Everyone has heard the age old maxim, "practice makes perfect." In innumerable cases, this maxim proves its truthfulness, time and time again. However, no one has ever heard this maxim put this way: "practice makes perfect, only at a certain age." That is a bit odd, isn't it? It's also, as Diane Downer Anderson maintains, false, especially when discussing the idea of introducing the genre of persuasive writing to elementary aged kids. In Anderson's essay, "The Elementary Persuasive Letter: Two Cases of Situated Competence, Strategy, and Agency," the argument that elementary aged children don't have the ability to write persuasive texts is felled, and then, Anderson starts to enumerate all the ways in which introducing the persuasive writing genre to elementary school children is successful, as long as certain teaching strategies are in place.
One of the first points that Anderson maintains, in Research in the Teaching of English, is that, "Elementary persuasive writing is a powerful genre because it is a scaffold to argumentative writing in high school and college ...." (271). This is probably the most salient point. As a teacher of nine years, I've witnessed first hand what introducing and practicing a concept does for students. It does not matter so much what age something is taught, as how it is taught, and what tools are being used to drive the concept home. Anderson underlines the importance of this when she states, " ... wrting persuasive letters suggests that teachers who include persuasive writing in their curricula and scaffold such writing through talk, explicit forms, and topics on which children have much to say will find that children dsplay competence in their persuasive thinking and writing" (271).
The idea of introducing a concept and supporting it with things such as graphic organizers, class discussions, outside ideas that have parallels to the topic at hand, and explaining why the particular topic is an important one, are all examples of what Anderson calls "explicit forms," and why these forms should be considered appropriate only at a certain age is hard to understand. I taught high school, and if I did not introduce and practice these forms explicitly, my high school students would have had the same difficulty a third grader might possibly have with persuasive writing. Although the fallacy of persuasive writing at a certain age is obviously wrong, strong teachers with best teaching practices should be given to students of every age.
Persuasive writing should be introduced, made explicit, and practiced many times in elementary school. And knowing that "Persuasive writing is the primary genre on which students will be assessed as writers ... culminating in a written essay on the Scholastic Achievement Test ...." (273), shouldn't we as educators and parents demand that persuasive writing should be in the curriculum long before kids enter junior high and high school? I think so.
For more information on finding an English tutor, in the Scottsdale and Phoenix area, who tutors in the Persuasive genre, please visit http://www.excellenceinacademicstutoring.com/.
One of the first points that Anderson maintains, in Research in the Teaching of English, is that, "Elementary persuasive writing is a powerful genre because it is a scaffold to argumentative writing in high school and college ...." (271). This is probably the most salient point. As a teacher of nine years, I've witnessed first hand what introducing and practicing a concept does for students. It does not matter so much what age something is taught, as how it is taught, and what tools are being used to drive the concept home. Anderson underlines the importance of this when she states, " ... wrting persuasive letters suggests that teachers who include persuasive writing in their curricula and scaffold such writing through talk, explicit forms, and topics on which children have much to say will find that children dsplay competence in their persuasive thinking and writing" (271).
The idea of introducing a concept and supporting it with things such as graphic organizers, class discussions, outside ideas that have parallels to the topic at hand, and explaining why the particular topic is an important one, are all examples of what Anderson calls "explicit forms," and why these forms should be considered appropriate only at a certain age is hard to understand. I taught high school, and if I did not introduce and practice these forms explicitly, my high school students would have had the same difficulty a third grader might possibly have with persuasive writing. Although the fallacy of persuasive writing at a certain age is obviously wrong, strong teachers with best teaching practices should be given to students of every age.
Persuasive writing should be introduced, made explicit, and practiced many times in elementary school. And knowing that "Persuasive writing is the primary genre on which students will be assessed as writers ... culminating in a written essay on the Scholastic Achievement Test ...." (273), shouldn't we as educators and parents demand that persuasive writing should be in the curriculum long before kids enter junior high and high school? I think so.
For more information on finding an English tutor, in the Scottsdale and Phoenix area, who tutors in the Persuasive genre, please visit http://www.excellenceinacademicstutoring.com/.
