Teaching Outstanding Persuasive Writing: (with 7-16 Year Olds)

Alan Peat's latest book is a must-have for the busy teacher. Packed full of tried-and-tested, effective strategies for teaching persuasive texts, the book is divided into four sections: 1. Structural models that really work! 2. Thirteen easy-to-teach opening strategies. 3. Thirteen high-impact language techniques. 4. Four clearly described endings. The book also includes seven photocopiable language-support sheets for pupils. In short, a wealth of brand-new ideas guaranteed to enrich both teachers' and pupils' understanding of persuasive writing.

About the Author :
Alan Peat is an author and Independent Literacy Consultant. His unique INSET, conference and school based training provides teachers and school leaders with practical, effective and enjoyable strategies for raising pupil achievement in both writing and reading. His inspiring approach to practical pedagogy, which has been used to effect in 22 countries, draws on experience gained as a primary school teacher, LEA Advisor and author of numerous books, including the popular series IMPROVING LITERACY / CREATIVE APPROACHES (Nash Pollock Publishing) and a range of titles published by Creative Educational Press Ltd.

Review :
I particularly liked the opening strategies - so simple but so easy to follow and easy for the children to remember too. The clear favourites were: Them and us openings, They say 3- we say 1, Yoked Openers and Positive/negative openers. They really gave a maturity to their writing and the children felt an instant sense of pride. We then combined these with the language techniques of: Yoked sentences, Do we want..? No/yes?, Do not want to (x3) - only want to (x1), Time running out and a firm favourite was Adverbs of manner A-Z. Armed with these tools alone, the children felt confident to approach and tackle a persuasive piece. All of the closing strategies were useful but the final page became a great check-back and guide for the children on the classroom working wall. It gave great structure to build upon and the language opening/closing strategies enabled the children to make their writing really meaty and much improved from their usual standard. I loved it. Angela Lowry In class we used the 'Aristotelian model' to structure our persuasive writing. The children found this very easy to follow; they also liked the diamond shape which helped secure this as a visual model in their heads. We were able to differentiate the language techniques and features across our wide ability groups, and they were able to understand and apply them to their own work. One of the most useful features for the lower ability groups was the rhetorical question. We also differentiated the type of openings that we gave to each ability group, we found that our lower ability pupils were successful in writing a negative/positive opener, and our more able pupils used the multi sensory approach. On the whole your resource enabled us to teach 'persuasive writing' in a much more structured way, allowing us to take time to focus on individual techniques and strategies. Sarah Roberts