Letters to the Next President: Resources for Teaching Persuasive Writing

Date: August 4, 2008

Summary: The Letters to the Next President: Writing Our Future project provides an outlet for persuasive writing—the kind of writing found in editorials and think pieces published in the public sphere. The resources below reflect on teaching and publishing persuasive writing.

Persuasive writing, or writing that attempts to convince someone of something, can be commonly found in advertising, proposals for action, editorials, and commentary pieces—and throughout personal communication. In short, persuasion is central in social interaction and democratic public life.

As commonly taught and tested in schools, persuasive writing places a premium on stating a position and supporting it with evidence. Attending to the dynamics of audience reception and learning about formal argumentation are also commonly stressed. In the resources below, educators reflect on the importance of teaching persuasive writing and argue for the value of having students write and publish for real audiences.

NWP's Collection of Delicious Bookmarks: Resources to Teach Persuasive Writing

Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage, and share Web pages from a centralized source. NWP has collected a number of helpful resources published on the Web or shared by other teachers on Delicious, and tagged them in the following categories:

• All NWP Bookmarks: Letters to the Next President
• Teaching Persuasive Writing
• Persuasive Writing Models for Students
• Tips for Writing Better Persuasive Pieces
• Rubrics and Tools for Persuasive Writing
• Editing Pieces for Publication
• Who Else Is Writing Letters to the Next President?

The Writing Classroom as a Laboratory for Democracy

In this in-depth discussion with Don Rothman, professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a writing teacher for over 30 years, Rothman focuses on the critical role persuasive writing can play in the life of a democratic society. More ›

Getting Real: Authenticity in Writing Prompts

This article provides strategies for developing prompts that motivate students to write to audiences outside the classroom. More ›

The Five-Paragraph Theme Redux

Elizabeth Rorschach questions the preset format of the five-paragraph essay, and contends that its rigid form can encourage teachers to focus on format and correctness, with little concern for content. More ›

A Cure for Writer's Block: Writing for Real Audiences

By reconstructing a dialogue with one of her students, Anne Rodier supports her belief that "if your writing has no possibility of . . . reaching a real audience . . ., then there will be no investment in the work." More ›

“Our Wal-Mart Is Bigger Than Our Mall”: Writing That Matters

When a newspaper writer identifies the hometown of her students as one of the fifty worst places to live in America, the students respond to him with passionate and successful writing. More ›

Youth Dreamers Put Social Action Principles to Work

A group of students in Baltimore are working hard toward their ambitious goal of buying a house to serve as a community center for their neighborhood. More ›

Writing for a Change : Boosting Literacy and Learning Through Social Action

Written in collaboration with the Centre for Social Action, the book describes the innovative Social Action process for encouraging students to collaborate on problems of their own choosing—to analyze options, develop action plans, discover solutions, and finally to reflect on their work. Practical guidance for applying the process to any curricular area is provided, along with an extensive list of classroom activities. More ›