The goal of informative writing is to provide information. This means that the content is full of facts. By writing an informative text you must keep in mind that you are teaching the reader about the topic. The purpose must be very clear and follow with organization. Keep in mind that accurate definitions are vital and word choice needs to be carefully selected. If your goal of writing is to convince the reader to agree with your opinion then you will be taking a different approach. This type of writing is called persuasive writing. When writing a persuasive paper, including facts that support your opinion are crucial to influence your reader because you want to ensure your reader that your opinion is best. It is important to consider the targeted audience, data, and a focused argument. Determining if you are selling toward egos, emotions, fear, or character can be helpful. By using adjectives and feeling words you can really sell your point.
Activities:
Informative - Students will select a career that they are interested in pursuing. They will research it and use what they have learned to write a newspaper ad about a job opening. Their ad should contain job requirements, skills, possible salary or hourly rate, opportunity's for advancement, structure of work schedule, and a description of the job and what is expected.
Persuasive - Give each student a bite-size candy bar (a variety may be used). The student will write a letter to candy company convincing them what they should do to improve the candy bar.
I like the candy bar idea, students are almost always interested in candy and I like that they may choose what they think should be done. If you have one student who thinks the candy should have more nutritional value and another who thinks it should have more chocolate they may both express their ideas.
ReplyDeleteI like both of your ideas. Candy is always fun and creating a newspaper job ad is a good way for students to practice picking out important information that should be presented in an informative piece; first and foremost, it's a good idea because it involves a real-world task. To me, there's nothing more motivating than real-world tasks.
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