: our school should provide free daycare for students who have children and our school should require that all students wear uniforms.

It worked best in my 3rd block. Partly, they are a good group, partly I learned from the first two how to not do it. Do not have them write, debate, and then write on the next topic. Instead, have them write about all the topics, then run all the debates at once. Then, they stop at the end and fill in more evidence on their graphic organizers. This way, students who don't have evidence can take evidence from classmates. Those who don't have a counterargument can use the arguments that their opponents DID use.

They will (on Monday), choose one of the topics (or one of their own -- it's summer, I can give them choice) and write the essay. By now, they have already done the prewriting and have the arguments. Talk about scaffolding. It's brilliant!

It wasn't perfect because I don't have these kids long enough to really develop the routines so that they listen and all that, but it still felt really good. I know this is nothing new and teachers have been doing it for ages, but it just takes time to step outside of the "read this and write" framework. I plan on really developing this next year.

On their way out the door, 3rd block thought it was the best class of the summer and really wanted to do more debtates. They told me it was great and fun. That felt good, too.