What+is+the+teacher+thinking?

The lesson presented on the homepage was created by MAT English students, Rebecca Nabors and Evelyn Runion, from Kennesaw State University for a fictitious 10th grade ELA classroom.

The purpose of this wikispace is to create a meaningful connection between the persuasive essay and the student's real lives.The teachers wanted to demonstrate the practical uses for persuasion where students could relate outside the classroom. In classrooms all over the United States, teachers are teaching their students the power of persuasion through essays and formulaic writng. Students only learn the text book meathods of persuasion through this type of learning. By relating persuasion to real life situations, students can develop this power of persuasion in order to become successful in life. There are many people and businesses who use persuasion as a tool for success outside of essays so why not create a diffrent way of teaching the skill?

The lesson plan begins with an improvisation game in order to get the students to think on their feet, literally. The students are broken up into pairs and then sat in a circle. The teacher pulls out a real life situation from a hat or bag and the students are given at most one minute to think and discuss with their partner their idea before the teacher begins to complile the diffrent ways of persuasion the students discovered. The advantages for the activity include: active thinking, social communication, topic interest, relation to real life, and thinking quickly. The concerns for the activity can include: lack of participation and students stuck on one idea. A solution can include the teacher giving students cues for their presentation and discuss with students for idea development. The teacher has to maintain a fast pace and welcome environment for the activity while being in tune to class participation. A great modification for the activity is to create a discussion circle. Instead of acting out scenes, students can list ways of persuasion for the circumstance that the teacher announces.

After the improvisation activity, students should be aware of many ways to persuade their audience. The video chosen for this demonstration seems to have little to do with persuasion, and that is the point. We want the students to really think about how persuasive techniques can be found anywhere and everywhere instead of the required school persuasive essays. Students will have to apply their skills that they just learned and use them to find persuasion in the video. The persuasion techniques might not be as visable as students think but with a little help from the teacher and using former knowledge, they can think of some ideas the video decided to use. For example, this video is not obviously selling something, and it is not obviously teaching something. It is, however, persuading us to like potatoes. It wants to make us excited about all the ways we can use potatoes and how great they are through repetition, pop culture images, cartoon images, and a catchy song. The advantages for this idea is to have students apply the knowldege they have learned and think deeper than the obvious persuasive ideas. The video is also a source of much interpretation. The video gives the students the chance to express thier ideas through thought and reasoning. The disadvantages can include students only looking at the video for pure enjoyment, they get turned off by the video, or they aren't able to analyze the video. Through prompts and cues from the teacher in discussion, the teacher can help the students who are struggling to understand what is appropriate.

The second video is given for the same reasons as the first video but offers the chance to compare and contrast. It also provides students the opportunity to try again and recognize other ways of persuasion. Last, students are given the opportunity to write their own persuasive essay through a letter writing assignment. The assignment will help students apply the techniques they have used in class through writing and explore their full potential. The teachers can use the essay as a formative assessment to discover how well the students understand the persuasive essay assignment.