persuasive essay writing prompts 4th grade

persuasive essay writing prompts 4th grade

The Importance of Persuasive Essay Writing in 4th Grade

1. Introduction

The importance of persuasive essay writing in the 4th grade stems from an educational desire for a student to win the heart and mind of a reader in an attempt to persuade or convince the reader to adopt a certain view or belief. In an attempt to win a reader over from an opposing viewpoint, the student must choose a solid position and express it in an articulate manner while providing solid evidence to support his or her viewpoint. The student must also take into account the opposing viewpoint and refute its validity by using evidence to the contrary. This is a crucial task when it comes to real-world application as it is necessary to be successful in many different types of professional careers. People are constantly seeking to persuade others to a viewpoint or belief. It is important to be skilled at the art of persuasion both to provide information or gain something from an audience. Therefore, it is necessary to begin teaching and training this skill at a young age.

2. Developing Strong Arguments

1. Write about the subject you are making a judgment on. This will be your opinion. Pick something you have a strong feeling about. 2. Write about the reasons you have for your opinion. Each reason will be a paragraph in your essay. 3. Write a paragraph for the opposing point of view. The best way to do this is with a “dissertation research important” and the opposing statement. Remember to use a transition such as “but” or “some people believe that.” 4. Write a paragraph that would attempt to persuade someone who holds the opposing view to your view. Use a transition and restate the idea from the opposing view in the first sentence. Use at least 3 sentences to explain why your view is the correct view in this person’s eyes. 5. Restate your opinion with much emphasis. Use a transition and repeat the first sentence of your essay in this paragraph. Remember that the closing paragraph should contain a restatement of your thesis and some final thoughts.

3. Organizing Your Essay

Decide whether you will write broadly for all the points of comparison or if you’ll need to identify the relationship between each point of comparison. Then write the point of comparison as a topic sentence. Organize your information in a logical way. Start in a method which is most familiar to you. The obvious develops the method of presentation into a comparison/contrast essay, and the less obvious is define a specific pattern which reveals a clearer understanding of the comparison. Comparison Ex. I. Definition and Explanation (defining the terms and pointing out the key elements of growth) Contrast Ex. I. The lifestyle of a peasant during the medieval period. Comparison/Contrast Ex. I. The biological makeup of the polluted and clean waterways. The introduction can be composed as two separate paragraphs, there is no harm in explaining the definition of each works before beginning anything else. This will give the reader a clear understanding of the topics and terms that will be compared. Then conclude with a tantalizing thesis sentence, adding the element of suspense, giving the reader a chance to want to continue the work for something to be continued.

4. Using Persuasive Language

In persuasive writing, it’s important that you use powerful, effective language. If your readers only remember one thing, make it the language of your piece. With persuasive writing, the most important thing is the words you use and the way you use them. Imagine a politician trying to persuade people to vote for him by only using logical arguments. The same is true of your writing. This method of making people want to do or believe something is effective because it gets the reader in agreement with the writer/speaker and therefore more likely to feel the same way. Emotive language is the most effective. This is because emotion is what drives us, what makes us human. So if you can make someone feel something, i.e. anger, happiness, pity, they are more likely to take your side. A writer might try to make you feel pity, anger, or guilt. Another method of introducing a change of feeling is by using an anecdote. This method is more fitting if you are trying to persuade and change someone’s opinion. It’s a way of saying “look, I had this experience and now I feel this way, so maybe you should too”. Position statements are the building bricks of persuasion. They are the main tools you will go back to again and again in your writing, and so you want to have as many as possible to make it easier on yourself. Now moving on to the higher-level language techniques, those that affect the whole of a persuasive piece. The point of repetition is to increase the reader’s feeling of the point. The more something is repeated, the more the idea will get drilled into their head. Repetition gives a writer another chance to convince. It also reinforces the memory of the point. A rhetorical question is one where you ask a question, but you don’t expect an answer. You shouldn’t really use a rhetorical question in a normal essay. But this is a style of writing a persuasive text, and you won’t convince the reader properly unless you use a lot of them. A rhetorical question can be an effective concluder.

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5. Conclusion

Now that you can see the critical need for persuasive writing in the fourth grade, you should build on your skills discussed in these lessons in order to ingrain the importance of coherent writing into your psyche. As you write your persuasive essays, keep in mind your purpose, your audience, and your topic. The five lessons provided are skill building steps that will guide you through the process of writing an exceptional, effective persuasive essay. Acquiring the above steps will set you on the right path towards successful essay writing. By teaching you these steps, I am not guaranteeing that you will be able to write an exceptional essay. This is a challenging endeavor and you will be competing with others who have depicted their thoughts in a much more creative manner than you. However, these steps will provide the backbone to writing a solid essay, a quality effort where ideas are thoughtfully and methodically presented. Remember to think critically as you follow in the footsteps of great thinkers and speakers! Your success in the battle of ideas is entirely up to you.