ENTRY #10

While reading through my followers' blogs, I couldn't help but notice Marsha's entry regarding persuasive writing, since she was my genre group member and we both learned so much about persuasive writing together.  Marsha discussed the important realization that many authors write persuasive genre texts at the primary and middle levels, instead of the upper level where persuasive writing is actually taught.  When doing research for my genre presentation, I too found this to be the case, where many upper level books were either nonexistent in the persuasive genre or were not nearly as helpful as the books written at the primary and middle levels.

The persuasive genre is difficult to teach for many reasons.  For one, students developmentally do not have a heightened awareness of others' perspectives and therefore have difficulty writing a piece according to the audience's reaction.  Yes, students can be taught the importance of having an opinion or can learn how to express why they believe what they do, but is this enough for truly effective persuasive writing? As a beginning stage, sure.  But to completely undertake the persuasive genre to its full potential would require students to write through a completely different perspective, which in my opinion, takes practice.

From an early stage, teachers can use texts to help students better understand the concept of persuasion, no matter the age of the students.  Using P and M level texts, even with older students, is beneficial by helping students learn to hold a position and use strategy to convince others of their position.  However, putting this into writing is much more complex.  Students must learn to understand the perspective of the audience they are writing to, and tailor their language accordingly.  Teachers should work to help students think, talk, brainstorm, read, and write from different perspectives as often as possible, not just to help students become better at persuasive writing from an earlier age, but simply because those skills are good to have in general.  Doing these things though, often causes adults to feel uncomfortable and pushed outside of their comfort zones, let alone students who are not used to it.  It is a very arduous task for students to cognitively grasp let alone apply in practice.  As a teacher, it is important to help students understand difficult concepts until they are independent in practice, and using texts to help support students' understanding is just one tool. 

ENTRY 7

While learning about persuasive writing for my "Teaching the Genre" project, I have found that many educators are anxious about incorporating persuasive writing into their curriculum.  However, even though it is often difficult for students or takes extra effort to plan for, persuasive writing is extremely important in the development of students' writing skills.  Tompkins (2012) answered teachers' questions and concerns regarding persuasive writing and the ages and content areas in which it could be used; these responses helped me feel more comfortable with persuasive writing and reflect on its future role in my classroom. 

One of the major concerns teachers have is the age in which students are able to be successful in writing persuasively.  It is a common misconception to believe elementary students are too young to hold and defend a position.  Burkhalter (1995) wrote about using persuasive writing with children and gave three specific reasons why it is so difficult; children have a hard time taking a stand on and issue and defending it with sound and convincing reasons, children must learn to write and think in a much different and more organized fashion than their typical speaking-based writing, and children must take on the highly demanding role of understanding the perspective of the reader, which is hard for writers of any age.  Burkhalter (1995) also discusses the differences between Piaget and Vygotsky's theories regarding development and persuasive writing.  Piaget's beliefs state children are incapable of higher level thinking until puberty, whereas Vygotsky's beliefs state children's learning precedes their development and are therefore cabable of such thought processes as early as they are taught.  The author writes "if children are given the chance to read and write persuasive essays, they may very well advance beyond our expectations and set the stage for subsequent gains in learning" (Burkhalter, 1995, p. 193), which I completely agree with.  All too often, teachers underestimate their students' abilities, which in turn, doesn't allow them to reach their potential.  Students need to be given opportunities in which push them outside of their comfort zone and challenge them to work harder and think deeper.  By teaching my students to write persuasively, for example, I will help them to work within their zone of proximal development and achieve more than they would otherwise.  First graders obviously won't be writing persuasive speeches on social issues like middle and high schoolers may be, but they certainly could be writing letters to their parents persuading them to go on vacation or drawing a persuasive poster for a favorite kind of ice cream. 

One of the other concerns Tomkins (2012) acknowledged was teachers thinking persuasive writing is not applicable across all content areas.  It seems easiest to incorporate persuasive assignments in ELA to adapt to book projects, etc.  However, I think it would be fun and still very easy to use persuasive writing in all subjects I teach; students could write persuasive essays about social issues in science, persuasive posters about being drug free in health, or persuasive letters about political issues in history.  The possibilities are endless and by incorporating this type of creative writing across all content areas, students would be stretching their imagination to take a stance on new and important issues, which they may not do otherwise.  My goal is to use persuasive writing practices in my future classroom no matter what age my students are and throughout all the classes I teach.  By doing so, I will know I'm helping my students take a stand on many topics and have opinions, consider others' viewpoints, and write and think on a much deeper level than other teachers who don't incorporate this writing genre into their curriculum.  Outside of writing, teaching persuasion will help my students of all ages to be better speakers, have higher levels of vocabulary, question others' ideas as well as their own, and to become passionate about all things, writing included.  I look forward to making this kind of difference in my students' lives.