Opinion writing

TREE Strategy

T: Write a clear Topic sentence that states your opinion

R: Provide Reasons (3 or more)

E: Explain your reasons

E: Write an Ending Sentence

Planning Opinion Writing

STOP Strategy

S: Stop judgment by listing reasons for both sides of an issue

T: Take a side by deciding which side has the strongest support

O: Organize ideas by numbering how they will appear in your writing

P: Plan and add more as you write

Opinion writing

TREE Strategy

T: Write a clear Topic sentence that states your opinion

R: Provide Reasons for your opinion (3 or more)

E: Explain your reasons and Examine them from the audience’s perspective

E: Write an Ending Statement that wraps it up

Revising Opinion Writing

SCAN Strategy

S: Does my writing make Sense?

C: Is it Connected to my belief? Have I Connected my reasons well?

A: Can I Add more?

N: Note and fix errors

Writing Strategy

WRITE

W: Work from your plan to develop an opinion statement

R: Remember your goal

I: Include transition words for each paragraph

T: Try to use different kinds of sentences

E: Add Exciting and interesting words.

SRSD: Self-Regulated Strategy Development

Develop Background Knowledge:Provide students a rationale for the instructional strategy

Discuss It:Introduce the mnemonic strategy to students, and explain how it is used to set and achieve goals.

Model It:Model how the strategy works by thinking aloud through the writing process, and demonstrating how to use the mnemonic to plan and write a text.

Memorize it: Encourage students to memorize the mnemonic in order to internalize the planning and writing process

Support it: Using scaffolding to support students’ independent acquisition of the strategy

Practice it: Independent use of the strategy on a variety of writing tasks

Best Practices in Teaching Opinion Writing (research synopsis)

  • Argumentation/Opinion is inherently a social activity involving dialogue among people holding different perspectives.
  • Research shows that providing students with real-world social contexts for opinion writing can have a positive effect on the quality of their writing, and help them produce clearer and more precise opinions.
  • Students who participated in role-playing activities wrote opinion letters that were better adapted to the audience’s needs than those receiving only direct instruction.
  • Opinion pieces should be connected to and in response to content texts across disciplines and should promote the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge.
  • Teachers should provide powerful integrated writing instruction, which calls for instruction that integrates reading, writing, speaking and listening across the K-12 curriculum.
  • Inauthentic writing assignments with no real purpose or audience undermines student’s abilities to see other perspectives.
  • Writing with real world social contexts has positive effects on the quality of writing.
  • Top writing to learn strategies
  • Content-area literacy with a writing focus where students write 2-3 times per week, often briefly, and where reading and talk are used to support activities showed positive gains in both reading and writing.
  • Students view writing as an opportunity to think and learn
  • Students understand that writing opinions helps them think critically about an issue
  • Inquiry writing that is built around hands-on experiences
  • Students are explicitly taught strategies for writing opinion pieces.
  • Students are explicitly taught to self-monitor their writing
  • Writing activities include interesting topics, hands-on experience and peer collaboration.
  • Key points in opinion writing.
  • Active engagement with others
  • Engaging content area material
  • Time to consider the viewpoint of others
  • Mnemonic devises and graphic organizers
  • Students must be able to analyze and interpret literature before they are able to write analytic arguments/opinions about it.
  • Explicit and systemic teaching of the writing process has a dramatic and positive affect on the quality of student writing.
  • SRSD Strategy: Self-regulated Strategy Development
  • Research shows that SRSD instruction can improve the planning and revision process of young students and those with LD.