PERSUASION - The Curriculum Project

1 PERSUASIONThe Skills you Need to Write Convincing Essays, Articles and ReportsAn Intermediate Level Language Learning ResourcePageChapterLanguage Structures and FunctionsSkillsTasks for Assessment11. What is PERSUASION ?defining persuasionidentifying texts that persuade; rank ordering; listing22. Thesis and Argumentstatement sentence typeswriting and evaluating precise thesis statements2 C: Writing a Thesis Sentence43. Grammar Review 1: Modal Verbsmodal verbs of probability and obligation; commands, suggestion and advicesuggesting, advising and commanding; identifying inferential meaning3 E: Changes for the World74. Audience: Who do we Want to Persuade?pronouns; purpose and context of textsidentifying audience; identifying the writer s point of view105. The Three Appeals to the Audience: Techniques of Persuasionpersuading; writing notes for a speech5 D: University Application126. The First Appeal to the Audience: Logicmaking specific and general statementsidentifying subjective and objective statements; specifying; researching167.

2 Grammar Review 2: Subordinating Conjuctionscomplex sentences: subordinating conjunctions7 F: Your Plans for the Future188. The Second Appeal to the Audience: Credibilityidentifying sourced and unsourced evidence; evaluating credibility; identifying bias249. Grammar Review 3: Relative Clauses with That and Whichcomplex sentences: relative clauses; using that and whichidentifying essential and non-essential information9 C: Writing with Relative Clauses2510. The Third Appeal to the Audience: Emotionemotions; showing and tellingusing emotion to persuade; analysing advertisements10 H: Emotions without Emotion words3111. Combining the Appeals to Audienceessay structure; main and supporting pointsidentifying relevant and irrelevent points; mind-mapping3512. Introduction and Conclusionintroducing and concludingwriting introductory and concluding paragraphs3813. Grammar Review 4: Colons and Semicolonsusing colons and semicolons13 E: Semicolons and Colons in a Letter4014.

3 The First Draftdrafting4015. Editingwhole text organisationediting and revising; conferencing writing4316. Your Second Essay16 C: Revising by YourselfMap of the Book11. What is PERSUASION ?Defining PersuasionPURPOSEP ersuasion is one of the most important things you do when you speak. Sometimes we try to persuade for very important things, like asking someone to give money to our organisation, or asking a government to change a policy. Sometimes we try to persuade for very small things, like asking to borrow five baht from a friend, or asking our teacher not to give us homework. If we tell our sister that we are very poor, perhaps we are trying to persuade her to give us a little money. If we tell our friend that the tea leaf salad at a nearby tea shop is very good, perhaps we are trying to persuade him to come to the tea shop with us. 1 A Brainstorm: A Good SpeechWhat makes a good speech? Make a list of features which persuade you most your list with two other students.

4 Decide which five features are the most important. Rank them in order of importance. 1 B Activity: The Many Uses of Persuasion1. The text above gives many examples of things that you might persuade people to do. List four of them. Example: To come to the teashop with What have you tried to persuade people to do (or to believe in) the last week? Did they do these things? List all the things that you can think persuade: (verb) 1. To make someone think the same way you do Example: The doctor persuaded the man to give up smoking. My friend persuaded me that global warming is the world s top priority. 2. To get someone to do a thing you want them to do Example: The shopkeeper persuaded the woman to buy a bottle of oil. My mother persuaded me to become a : (adjective) having the power to persuade. Example: He presented a persuasive argument for including health education in the school : (noun) the act of persuading.

5 Example: She used PERSUASION to convince her son to go back to use PERSUASION for different purposes in our everyday lives to: 1. give an opinion about something 2. show the positive or negative aspects of an idea 3. try to change someone s ideas or behaviourPersuasion can be:spokenwrittenvisualmulti-modalspeechl ectureessayarticlepostercartoonwebsitedo cumentary1 C Brainstorm: Types of PersuasionCan you think of any other formats to persuade people? Add them to the Thesis and ArgumentWhat is a Thesis? A thesis is: - your most important idea - the center of your argument, either spoken or written - the point of view you want to persuade your audience aboutFor example, if I am writing to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), my thesis might be The UNSC must condemn the use of terrorism. If I were writing to my girlfriend to ask her to marry me, my thesis might be You should marry me because I will make you very happy.

