May 4th,

This week was all about persuasion in writer's workshop. We continued to refine our persuasive writing voice through a variety of activities. Our first inspiration came from a teaching colleague. She shared with us a persuasive text story map that could be used with the story, Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems. Here is the link to get this organizer.persuasive text story map

Before reading, we gave the students the purpose of listening for what type of writing Mo Willems used in this text. After reading, they immediately identified it as persuasive writing. We then reviewed what it means to persuade and completed the story map.

The next day, we reread the book, but this time we listened with a writer's ear. We noticed that the author used speech bubbles when each character was talking. He also had the character speaking to the reader, even filling in the reader's thoughts through the voice of the pigeon. He only used two characters, and the one character was only at the beginning and the end. Willem used capitals and punctuation to portray the feelings of the pigeon. These are only a few of the craft ideas that the students identified.

Now, for the really fun part, we decided to make our own pigeon books using Willem's writing craft ideas. We brainstormed different "Don't Let the Pigeon....." ideas for our own book. After rounds of voting, Kim's class decided on "Don't Let the Pigeon Go to the Zoo" and Anne's class decided on "Don't Let the Pigeon Go to the Movies." Once that was settled, the students got into small groups of two or three and started brainstorming arguments that the pigeon might have. This took two days.
On the second day, we reminded the students that they needed to have a beginning and an ending from the second character's point of view.

After the brainstorming was done, we worked as a class to write a draft of our story. The students were highly engaged in this activity, and were readily willing to make revisions, until the words were exactly the way we wanted them to sound. Then, each student took one argument, or the beginning or ending, and typed a speech bubble for the character. They made the pigeon or the man out of construction paper, and we published them.

The next persuasive writing activity was inspired by the book, Hey Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose. We read aloud this story and then charted arguments the kid would have for squishing the ant, and that the ant would have for not being squished.

Then, the students could choose to write from the kid's point of view or the ant's point of view for their persuasive writing. We were really pleased with their writing. They really do understand how to persuade an audience.

Next week, we will share more of our reading activities with you. Have a great week.
Kim and Anne