Introduction to selected lessons in persuasion  (Page 4/6)

Following their first reading of each text, students are asked to write about and/or discuss the gist of the speech. Then they reread to select sentences or phrases that appear to be most significant to the author’s argument. Third, they reread again, guided this time by interpretive questions that they write about and discuss. Finally, students reread the speech one more time, analyzing the methods the speaker used to persuade the audience. After this last rereading of each speech, students are asked to reflect on what they learned, consider how their new insights fit with what they learned before, and make connections to the overarching questions for the unit. Stepping back, students are then prompted to talk about how they learned – how the task, text, and talk supported their learning and the ways they themselves have been working to make meaning from the text. When students step back and reflect on how they learn they become aware of their thought processes, which makes them more likely to repeat those processes with other texts and in other situations. Additionally, hearing others share helps both English learners and students whose first language is English become more aware of a variety of strategies readers use to understand the text when they read.

Language study

Students’ understanding of how language works is supported when they are asked to notice the choices other authors have made in their speeches and talk about how those choices shape the meaning audiences make as they listen. Bringing students’ attention to sentences, paragraphs, and structural features that make an argument persuasive can help students use language similarly in their own writing. Being explicit about the grammatical choices writers make when writing helps students overcome the fear of working with and trying to understand the language.

Incorporating language study into the pattern of reading and writing about texts, instead of working on isolated parts and mechanics of speech out of context, helps students understand that making appropriate language choices is an integral part of literacy and good communication. When students focus on how words are ordered in a text they have made sense of, then experiment with alternative word choices to see how the meanings change, they become conscious that they, as writers and speakers, have a variety of choices available to them. They realize that they, too, can influence meaning in particular ways for particular readers and listeners through the choices they make.

Talk is essential to learning

Talk is an essential part of this unit. Students are given multiple opportunities to practice using the language in purposeful ways with effective feedback. Students are often asked to share in pairs or trios before being invited to share with the large group. This allows students to practice and gain confidence sharing their responses with one or two students before doing so with the whole group. Frequent small and large group discussion opportunities are particularly important for English learners and students with limited academic English proficiency who are challenged to grapple with both the “code” and the concepts simultaneously.