6 Why is a thesis important? If we try to persuade someone of many different and unrelated things in the same speech, letter or essay, our audience will be confused. If we argue for or against one main idea, our audience understands exactly what we want to say and our PERSUASION is clear. If you have more than one main point to persuade people about, you should write two essays or give two speeches. How do we write a good thesis? A good thesis is something not everyone agrees good thesis: The school needs to give us another classroom because with fifty-two students, our classroom is too statement has something to argue about. Do the students need another classroom, or not?A bad thesis: There are fifty-two students in our classroom. The room is is a weak thesis because there are two factual statements with no connection between them. 3A good thesis argues only one main idea: The school needs to give us another classroom because our classroom is too crowded with fifty-two bad thesis: Villagers in Karen State need to be educated about clean drinking water, and they should have schools to teach local thesis has two ideas, not one.

7 You can persuade people better if you separate these ideas into two essays. One essay can persuade the reader why education about clean drinking water is important, and the other essay can persuade about schools teaching local good thesis: Villagers in Karen State need to be educated about clean drinking thesis only has one idea to persuade about. The essay will be much easier to construct. A good thesis statement is specific, not bad thesis: The Matrix is a very good movie so you should watch thesis is weak - it gives no reasons and so does not persuade very well. Why is it a good movie? A good thesis: The Matrix has many exciting fight scenes and very clever writing so you should watch thesis is specific. It persuades the reader to watch the movie by giving two good thesis statement is narrow, not bad thesis: Australia has a lot of thesis is too wide. Australia is a very big country with many things to talk about.

8 If you try to talk about unequal distribution of wealth, agriculture, the environment, education, and over population in the cities all in the same essay, your essay will need five hundred pages of evidence to persuade people on all of these points. This is too much for a short report or better thesis: Australia has a lot of problems because of its thesis is better. Now you only need to find evidence for the effects of Australia s climate and how this can be related to the problems faced by Australians. Problems of unequal distribution of wealth or education can be left to another argument. A very good thesis: The Northern Territory in Australia has a lot of problems in developing agriculture because of a difficult climate. This thesis is narrow enough for a short essay or report. Because you are talking only about a specific problem (agriculture in a difficult climate) in a specific region (the Northern Territory of Australia), you can try to find specific evidence for that region that will be very A Activity: Good and BadList four things that make a good thesis, and four things that make a bad thesis.

9 42 B Activity: Rewrite the ThesisRead each of the bad thesis sentences below. Find the problem with each thesis, and rewrite each into a better thesis. Don t be afraid to use your imagination. Example: George W. Bush was a bad thesis is very vague. It can mean too many things. A better thesis is George W. Bush s war in Iraq created many problems for American soldiers. 1. Motorcycles and cars create a lot of pollution in big cities. 2. The village school needs a new teacher, and the farmers need three new wells. 3. I think all graduates should serve as teachers. 4. Young parents have many problems. 5. Smoking cigarettes is bad for you. 6. You should eat lunch with me today, and you should do your C Assessment: Write a Thesis Sentence Write a thesis sentence of your own.

10 What do you want to persuade people about? Is your thesis statement specific, narrow, and arguing only one idea? Is it something people do not agree about? What evidence could you use to support your thesis?3. Grammar Review 1: Modal VerbsWe try to persuade people about things that are matters of opinion. Therefore we need to explain how certain we are about an idea or to describe the probability of an action - if an action will happen, or if it will not. Modal Verbs of Probability A modal verb is added to the verb group to show the degree of probability or certainty. We must be careful when riding a bicycle in heavy can drive faster when there is little traffic on the roads. + must , can , might, may, could - may not, might not, could not (couldn t), cannot (can t) must not (mustn t)Look at the examples on the next page. 5 ExamplesUsageThey must be in Mandalay by must have done well on the English must when you are 100% (or almost 100%) certain that something happened or is little brother can be very the mountains, evenings can be quite cold.