Persuasive Essay Writing Unit Rational

I created this persuasive essay writing unit (lessons 2-8) after having a discussion with a
group of the students in the class about their future plans. So many of them have dreams of
going to college and having an important job in society after graduation that it made me think
about the type of skills students need to become a college student. I had learned through
talking with my cooperating teacher that she felt constantly challenged to engage the students
in the writing process this year and was satisfied with having the students do any writing they
choose to do throughout the school day. I read through several writing samples that were
displayed in the classroom and found that the majority of the students were consistently using
a very basic, single paragraph, repeated word structures, and slang language, in their formal
writing assignments. All of these components, along with reviewing the Common Core
Standards for writing in fourth grade, brought me to the idea of introducing the idea of essay
writing to the class. This was a topic my cooperating teacher had not planned on addressing
during the school year but it is something I felt would be needed to help expand the students
writing development foundation as they prepare to move towards the middle school and high
school writing expectations. According to the fourth grade Common Core Writing and Language
Standards it is developmentally appropriate for this level of students to begin writing opinion
pieces supported by evidence along with the need for students to demonstrate their
understanding and proper usage of Standard English grammar and usage. Additionally the
Common Core stresses the importance of students developing non-fiction writing which will
also be supported in this unit. Essay writing is a bigger topic so I knew going into preparing the
lessons that this would become a bigger unit, not just a few consecutive lessons.

In creating this unit I began by planning the final assessment piece that I would be
asking the students to complete. This was to be a persuasive essay writing task that included a
research component for the topic they were to be writing about that is tied to the social studies
component of Wisconsin tourism. To assess this piece of writing I would be using a rubric that
would look at the organization of the essay, the main idea statement with supporting reasons,
evidence to back up the given reasons, authors voice, and conventions. To help the students
prepare for this writing task I looked at all of the aspects that go into essay writing and
consulted the Lucy Calkins essay writing guides to develop an approach that introduced this
type of writing to them in the most logical breakdown. This would also allow me to informally
assess each aspect of the essay writing process, including organization, main idea/opinion
statement, evidence, voice, and conventions, before having the students complete their final
piece. My assessments include having the students write two essays, one flash draft essay
outlined as a class at the beginning of the unit and an essay on a topic of their own choosing
midway through the unit. In addition I will use informal observations throughout each lesson to
check for student understanding individually and as a whole on each individual concept that is
being presented. This information will help me to prepare future support for individual students
or groups of students.
The progression of lessons will begin with introducing the Boxes & Bullets format for
organizing an essay in which we will focus on developing a main idea with supporting reasons
and detailed evidence in an essay. Following this we will explore the idea of how to choose a
topic for an essay and the importance of knowing a lot about a topic to be able to add detailed
evidence to the writing. We will then review the students understanding of introduction and
conclusion and the key aspects that should be included in each of these components. Students
will then complete an essay on a topic of their own choosing to better expand my
understanding of their baseline development. We will then move into introducing the final
project for the unit and have students begin to explore and research a Wisconsin tourist
attraction of their choosing. Here we will focus on collecting appropriate evidence that will best
support the students writing. As students complete their research we will expand the Boxes &
Bullets organization to OREO Boxes & Bullets and begin outlining the final essays. We will then
revisit the students previous knowledge of persuasive writing and being working on the first
draft of the final essay. Our final focus in this unit will be developing an understanding of the
importance of the revising and editing process both with peers and individually.
This series of lessons will be presented each week over the course of seven weeks. Each
lesson will be approximately 60 minutes in length, beginning with a mini-lesson and followed by
independent work time in which I will hold individual conferences or small group meetings to
support the needs of the learners in the room. Students will be expected to expand their
understanding of non-fiction writing so that they can create a persuasive essay, including an
introduction, body with supporting evidence, and conclusion about a selected Wisconsin tourist
attraction.