This Lesson's Title:

I Wanna [Something]...

writing a persuasive letter that will be responded to by a classmate

This lesson was built for WritingFix after being proposed by Nevada teacher Summer Springer at an SBC-sponsored inservice class.

The intended "mentor text" to be used when teaching this on-line lesson is the picture book I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff. Before writing, students should listen to and discuss the writing style of this book's author.

Check out I Wanna Iguana at Amazon.com.

Washoe County teachers, click here to search for this book at the county library.

Teacher Instructions & Lesson Resources :

Pre-step…before sharing the published model:  Briefly discuss the term “persuasion,” asking students for real-life situations when students might need to be persuasive.  Ask students to think about the first time in their lives they tried to persuasde an adult to either do something or to think like they do. What skills of persuasion do they remember working with adults? What skills of persuasion have they learned don't always work with adults?

Then have students analyze second-grader Evelyn's persuasive letter below. Ask them to think about what Evelyn did well. Ask them to think about additional persuasion techniques Evenlyn might try if she made a new draft of this letter.

Also, review the friendly letter format, if need be; you can use our friendly letter template, which can be shown to students on the overhead. For this lesson, students will have to write a series of friendly letters.

Step one (sharing the published model):  Writers love to imitate I Wanna Iguana's simple structure.  Says Summer, this lesson's author, "Writing can be as easy as one, two, three!  While reading the book, teachers should point out the author’s use of grabbing the readers’ attention with a fun idea applied to everyday situations."

Explain that Karen Kaufman Orloff’s I Wanna Iguana is about a boy named Alex who wants to adopt his friend’s iguana.  He decides to write this desire down in friendly letter form, and give it to his mother. The book is told from both his and his mother’s  perspective as they write friendly letters to each other. Point out that Alex doesn’t simply beg, but formulates convincing arguments why he and this iguana belong together.  Point out that his mother always replies in a thoughtful, yet firm manner, always addressing Alex’s arguments.  Alex too is careful to address his mother’s concerns through facts and promises of being a great pet owner. Through Alex’s skill in persuasion, he comes out the victor and receives a scaly surprise on his bedroom dresser.

During the read aloud, teachers should pause and discuss what makes Alex’s notes so persuasive, paying attention to persuasive writing techniques such as establishing facts (EF), clarifying ideas (CI), prioritizing/editing/sequencing (P/E/S), forming conclusions that are based on agreed upon facts (FC), using fantastic word choice (WC), and writing with confidence (WWC). Discuss how the humor (H) Orloff provided made this story more enjoyable, and how Alex’s word choice was important, especfially in his salutations. Place a Xeroxed copy of a letter from Alex on the overhead.  After reading it together as a class, ask the students to identify the techniques Alex used, marking them with EF, CI, P/E/S, and so on.  Divide students into small groups and pass out a copy of the mother’s response to the note.  Have students work together to label what persuasive technique she used to respond. Come together as a class and have each group read the letter aloud and report the techniques they discovered.  Discuss each whole group.

Explain that you would like students to use these same techniques while creating a little persuasive writing of their own.

Step two (introducing models of writing):    In small groups, have your students read and respond to any or all of the student models that come with this lesson.  The groups will certainly talk about the voice, since that's the foucs of this lesson, but you might prompt your students to talk about each model's word choice as well.

• 2nd grader--Imanne--shares her letter exchange
• 4th graders--Matthew, Sean, Devon and Liam--share their letter exchanges
• 5th grader--Ericka--shares her letter exchange
• 6th graders--Cariana, Nicolette, Matthew, and Brittany--share their persuasive letters
• We're looking for student samples from grades not represented here yet. Visit our student samples page for information.

Step three (thinking and pre-writing): Hand out and explain the planning sheets, perhaps showing one on the overhead.  Explain that students will complete the first graphic organizer before writing their first letters, and that they will switch letters with a partner and respond using the second graphic organizer as a guide.  The students can exchange letters as many times as you have time for.

Extension Idea:  This letter-exchange lesson idea might might work for topics in other curricular areas--such as characters in books, or historical or scientific figures.

• First and Second Letter: Planning Sheets
• Friendly Letter Template for the Overhead Projector

Step four (revising with specific trait language):   Two tools for revision are provided below.  You can use one or both, depending on how much time you have to spend on this assignment.

To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts.  Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5."   Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings.  For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.

• Sheet of 6 Voice Post-It Notes
• Sheet of 6 Word Choice Post-It Notes

Step five (editing for conventions):  After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor.   If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers.  With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it.  The "Community of Editors" idea is just one of dozens and dozens of inspiring ideas that is talked about in detail in the Northern Nevada Writing Project's Going Deep with 6 Trait Language Workbook for Teachers.

Step six (publishing for the portfolio):   When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block.  Their stories might become a longer story, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the story they started here.  Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this story as they get ready to publish it for their portfolios.

Interested in publishing student work on-line?  We invite student writers to post final drafts of their original at WritingFix's Community of Student Writers.  This is a safe-to-use blog for students and teachers. No writing is posted until it is approved by the moderator. Contact us at publish@writingfix.com if you have questions about getting your students published.

Learn more about author Karen Kaufman Orloff
by clicking here.