Library of Congress
Loc: The Bill of Rights: Debating the Amendments
Help students grasp the idea of making amendments with this lesson on the debates of the amendments to the US Constitution. Use primary sources to have the students choose their own amendments, give them opportunity to analyze the...
Utah Education Network
Uen: 5th Grade Opinion Writing Prompt
In this instructional activity, 5th graders are asked to write an opinion about whether the United States should stop using pennies. Their opinion must be based on ideas and information from the two reading passages provided.
Teachnology
Teachnology: Lesson Plan: Buy Me!
This third-fifth grade lesson focuses on students choosing a product to sell, determining their target audience, and creating a PowerPoint presentation to sell their product.
Council for Economic Education
Econ Ed Link: Buy a Bond, James: A Lesson on Us Savings Bonds
This site is extremely informative for teaching children the value of saving money. "You will write a persuasive letter telling why people use savings bonds as a way to save their money."
TES Global
Blendspace: Argument Writing: Homework
A learning module with links to eight websites to use while writing an argumentative essay on how beneficial homework is.
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Creating a Persuasive Podcast
This lesson unit has students research a local, state, national, or international issue of personal interest and create and share a two-minute persuasive podcast presenting their research-based opinions on the topic. It includes tools...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Copyright Infringement or Not? The Debate Over Downloading Music
Contains plans for ten 50-minute lessons that use the issue of downloading music as the topic for persuasive debates. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to PDF handouts and sites used in the...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Developing, Writing, and Evaluating Persuasive Speeches
Contains plans for four lessons that teach students how to make and present strong persuasive speeches. In addition to objectives and standards, this instructional plan contains links to sites used in the lessons as well as assessment...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Voice Building Poetry Lesson: Comparison & Contrast Poems
In this lesson, students examine multiple mentor texts to help drive them toward the final persuasive writing assignment: comparison and contrast poems written from a parent and a child's perspective. A short story, two poems, and a song...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Combining Persuasion and Literary Analysis
Contains plans for eight lessons that ask students to put characters from a work of literature on trial. This lesson uses Shakespeare's "The Tempest" as an example, but this concept can be applied to other works as well. In addition to...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Guilty or Innocent
A writing lesson using the R.A.F.T. model and the short story "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst. Students take on the role of attorneys and write persuasive speeches for the jury proclaiming the narrator's guilt or innocence.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Creative Convincing
In this lesson, students will create a friendly letter taking on the persona and voice of a persuasive animal.
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: Selling Our Nation's Symbols on Ebay!
Students will write for a specific purpose in this cross-curricular instructional activity regarding our nation's landmarks and symbols.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Introducing the Essay: Twain, Douglass and American Non Fiction
This lesson plan serves as an introduction to American literary non-fiction writing and focuses primarily on teaching some basic approaches to recognizing rhetorical strategies adopted for persuasive effect in essays and non-fiction. The...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Analysis of Relative Values of Specific Data, Facts, and Ideas
[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] This lesson focuses on analyzing and evaluating the value of the sources used for evidence in a research project.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Generate Ideas and Questions
This lesson focuses on the writing in high school. Whether you write expository and persuasive essays or short stories, your first steps are to determine and define your audience. After that, you will begin to generate ideas and...
Writing Fix
Writing Fix: I Wanna What?
This lesson is centered on word choice and vocabulary and the book, I Wanna Iguana, by Karen Kaufman Orloff. Young students learn to grasp the difference between begging and persuading and apply this knowledge to their own persuasive texts.
PBS
Pbs: Empire of the Air: Power and Impact of Radio
Students will listen to historic news events as broadcast on radio, view current news coverage on television, and compare and contrast how those events were reported on both media by developing an essay which addresses the question "Is...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: American Lit and Comp: Rationalism:thomas Jefferson
This lesson focuses on the historical background of Thomas Jefferson including his writings and his political career. It also provides a link to "Declaration of Independence" and the "Discovery Education Video: Thomas Jefferson."...
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Generate Ideas and Questions
This lesson will focus on the writing you do in high school. Whether you write expository and persuasive essays or short stories, your first steps are to determine and define your audience. After that, you will begin to generate ideas...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Great Depression and the 1990s
This site includes a unit about the Great Depression. Students will create a creative writing based on Dorothea Lange's 1936 "Migrant Mother" photograph. They will also write a position paper on the United States' current welfare issue....
Cynthia J. O'Hora
Mrs. O's House: Gas and Diesel Taxes
Students will evaluate whether federal tax on gas and diesel fuels should stay the same or increase based on data researched and write persuasive letters to their local papers and legislators urging them to take their stance.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Argument Papers
A series of six screencast lessons explaining the process of argumentative writing. The first [4 min. 22 sec.] focuses on overall structure and purpose. The second [6 mins, 18 secs] explains how to state a claim. The third [6 min. 3...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Supporting Details: Statistics
This lesson focuses on using statistics as supporting details. It explains why statistics make powerful supporting details, however, these can be skewed to show different outcomes. It suggests looking carefully when using statistics to...