Background

This unit aims to help students develop critical thinking skills as demonstrated in persuasive or opinion writing and presentation.  Through lessons that address confidence, writing skills, persuasive tactics, critical thinking, opinion development and research; this unit will be able to pair alongside various curriculum.  A special focus will be on advertising and the messages therein.  Students will investigate persuasive tactics in advertising so as to increase their persuasive skills while also allowing them to become more critical of and question the messages they receive as they traverse various sources of media.  The culminating activity will be for students to create their own Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaign communicating healthy life choices.

In many ways, teaching students to be critical analyzers has been reserved for secondary school or higher.  Younger students are, for the most part, memorizing.  Early education requires the memorization of letters and sounds.  Then students move on to sight words and facts and equations- oh my!  By middle school, students must solve problems asking them to analyze and synthesize, but they still grapple with mastering those tasks and communicating their ideas with proficiency.  In elementary school grades 3-5, an important teacher’s role is to bridge the gap between identification and location of information in text and being critical of it for higher order thinking purposes.  On top of that, students are then required to demonstrate their critical thinking skills through written expression.  Therefore, the very important partnership of analyzing text and synthesizing ideas gets developed in 3rd-5th.

These younger students have difficulty thinking and writing critically in my experience because they are not confident in learning to trust their own thoughts and ideas.  Many younger students look for validation from teachers that they are “right” instead of trusting their own judgement about their answers or interpretations.  In many ways, this is completely expected because kids are learning to form ideas based on what they are learning and therefore in order to know that their ideas are approaching the standard skill being addressed.  Students must rely on the teacher as their guide towards mastery.  This makes sense to educators and need not be belabored.  However, as the torch of critical thinking gets passed from explanation and modeling by the teacher to independent processing and development by the student, the extent to which students continue to turn to the teacher for validation must ebb more towards student based decision making and this cannot happen successfully without the student’s confidence in their ability to weigh evidence and make reasonable decisions based upon that evidence.

I believe that is partly due to the “deficits deceit” within writing instruction among many teachers.  If guidelines for writing are not precise enough for teachers to clearly know what their students should know coming in and what they are expected to know going out, this makes for, not only an inequity of writing instruction, but may account for unrealistic expectations of students coming to them and insufficient preparation leaving them.  I have heard teachers complain about what students cannot do, not knowing that what they are expecting is actually what they should be teaching.  In other words, teachers may think students have a deficit when in reality, they haven’t learned that skill yet.  Wright (2018) asks, “How should I approach students who write poorly? Blame them for demonstrating which skills they lack?” Conversely, teachers that do not know what the next year teacher is expecting, may not prepare their students to have a firm foundation on which the other teacher can expand.

Another factor relevant here is the ability of Special Education (SpEd) and English as a Second Language (ESOL) students to meet the standards linked to critical thinking.  These populations of students can often miss out on opportunities to learn skills, like critical thinking, because much of their focus in school is reading and math.  For instance, in my limited experience teaching ESOL and SpEd students inclusively, what I came to value/ focus more on were the ways I could instruct them in the standards whose prerequisites at first glance appear to be on-grade-level reading, when in practice could be taught separate and apart from reading; like character traits, inferencing, and main idea.  Put differently, I kept foremost in my mind the idea that I needed to teach my students 4th grade standards that were apart from reading fluency in the absence of their reading ability.  I relied heavily on oral comprehension for the SpEd students and text with comprehension questions in their native language for ESOL students.  I came to use infographics as a vehicle for teaching and assessing these subgroups so that the emphasis was on content and skill attainment rather than reading and writing level.

In order to get students to think critically enough to perform tasks of analysis, they need modeling, practice and confidence. Model and practice are obvious to all educators.  Confidence may seem less apparent.  But it is extremely important because critical thinking requires students to trust in their own line of thinking and reasoning.  They must believe they are right and defend, justify and/ or support their position.  This may be a lot to ask of an 8 year old.  The fear of being wrong can be intense at that age and only gets worse as they progress in academia, especially if their accomplishments in putting forth their opinions are shot down or score poorly.

How then do teachers combine model and practice with confidence building?  One suggestion I propose is the practice of persuasive writing.  Students can defend or attack positions simultaneously without fear that they are wrong, because the nature of debate, which is essentially persuasive talking, allows for multiple perspectives backed by evidence.  The emphasis in persuasive writing isn’t right or wrong, it is evidence and reasoning.  Therefore if students can learn to present an idea and back it up with relevant details, their ideas can be judged/scored based on their evidence and not their position.  The fear of failure is scaled back and students can start to feel confident that, with solid evidence, the ideas they present have meaning and validity, thus building their confidence.  For instance, a third grader is asked to analyze which makes a better pet:  cat versus dogs. The question being discussed has no right or wrong answer, therefore students can put their effort into giving their opinions without fear of failing the task so long as they provide evidence, which in this case is subjective.  In 4th grade, this might look like debating what’s a healthy sandwich for lunch, where evidence now is not just subjective opinions, but includes more objective elements such as the health benefits of certain foods.  By 5th grade, students can take on topics for debate that require more objective points to be researched; such as, which has the most importance for the environment: to recycle, reduce, or reuse?

