Selected Lessons in Persuasion

Abstract

The arc of lessons comes from a high school unit, Persuasion: Speaking Out. A writing team developed the unit for teachers and students in a California school district. It exemplifies content-rich knowledge development with attention to reading, writing, talking and thinking at every step of students’ learning about the ideas and methods of persuasive speech texts. We suggest that readers study all four lessons to follow the progression of instruction. The progression, which includes embedded scaffolding for English learners, lives out the unit’s design features, derived from key research on cognitive apprenticeship, study of literature, and reading comprehension. Development supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation