My 2nd graders have been learning about persuasive writing and about letter writing. They have gotten the opportunity to write letters to the other student teacher in Mrs. Clark's classroom while her dad was in the hospital. They also wrote persuasive letters to their parents trying to convince them of something fun they should get to do over spring break. They seem to really enjoy writing in letter form, and I have seen them grow as persuasive writers. It is interesting to see the many tactics that they use to convince their audience. They seem to realaly understand and fully grasp what it means to persuade and have gotten many opportunities to practice being persuasive with real topics that they care about. They have also successfully learned the mechanics of letter writing through this in depth study. I think that this has been a great unit of study as it talks about in chapter 12 of the book., They get to do a lot of self selected writing while still learning major components of what good, effective writing is.
When I taught my science unit last week I had the students integrate their science knowledge and persuasive writing skills. The science unit was about temperature. The students were given the opportunity to make up a place, temperature for that place, clothing they would wear and activities that could be done there. After they had the opportunity to brainstorm those different components they then wrote a persuasive advertisement for that location. They were given the option of trying to persuade someone to come to their location. I think that they really enjoyed getting to be creative, use their science knowledge, and use their persuasive writing skills. They are almost finished with this project, and I can't wait to see how they all turn out.
My class loves to write and it's cool to see their creative ideas come to life on paper! I can't wait to continue to see them grow as writers throughout the rest of the semester! I think their teacher does a great job teaching writing and that writing is a really big focus in their classroom. It makes a difference!
It makes me happy to hear that 2nd graders seem to grasp persuasive. In some ways it is considered the most sophisticated, but in other ways it it pretty natural for us to want to convince others to think/do things differently. I hope you'll share some of their final papers if you can - take a photo of a couple!
ReplyDeleteA teacher who is excited and knowledgeable about writing makes a huge difference. I'm glad you see that (and will be that!)