Once students begin to write and trust that their writing is aligned to the task and that they are meeting standards, they can move into deeper and more critical areas of analysis while also paying more attention to the process of writing and the components to be assessed:  focus, organization, style, content, and conventions.  Additionally, when students build confidence as writers and concurrently evolve their skills, their ability to be more critical thinkers may increase due to less time and effort needed to meet basic levels of writing proficiency and more time spent on developing the ideas and points of view being communicated.

Students becoming better writers doesn’t start or end with boosts of confidence however. Modeling, examples and clear expectations are key.  Additionally, writing can be taught in so many ways, it would be unfair to state one particular way is definitive.  However, there are a few best practices all teachers should employ.  The writing skills in this unit will be taught through the use of cloze writing strategies in persuasive or opinion writing.  Cloze writing is in many ways a fill-in-the-blank or template driven technique used for helping students gain and grow their writing skills.  This strategy works well, in my experience, in three ways:  for introducing higher level content specific writing vocabulary and form, for catching up students that are not strong writers due to inexperience with writing on their grade level yet still could be with some support, and for SpEd and ESOL students who often need more support.  When I use cloze, or template (Wright, 2018), writing as a strategy in my classroom, it progressively moves students towards independence at a rate that is most suited to their own levels of progress and proficiency.  This is because one invaluable benefit of using cloze writing that I have found is that even though students can rely on it as long as they want, they quickly incorporate their own voice into the template, making their writing less like mine and more like their own. Providing a rubric for students quickens this process as well. As teachers develop rubrics, they think more deeply about the assignment and thus the assignment grows in depth and relevance. That thoughtfulness and development of the assignment can translate to students being able to clearly understand the expectations and produce work that is of a higher quality (Bradford, 2015).

The dissection of persuasive tactics is a part of this unit for two reasons.  First, as a catalyst for critical thinking.  Second, as a motivation for writing opinion and persuasive pieces more effectively.  In this unit we will discuss and analyze McDonald’s ads as a way to discern truth from perception.  As students learn to look at advertising as a system of purposeful placements and targeted, yet sometimes hidden, messages, they will develop a more critical eye and thus critical thinking skills.  At the same time, these tactics that they identify will become a part of their arsenal when they set off to write and thus persuade their audience.

Developing informed opinions in your students is not all that hard to do when the subject matter is near and dear to their hearts, minds, lives, and especially stomachs.  Therefore in this unit, the catalyst for diving deeper into opinion and persuasive writing will be an examination of McDonald’s.  Students will not only come away with a better understanding of how to be critical thinkers who can express their opinions via writing, they may even walk way paying more attention to what they eat!

The final project for this unit is a PSA– either in print or video form. This method of assessment takes into consideration the benefits of evaluating understanding in visual formats. (Regan, 2017) Traditionally, opinion or persuasive writing at the 3rd-5th grade level revolves around an essay. This unit does take many steps to guide students in a way that would aide in the writing of an essay, however, since the assignments and final project only require a constructed response sized writing piece, the true value in this unit is the critical thinking component and the alternate approach to grading for mastery or proficiency. Particular for inclusive classrooms, having the final project be something other than a +/-5 paragraph essay speaks to the growing understanding that students may still be learning using alternate or non-traditional vehicles to academic understanding and ultimately can be assessed via non-traditional means.

As a catalyst for developing written work, visual tools can spur thinking in visually-inclined learners, which can fortify their opinions and arguments. Complementarily, verbal description of visuals can aid students’ ability to focus on details of an otherwise dizzying cornucopia of visual stimuli. Each of these qualities — en- countering ideas, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs via visual material and developing a deeper focus through describing visual material — can enrich written work by allow- ing students to tap into their experiential knowledge and describe it with texture and precision. (Snow, 2017)

One large component of this unit is the Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) checklist. This aspect of each lesson aims to address the difficulty some SpEd, ESOL, and ADHD students may face when tasked with assignments that require tasks with which they struggle. This strategy also helps students that in general struggle to complete assignments. More recent research on the strategy suggests that it works well with ESOL students for writing (Kim and Kim, 2013; Cuenca-Carlino, 2017; Barkel, 2018), but this unit utilizes it with all students as suggested by the strategy’s creator (Zimmerman, 2010). The content of the lessons can at times be a heavy lift for students and the use of an aid to help students feel better equipped to handle the task is the goal. The self-regulation checklists were created specifically for each lesson based on 6 Strategies to Teach Kids Self-Regulation in Writing by  Andrew M.I. Lee (Retrieved 2019) and Ness and Middleton (2011).

Content Objectives

This unit will focus on 4th grade content objectives and standards.  However, many lessons can be used in the 3rd-5th range.  Keeping in mind the earlier notion that students may come without the requisite skills from the previous year, it is important to take note of all the expectations throughout a student’s primary and secondary academic career.  In order to address true deficits, teachers need to be aware of the vertical progression of skills students need in order to progress and develop their writing and critical thinking skills (See Appendix).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1

Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1.A

Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1.B

Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1.C

Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases (e.g., for instance, in order to, in addition).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1.D

Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented.

