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Twisting Arms: Teaching Students How to Write to Persuade PDF

95 Pages·2005·0.59 MB·English
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Twisting Arms Teaching Students How to Write to Persuade Dawn DiPrince Cottonwood Press, Inc Fort Collins, Colorado Copyright © 2005 by Cottonwood Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce activities in this book in other than electronic form, for the purchaser’s own personal use in the classroom, provided that the copy- right notice appears on each reproduction. Otherwise, no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Cottonwood Press, Inc. Requests for permission should be addressed to: Cottonwood Press, Inc. 109-B Cameron Drive Fort Collins, Colorado 80525 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.cottonwoodpress.com Phone: 1-800-864-4297 Fax: 970-204-0761 Print ISBN 978-1-877673-65-8 E-book ISBN 978-1-936162-00-0 Cover design by Chris Gregori Printed in the United States of America Twisting Arms of Table Contents Using this Book 5 Writing to Persuade—An Introduction 7 What Is Persuasive Writing? 9 Point of View 10 The Dead Greeks 11 Fact vs. Opinion 13 Propaganda Techniques 15 War Propaganda 17 New Propaganda 18 Art and Persuasion 20 The Basics—Learning About Arguments 21 Declaring Yourself 23 Active Persuasion 25 Because I Said So… 27 Defending the Ridiculous 29 Practice Developing a Thesis Statement (Teacher Instructions) 30 Practice Developing a Thesis Statement (Student Instructions) 31 Question List #1 32 Question List #2 33 Question List #3 34 The Groundwork—Writing Your Own Persuasive Paper 35 The Groundwork 37 Choosing a Topic 38 Webbing 40 Writing a Thesis Statement 41 The Skeleton 42 Doing the Research—Collecting Information for Your Persuasive Paper 45 Finding Evidence 47 Researching and Organizing 48 Taking Notes 50 Interviewing 52 Common Sense Ways to Battle Plagiarism 55 Plagiarism Quiz 56 Citing Sources 57 How to Cite Sources 58 Tips for Writing the Body—Arguing a Point Effectively 59 Think Elbows! 61 Connecting Paragraphs 63 Synthesizing Information 64 Ethos, Pathos & Logos 65 Effective Evidence 67 For and Against 68 The Rebuttal 69 I Feel Wishy-Washy 70 Kind of…Sort of 71 Writing an Introduction and a Conclusion—Ideas for Beginnings and Endings 73 Starting Steps for an Introduction 75 Putting It Together, Version #1 78 Putting It Together, Version #2 79 The Conclusion Formula 80 Answer Keys 83 About the Author 93 this Using Book While teenage students often appear aloof and apathetic, that appearance is, for the most part, only a facade. Adolescents are anything but apathetic. They run hot and cold. They love things or hate them. They are for things or against them. Often, there are no in-betweens. While teenagers are often inappropriately dogmatic, teaching them the art of persuasion can help them channel their hidden passions and absolute opinions more constructively. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that persuasive writing is a cure for adolescent angst. Per- suasive writing can, however, give teenage students something positive to do with their over- flowing opinions about the world. Learning the art of persuasion has never been more important. Everywhere we turn in modern society, from political pundits to marketing schemes, we are bombarded with persua- sive tactics. Today’s students need to learn the art of persuasion both to use it themselves and to deal with it in their everyday lives. Twisting Arms is full of easy-to-use activities that will sharpen writing and persuasion skills. It also includes helpful information on conducting research, avoiding plagiarism, rebutting arguments, and more. Best of all, Twisting Arms helps students start with a topic they are already passionate about and funnel their opinions into an organized and persuasive paper. While this book covers a lot of information, it is designed so that teachers can pick and choose the activities best suited for their classrooms. Use the book as an integral part of a large persuasive writing unit, or choose various activities throughout the year to focus on different skills. Even though the art of persuasion is thousands of years old, teaching persuasive writing can still be fresh and alive. I hope you find the activities, ideas and tools in Twisting Arms use- ful in your classroom. More important, I hope that your students enjoy and learn from the experience of becoming persuasive writers. Dawn DiPrince Twisting Arms• Copyright © 2005 Cottonwood Press, Inc. • 800-864-4297 • www.cottonwoodpress.com 5 Writing to Persuade An Introduction The activities that follow are designed to serve as an introduction to persuasive writing. They provide background and allow students to learn about and practice some important principles of persuasive writing before they actually attempt to write a persuasive paper or essay them- selves. This section also includes information about many of the propaganda techniques that are commonly used for persuasive purposes. Student Instructions Is What Persuasive Writing? Persuasion takes many forms. It is everywhere in our daily lives, from commercials to bill- boards to cartoons to newspaper stories. Often, it is used in writing. What is persuasive writing, exactly? It is any type of writing that attempts to persuade us to adopt a point of view, agree with an opinion, take an action, form a belief, etc. It is any type of writing that involves an argument. For the next few days, pay attention to the forms of persuasion that surround us. Find three examples of arguments and bring them to class. Choose from the following: • A letter to the editor • An editorial • A cartoon • An advertisement • A newspaper article • A written description of a radio or television commercial • A written description of an argument you heard in a discussion or a lecture • Any other example of material that contains an argument Follow-up For each of the three examples you found, answer the following questions: 1. What is the issue? 2. What is the argument or point that the piece is trying to make? 3. Does the piece make effective arguments? Is it convincing? 4. What would you change to make the argument or arguments more effective? Twisting Arms• Copyright © 2005 Cottonwood Press, Inc. • 800-864-4297 • www.cottonwoodpress.com 9

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Take your students step-by-step through the process of writing a persuasive paper using the easy-to-use, easy-to-understand lessons in Twisting Arms. The book also includes helpful information on conducting research, avoiding plagiarism, rebutting arguments, and more. Best of all, Twisting Arms help
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.