I can write a beginning in which I not only set readers up to expect that this would be a piece of opinion writing, but I also hook them into caring about my opinion. For our opinion pieces, we have been working on introductions. Now that we decided on a claim (opinion) and gathered and organized evidence in the form of mini stories from our life, quotes from interviews, and data from surveys, we were ready to begin writing. I taught the kids that there are three main ways to hook a reader into reading the rest of your writing- posing a questions, painting a picture through words, or making a strong statement. I showed a few examples, like the ones below. Then, students tried it on their own for their claim. They tried three different beginnings and then starred the one they liked best. Most students did some great writing and had some very strong leads. For some students, this didn't provide enough structure and they needed a more step-by-step approach. So, I retaught how to write strong leads. Then the group chose from some sentence starters to help them get started. We talked about elaborating on that sentence starter and then eventually stating their claim at the end. They got it! These beginnings were much stronger for these kids, as soon as more structure was provided. Next, we are off to write bullet one, the first piece of evidence that we will be using to support our claim.
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Mrs. Ellis's Class
Learning & laughing our way through third grade. Archives
June 2020
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