Entry #9- Exploring Persuasive Writing Genre

The past couple weeks have been a very interesting "journey" if you will. I have been exploring the persuasive genre with my group for my "Teaching the Genre" Expert Group Presentation. I have found myself very interested and engaged in this process because I was able to explore this "mystery" genre that I did not know much about prior to my research and presentation. 

One of the things I found most interesting about this project was the peer-reviewed article I found on persuasive writing. The article was called, Already Experts: Showing Students How much They Know about Writing and Reading Arguments by Angela Petit and Edna Soto (2002). This article was interesting to me because the authors utilized an argument workshop to help their students inductively understand the concept that arguing and persuasion are innate. These authors' perceptions of classroom textbooks were that they did not help convey the concept of argument and persuasion sufficiently for their students' understanding, specifically when students were learning how to write in the persuasive genre. Therefore, the teachers in this class felt their students would be able to understand the persuasive genre by linking arguments to readings on current, controversial topics the students would have experience with inside and outside of their school environments (Petit & Soto, 2002).

The teachers decided to have the class divide into groups, or teams, to come up with an argument as to why they would earn the prize of a box of cookies. The students were expected to come up with a good argument with valid reasons as to why the teachers should reward them with the cookies. The students were encouraged to come up with creative, serious or playful, real or invented arguments as to why they deserved the box of cookies. This class in particular came up with such a variety of responses that truly helped the students dig deeper into understanding the element of persuasion through a class "game", yet it was not until after that the students were able to discover that they were able to draw from a repertoire of persuasive strategies that would help them convey an argument using pathos, ethos, or logos strategies (Petit & Soto, 2002).

I found this article helpful because it was interesting to see how these teachers used an actual classroom activity to help their students understand how they can argue "naturally", and later convey this into an organized writing. I learned that students often struggle to write persuasively, so it is important that teachers support their students through leveled scaffolding techniques to help their students learn how to organize their persuasive writing pieces with valid positions, reasons, and conclusions (Tompkins, 2012).  Tompkins (2012) found that younger children have difficulties writing persuasively because they tend to be very egocentric. Therefore,  this results in them failing to look outside of the box to consider others' viewpoints on certain issues or topics. 

Learning about the persuasive genre has helped me to understand the difficulties students may come across when learning about this genre. It has also opened a window into helping me understand what types of activities I could use in my classroom to help students develop persuasive writing skills. Organization is clearly important when teaching students to write persuasively. 

I was proud of my Expert Group presentation because I felt we revealed a wide range of information to the class about persuasion and the various forms of propaganda, such as bandwagon or glittering generalities. I was happy to apply something I learned from one of the peer-reviewed readings and utilize it in a classroom to see how it could be helpful and engaging with students in a classroom, whether they are younger or college-aged students. 

I could see myself using persuasive writing with my students across various content areas, such as history. If I was encouraging my students to create a new rule for the classroom, or write a letter to the principal about an issue of concern in the school, they would enhance their writing skills on writing persuasively, to influence someone else about their rights, opinions, or argument for or against issues. 

I also enjoyed  getting to explore other texts to put myself in the role of a younger student who would need to discover the persuasive issue in a persuasive genre-text. When I read Chris Van Allsburg's The Wretched Stone, I was not able to easily identify how this book was part of the persuasive genre as suggested by Tompkins. However, I read it over again and realized what the mystical part of the text was, and it would be up to the reader to validate whether the "mysterious stone" that was picked up by one of the crew members had to do with the wild behaviors amongst the crew of the ship. The thought process was put into the reader's mind to decide and argue for or against the topic of this text. I have enjoyed other peers' presentations on the different genres presented in class so far- descriptive and biographical. It is very interesting to see how some of the ideas from our texts can get implemented in a classroom such as ours. 

I hope to continue to learn more about the other genres in this book (Tompkins) and how we can implement different teaching techniques and strategies amongst our students from a variety of ages.

Entry #8: Bless, Address, or Press: My Expanded Thoughts on Other Peers' Responses

There are a lot of people from this class that have contributed many invigorating, thoughtful, highly engaging thoughts in their writing blogs. First, I would like to take a moment to bless Krista's blog, particularly entry #7. Krista mentions the importance of bringing informational text in the classroom and how teacher really should emphasize and incorporate more of these types of texts in their classrooms. I would agree with the importance of this because not only can students build their vocabulary pertaining to a specific subject matter, but they increase their knowledge range among a variety of topics.

Krista also mentions about an article she read on the importance of teachers teaching effective comprehension strategies to students (Dymock, 2005). For instance, students need to understand the different text structures features in expository text. This makes me think about the other day when I was working with my third grade student in the literacy clinic. We are learning about Komodo dragons, and we have different expository texts from the library to help research and gather the information for our project at the end of the semester. This was one of the first times I had read an expository to my student this semester, so I wanted to make sure he understood the purpose of the table of contents, the index, and the captions featured on certain pages highlighting specific information about the subject. Although my student was familiar with this book, I was surprised to find he did not understand the purpose of the index. It was a positive moment to learn I had taught him something new about the specific words within the index and that the numbers presented would represent the page the student could find key words or specific subject matter. 

I also wanted to take a moment to bless Kristine C's comments in her March 5th entry. She really opened up about a frustrating experience with a professor in her undergraduate program explaining her experiences with a professor who frequently provided negative feedback that seemed very discouraging for most assignments she had due. She mentioned that any thoughts or ideas she had were "challenged" and "never seemed to be what the professor was looking for". In many ways I can completely agree with this, but I also would like to press for a moment to think about the purpose behind her professor challenging her thoughts. I think I have a stronger understanding for professors challenging my work now, but I can completely empathize with her in more ways than one. 

In my undergraduate programs, I would say I did not reach out to my professors as much as I should have when I struggled to understand certain concepts or lessons. I wish I would have met up with them more, but there is one professor in particular I remember being quite beneficial towards my lack of understanding with the course content. One of my science classes that combined chemistry and physics in one semester was quite challenging. I did horrible on my first exam and perhaps did not study as much as I should have. By the second exam, I did a little better, but still was not understanding the concepts as much as I should have. I met with my professor more than once after these frustrations, and she helped me drastically. But most importantly, what helped me fully understand the concepts to my best potential was my professor's patience with me and teaching techniques that made me feel comfortable coming to her for help. Therefore, this makes me wonder if Kristine held back on asking the questions she really needed to ask? It makes me wonder how the professor acted towards her to make her feel comfortable or uncomfortable to coming to her for help? And it makes me wonder how much of the feedback Kristine took constructively to make her work meet the teacher's standards. 

It can definitely be one of the most frustrating moments ever when you try your hardest to complete an assignment and think you are following the guidelines as the professor asked- then you turn around to have negative feedback written all over your assignment that was turned in. This in turn makes me agree completely to BLESS the fact that Kristine said teachers should "justify every negative comment with at least TWO positive comments". This is so very important because it encourages students to take risks while gaining feedback. As a teacher, I want my students to have positive learning experiences in my classroom by taking risks with their writing, but becoming more positive, organized, creative writers. From substituting, I have realized how frequent it is that students have poor attitudes towards writing. Why is this happening? What can teachers do to stretch their students thinking while keep them highly engaged in their writing experiences?