Grade Level: 9-12

Concept:  Use evidence to support a persuasive position

Estimated Duration: 90 minutes

Objectives

Students will be able to

• provide evidence to support a position
• write a persuasive essay using a coherent whole (topic sentence/position statement, and main supports)

Materials

VEO SAFE CATS explanation
VEO SAFE CATS graphic organizer
White Board or Chalk board
2 Newspaper Articles
Highlighters

Differentiated Strategies

These strategies are used to meet the varied needs of all learners:

• Varying academic levels:  use newspaper articles of varying reading levels
• Visual learners:  students will use graphic organizers with a mnemonic device to allow to help comprehension of the types of evidence used for support
• Auditory learners:  students will discuss the types of evidence with a partner 

• Kinesthetic learners: students will highlight key evidence found in the articles they read 

Key Vocabulary

evidence
statistics
analogies
facts
opinions
anecdotes
credibility

Procedures

Warm Up

• On the board, write the following statement: What rule would you like to see changed at school? After the class has brainstormed some rules, have them vote on one rule to discuss. Write that rule on the board the position statement. For example: The school dress code should be changed.
• Have students turn to a peer and brainstorm reasons as to why this change should happen. As a class, ask students to share their ideas and write them on the board.

Direct Instruction

• Explain to students that they are creating evidence to support a position.  Tell them that their position is "The school dress code should be changed" and that their reasons why are called evidence.  Explain that having solid evidence creates credibility in the speaker/writer.
• Distribute the worksheet called VEO SAFE CATS explanation. This is a mnemonic device in order to help students remember the types of evidence that can be used to support a position.
• Using the worksheet as a reference, label on the board the types of evidence that students have brainstormed. If any types of evidence have not been brainstormed, ask students to think of new evidence to add to the board. Make sure students understand each of the types of evidence.

Practice

• Have students work with a partner. Give each group two different newspaper articles.  Articles can be easily downloaded from your local newspaper or from websites such as www.nytimes.com. Each editorial should be of different degrees of difficulty so that students may choose the reading level most fitting for them.
• Give each student a copy of the VEO SAFE CATS graphic organizer and a highlighter. With their partner, students should highlight and note the types of evidence provided in their article. Next, students should transfer the evidence they found to the correct section of the graphic organizer.
• As a class, discuss the types of evidence they discovered. Monitor the discussion and ask guiding questions to help students correct their misconceptions.

Assessment

• Have individual students choose a rule at home they would like to change.
• Using the VEO SAFE CATS graphic organizer, students complete their position statement on the rule and create three types of evidence to support their position.
• Once the graphic organizers are completed and initialed by the teacher, students should write a persuasive paragraph. The topic sentence of the paragraph should be the position statement and the rest of the paragraph should include the evidence from the graphic organizer.

Closure

• Remind students that there will be many times in life where they will need to convince someone that their opinion should be considered. Explain to them that by using solid evidence as support, their opinions will have a better chance of being viewed as credible.
• Applied learning: Ask students to consider using the types of evidence studied today the next time they need to make a convincing statement to their parents or teachers.