• Keyboarding

Teacher selected articles and/or other research materials.

Activity 1

• Begin by reviewing the parts required in an opinion piece or argument, depending on the grade level on your students and the required standards.

• Provide students with a prompt for their opinion pieces as well as related research materials.

• Allow students appropriate time to review the materials and determine their opinion on the topic at hand.

• Then, direct students to the Interactive Persuasion Map Organizer.

Using their keyboarding skills, students will complete a mapping activity in which they organize an introduction, reasons, evidence, and a conclusion.

Allow students multiple class periods if necessary. Note that it is possible for students to save their work if need be. They can download a file and upload it again during future work sessions.

When students are finished, have them print their organizers to aid them in writing their opinion pieces or arguments.

Activity 2

Using the tools you have available, students will write an opinion piece or argument.

• Now that students have finished prewriting, assign students the specific manner in which you would like them to complete their opinion pieces or arguments.

  Assign the writing piece in Google Classroom by creating a blank template to share with students.

  Ask students to create a Google Doc on their own.

  Ask students to use other word processing options, such as Microsoft Word.

• Allow students 1-3 class periods to use their pre-writing activities to aid them in writing their rough drafts.

• Depending on the time you have available, you may wish to allow students to peer edit. Encourage students to share their pre-writing activities with their partners. This will help ensure students are using their pre-writing activities to help them organize their writing and have sufficient reasons and evidence to support their opinions and/or claims.

  If you are able to use Google Docs, consider allowing students share their documents with a partner.

  Students can use the built in highlighter and comment tools in the Google Doc to highlight sections and leave comments for each other.

  Alternately, most word processing programs have a built in commenting tool, if you are unable to use Google Docs. These documents can be shared via email.

• Allow students time to make improvements before turning in their writing pieces.

• Students can print or digitally turn in their writing pieces, such as through Google Classroom.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1
Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.1
Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.1
Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.1
Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.1
Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

Newsela and Actively Learn are digital resources that allow teachers to assign reading material to students. These sites may have relevant articles to use in opinion/argument writing.