iPhone or Samsung? Sandals or Crocs? Cycling or Running? Taylor Swift or Beyonce? Netflix or Disney Plus? Consumers like to debate which is better when comparing two people, brands, businesses, activities, pieces of technology, or types of entertainment. People don’t have unlimited time, money, and interests, so choices have to be made between comparable items. People get passionate about their side in a “this or that” comparison because they want to believe they’ve invested their time, money, and interests in things that matter.
That’s what makes my newly released writing unit geared toward students in 6-8 grade so much fun. I titled my latest writing unit the “This or That Persuasive Essay.” Students get to brainstorm “this or that” topics in the categories of people, brands, businesses, activities, technology, entertainment, and other that interest them. Ultimately, they select one “this or that” topic to move forward with and work their way through the writing process to produce a five-paragraph persuasive essay to prove to their reader why one thing is better than another.
This is the 12th writing unit I’ve written specifically for middle school students, and it’s included in my Year-Long Middle School Writing Curriculum Bundle. In the remainder of this blog post, I’m going to answer some questions about my latest writing unit and the year-long writing curriculum.
What is unique about this writing unit?
When I create a writing unit, I try to think about how I can make a unit that will meet the writing standards while providing students with a chance to write a piece of writing they’ve never written before. By the time students have reached middle school, chances are they’ve written several personal narratives, research papers, and persuasive essays. They’re burned out on having to produce the same piece of writing again and again, and it is often hard for them to understand why they would have to write the same piece of writing they already completed several grade levels before.
Middle school students love to debate with each other over anything and everything, and this debate often involves what is better between two comparable items. The “This or That Persuasive Essay” gives students the chance to take their verbal debates to the next level with a topic that is highly engaging and relevant to them.
When I wrote the mentor text for this writing unit, I was deciding between Facebook vs. Instagram, cycling vs. running, and Starbucks vs. Caribou. I had a lot of thoughts on all three of these “this or that” topics, and it was hard for me to ultimately choose to write the mentor text on Facebook vs. Instagram. I can confidently say from the experience of writing the mentor text that students will enjoy writing to prove their “this or that” topic stance.
What does the unit plan look like?
All of my writing units contain 13-16 writing lessons that take students through a writing process that involves genre immersion, pre-writing, organizing & outlining, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing & sharing.
The “This or That Persuasive Essay” contains 14 writing lessons, and you can take a peek at those lessons below.
How does this writing unit fit into the year-long writing curriculum bundle?
I have worked on creating writing units for the last several YEARS. When I originally started this process, my goal was to create 10 writing units (3 persuasive, 3 informative/explanatory, 3 narrative, 1 research). Once I met that goal and published the year-long writing curriculum bundle, I discovered that many middle school ELA teachers teach across multiple grade levels with varying amounts of instructional minutes, and middle school systems wanted to use the writing units as a scope and sequence across their 6-8 writing curriculum. I decided to add bonus writing units to the year-long writing curriculum bundle to provide teachers with more choice and flexibility with their writing curriculum. I recently released the Children’s Book Writing Unit as an additional narrative writing unit. In addition to the new “This or That Persuasive Essay,” I plan to add a “Cause and Effect” informative/explanatory essay to round out the three genres of writing.
I include sample scope and sequence documents for multiple teaching scenarios in this free download. I also have a YouTube video available where I explain the writing units in detail that can be accessed here.
