Persuasive Writing Essays

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I really love teaching writing and seeing how the students grow throughout the year. For our last genre, the students have been introduced to persuasive writing using researching to strengthen their arguments. The first guided lessons were from Lucy Calkins using the "Should chocolate milk be served in schools?" argument. When I grabbed the book I was amazed at the topic because it fits perfectly with our current unit of inquiry, health and wellness.

The kids took the concepts and ran with them using the research skills that they learned during the 1000 word exhibition research report the completed. The essays were really good and the students really included some great facts about nutrition and made wonderful connections to what we have been exploring in class.

Next, students got to choose their own persuasive research question and write an essay based on their interest. A few students knew just what they wanted to research, but others needed some guidance, so with a quick google search, we had 101+ persuasive essay topics. Check out the sites we found!

101 Persuasive EssayTopics
100 Persuasive Essay Topics

Then, once the kids were set with their questions, they began researching and found some great sites for conducting research on a variety of topics. Check those out below too!

procon.org- The Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues
debate.org

Hope this gets your kids brains flowing and helps you teach persuasive writing essays in your class!