When I Grow Up...

In my classroom right now, we are finishing up a persuasive writing unit before we dive into test prep.  Leading up to actually writing our own pieces, we spent a great deal of time actually studying the genre of persuasive writing.  We looked at examples...

 compared texts...

and learned about how the format is different is different from other genres.

Once we learned all about the genre of persuasive writing, I started the students with their first big piece.  There are a couple persuasive writing pieces that I do during this unit, but this first one has to be my favorite.  I read the students the book, How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky. (Such a cute book...doesn’t have to be just a holiday read!)

I challenge the students to persuade me of what job/career they should have.  When writing a persuasive piece, I require my students to give me at least three reasons to support their side or argument and at least two pieces of evidence to support each reason.  To help them complete this task, students complete an outline of sorts.

I then model for the students taking the piece from this outline, adding details, and building it into a writing piece.  Finally, we revise and edit our pieces and get ready to publish.

In past years, the students typed up their pieces, printed them out, and that was that.  This year, I found a little Pinterest inspiration from Alexandra Thiessen at The First Grade Sweet Life.  She had the cutest President’s Day persuasive writing piece that she did with her students last year.

Once I saw it, I knew I had to adapt this idea for my fourth graders!

I created some patterns for heads, arms, and hairstyles, but my students took the rest of it and ran!  (Luckily right now, I have student teacher who calls herself the human die-cut machine which helped a lot too!)  They turned out so cute!  Amazingly, they really look like them too!  Here are some of the cutest...

And here they are altogether...

Aren’t they adorable?

Do you like my persusive writing organizer?  You can find it in my Teacher's Notebook store!  Click on the link below...