How to Teach Persuasive Writing

One of the most challenging forms of writing is persuasive writing. In this writing style, the writer has to persuade his readers to agree to his thoughts and ideas on a given subject. There are situations where the readers or the audience in question has a completely different view on a subject.

To put your point in a way that they change their perception about a subject and approve of your views is one of the most difficult challenges for any writer.

But this is also a test of skills for a persuasive writer as the whole idea behind persuasive writing is to express your point of view in a manner that convinces the reader to believe what you believe about a certain topic.

As a teacher or a parent, it is important that we teach our children the art of persuasive writing as this form of writing is very useful and can help them later in their life. It is also very important because one needs to use this form of writing while requesting admission to a graduate school, applying for a scholarship, bank loans, complaints etc.

Teaching students the art of persuasive writing is not an easy task as it demands that they come up with new ideas and arguments on their own, so they need a lot of guidance in the initial stages. So, it is important that students are taught the art of persuasive writing in the right way.

One of the most effective ways to teach persuasive writing is to introduce students to a lot of examples of persuasive writing. Although newspaper editorials are advanced forms of persuasive writing, these can help the students in getting an insight into how the write introduces the readers to the topic, and the art of "showing rather than telling."

These examples can also help the students to do an analysis of the way the writer uses the persuasion in his writings. If you would have noticed that after reading a well-written article, we also tend to strongly feel about the subject.

Students should be assigned to identify the statements used by the writer to gain approval in his favor, so that they can get some ideas on how to present their point of view in an appropriate manner.

After the students are accustomed to some examples of persuasive writing, the next step is to allow the students to come up with their own ideas on persuasive writing topics. You can use the tried-and-tested method of pre-writing, brainstorming to let the students to develop arguments and counter-arguments on a topic.

You can also assign the students to write a letter to their parents or teachers in which they put forward an idea in a persuasive way. In order to be good at persuasive writing, it is important that the students learn how to back up their arguments with specific details and examples.

The students should also be in a position to anticipate and counter, alternative views on the issue. To instill this, you can tell each one of your students to come up with some arguments and counter-arguments on the given topic.

To develop the skill of successful refutations, you should assign them to come up with reasons in support of their arguments and counter-arguments. You can tell them to write refutations which support their opinions, as these are instrumental in countering the viewpoint of critics and others who might be a little skeptical in accepting their views.

These were some of the ways in which you can teach students how to write persuasively. As mentioned before, the aim of a persuasive write-up is to convince the reader to accept your point of view with the help of facts and examples.