Students should provide a clear topic, reasons, and opinion, well-supported according to their (writer's) purpose, supported by facts with linking words, and a conclusion tied back to the opinion stated. See Appendix C for student examples.
Students should provide a logical organizational structure to their opinion text to support the writer's purpose with logically ordered reasons, linking words/phrases or clauses (such as therefore), and a conclusion related to the opinion premise. See Appendix C in CCSS for student examples.
The advancement of writing to convince through the grades described above requires increasingly logical thinking explained with ever-growing support and in more elaborated ways (especially using more sophisticated language and vocabulary to explain key points and underlying reasons).
Finally, we believe it will be important to help students become and remain motivated to write and to value their written products, providing opportunities for writing for authentic or near-authentic purposes and, whenever possible, to a genuine audience. Writers who are able to select their own topics and premises are usually more motivated to create written argumentation pieces, so providing some student choice is an important motivational consideration. For example, students could create brochures about why it is important to wear safety helmets when riding bikes. This could be researched, contain facts, and represent ordered reasoning. Other examples of writing for a genuine audience might include developing advertisements (e.g., of a book fair), book reviews (e.g., why they liked a specific title), political cartoons, and responses to current events and happenings at school or in the community. Here's the link to a book review from an excellent source for writing examples (Write Source, n.d.). This particular one focuses on Gary Paulsen's book Hatchet, which is a favorite of many 4th-5th grade students.
Writing is Hard Work
Writing is a complex and demanding cognitive activity, one that requires thinking, planning, organizing, and reflecting. To write clearly, one must continually think and rethink, followed by revising and editing. Sometimes it is necessary for students to analyze their content and seek out a greater variety of sources to ensure that their written text is convincing and credible. They might need to revise their statements to make them more persuasive and compelling. All of this is best done in a highly supportive classroom context with established schedules and routines for writing. Richard Allington's comment rings true here as well (tweaked a bit for our purposes)---"If they don't write much, how they ever gonna get good?" (1977, p. 57). CCSS suggests at least some longer pieces of writing developed over sustained time rather than many short pieces of text; teachers will need to scaffold learners to build up their writing stamina gradually over time.
According to the most recent national evaluation of students' writing progress, many students reported that they experienced difficulty in learning to write. Approx-
imately three out of four (74%) only
achieve partial mastery of the writing
skills called for at their grade level
(National Center for Education Sta-
tistics, 2012). While writing is a diffi-
cult cognitive task, it can be taught and developed in a supportive environment
where teachers provide regular targeted instruction and time to write. We agree with Steven Graham, who has suggested that "to meet.....the goals [established by the CCSS for writing], many teachers and schools [will] need to place much greater emphasis on teaching students to produce well-designed persuasive [argumentation] text" (2013, p. 89, emphasis added).
4th
5th
".....motivated
when provided opportunities for writing for authentic purposes and to a genuine audience."
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