CC.1.5.4.A Collaborative Discussion:  Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

CC.1.5.4.F Multimedia: Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.

CC.1.5.4.B Critical Listening: Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

CC.1.5.4.C Evaluating Information: Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points.

CC.1.2.4.G Interpret various presentations of information within a text or digital source and explain how the information contributes to an understanding of text in which it appears.

CC.1.2.4.B Refer to details and examples in text to support what the text says explicitly and make inferences.

CC.1.4.4.V Conduct short research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.

This unit will utilize strategies that address writing objectives in a progressive way to scaffold skills until students are proficient in both being critical of the messages they receive as well as being able to create persuasive opinions  and  arguments.  However, the first objective this unit will address is not a part of the CCSS.  It is confidence.  This can be addressed through quick writes and debates, where topics have no correct answers and opinions are backed by supporting evidence, which may be opinion based instead of fact based.  Once students are able to report on a topic based on their own opinions, they will be presented with McDonald’s ads and commercials and tasked with identifying the opinions or messages being portrayed.  Next, students will be presented with “tricks of the trade” or actual persuasive mechanisms that advertisers use to persuade audiences.  Critical thinking skills will be taught through juxtaposing the messages of the ads and commercials with the realities of McDonald’s effects on health, wages, and agriculture.  This objective will also be addressed by presenting other marketing campaigns and the damage those companies do.  As students get better at thinking critically about ads and commercials, they will be asked to start forming opinions based on research and not just their own personal feelings and experiences, thus addressing the complete grade level opinion-writing objective.  The last strategies presented will address writing competencies by utilizing template or cloze writing and Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD).  All the strategies presented are appropriate for 4^th grade regular education, SpEd, and ESOL students but can be changed to better fit other grade levels, keeping in mind vertical progressions.  The strategies presented are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning.

This unit consists of six lessons that could take the entirety of a daily writing block or 60 minutes. However, the time allotted may be too much or not enough depending on the grade level and skill level of the students. The prep time for the creation of companion materials such as slide presentations and worksheets tailored to individual classes will add to the planning time. That being stated, these plans and materials aimed to be thorough and exhaustive as to cut down on lesson planning to allow for more intellectual prep, which is the time teachers spend engaging with material to be taught prior to the delivery of the lesson. In other words, these lessons and materials are complete if you want to dive right in or a great starting point to personalize them.

Objective(s)CC.1.4.4.V Conduct short research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.

Bibliography for Teachers

Bradford, Kendall L., et al. “Rubrics as a Tool in Writing Instruction: Effects on the Opinion Essays of First and Second Graders.” Early Childhood Education Journal, vol. 44, no. 5, 2015, pp. 463–472., doi:10.1007/s10643-015-0727-0.

Lee, Andrew M.I. “6 Strategies to Teach Kids Self-Regulation in Writing.” Understood.org, www.understood.org/en/school-learning/learning-at-home/encouraging-reading-writing/6-strategies-to-teach-kids-self-regulation-in-writing.

Ness, Bryan M., and Michael J. Middleton. “A Framework for Implementing Individualized Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in the Classroom.” Intervention in School and Clinic, vol. 47, no. 5, 2011, pp. 267–275., doi:10.1177/1053451211430120.

“Products – Data Briefs – Number 213 – September 2015.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db213.htm.

Wright, Zachary F. “How Do We Teach Our Least Confident Students to Write? Convince Them That They Can—and Give Them a Map.” Educational Leadership, vol. 75, no. 7, Apr. 2018, pp. 74–77.

Reading List for Students

Students can be given articles about the topics I have suggested, but much of what they need to read will come from teacher and student choice based on the topics they choose and reading levels of students. This unit is truly flexible in the grade levels it can accomodate.

ReadWorks.org has leveled articles about the same topics. Lexile levels are provided for each article as well.

MyPlate.gov has many resources that are for students that work well in graphic organizers and pictures.

Classroom Materials

Presentations

Persuasive Tactics In Advertising:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wMHv8KBkorLtV2k4HCcyJHN1t6qgyvuKgxMjxLc7yWk/edit?usp=sharing

Truth in Advertising?:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qHN8EjRmi1xvtbBaTQD_W864tAJZw1XZQlu9XTrw7uQ/edit#slide=id.p

Videos

Coke Happiness Factory 2007 Super Bowl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_JsOrH5cOM

Six Flags Mr. 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0bvgpg7yig

True Move Giving Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDi66yKKxDM&t=1s Reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl1sdkCwIg4

Cheerleader Dad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OGMLOcQVKA

Don’t Text and Drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rClJW9gnchc

Christine: I have to quit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb0zDUzSktY

Yul Brenner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNjunlWUJJI

Cheers for Chubs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14oSJAYFMwo

Eating Junk Food: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0U32D9KzjY

Active for Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2syJ1bAMOvc

Worksheets