Grade 4 took to the playground this week to learn about writing for a specific purpose. Students were asked to write a paragraph about the ABIS playground–the “catch”, however, was that half the class was to write an informative paragraph while the other half was to write a persuasive paragraph.
The writers who were tying to inform their audience gave an objective account of the playground. They gave facts and used descriptions that were based on observation. The writers who were sharing their opinion gave a more subjective account of the playground, highlighting their opinions about the playground. These opinions were then supported with factual evidence.
Both groups wrote an interesting introduction using one of the strategies we had worked on earlier in the week. Each student then shared their paragraph and the rest of the class had to guess which text type it was.
I was so proud at how the students were able to create and observe the differences in these different modes of writing. We are developing our skills in this area to assist us in upcoming writing tasks for our new unit of inquiry.