Persuasive Writing Unit - Persuasive Essay Lessons, Examples, Prompts & Rubric

Teach students the elements of persuasive writing and help them breeze through their next persuasive essay! This unit breaks everything down about writing persuasive essays into easy steps and provides practice at each step. Your students will understand what to do and how to do it, so they actually will write! (And you will actually want to read it!)

Before I created this unit, my students struggled with persuasive writing. I had made too many assumptions about their understanding of audience and addressing opposing views, not to mention the beast of teaching them to write effective opening and closing paragraphs! I realized I had been assigning them persuasive writing, not really teaching it (insert: face-palm).

This unit made an enormous difference in my students' writing and for so many other teachers and students who have tried it out in their classrooms! 

This persuasive writing unit is based on five-paragraph essay structure, but it could easily be expanded to include more body paragraphs.

Persuasive Writing Lessons Include:

• Write opening and closing paragraphs for persuasive essays
• Address audience and opposing views
• Take a position
• Make an outline
• Draft body paragraphs from outlines
• Put it all together while addressing the Common Core Standards!

Note: This unit is also sold in an essay bundle along with the Informative/Explanatory Writing Unit: Essay Writing Lessons Bundle

The Persuasive Writing Unit includes:

• Lesson plan sequence (approximately 3 weeks) that includes Common Core Matrices for grades 4 - 8.
• EDITABLE Presentations for each lesson (including correlated Common Core):  The number indicates how many content slides per lesson: 
  • Audience (24)
  • Pros and cons for Opposing Views (30)
  • Take a Position (15) 
  • Make an Outline (30)
  • Drafting: Outlines to Body Paragraphs (39)
  • How to Write an Opening Paragraph, Part I (22)
  • How to Write an Opening Paragraph, Part II (12)
  • How to Write a Closing Paragraph, Part I (20)
  • How to Write a Closing Paragraph, Part II (24)

• EDITABLE Handouts / worksheets to accompany each lesson, 18 total
• Persuasive essay checklist
• 11+ Persuasive writing prompt Ideas

Note: The entrances of bullet points are animated so you can control the flow of the lesson. You also have the option to edit the presentations in PowerPoint (.pptx) or Google Slides™ for personal use (prohibited for derivative works or commercial use). The handouts come in PDF and are editable in Google Slides™

What do teachers have to say about this unit?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “This has been one of the best items I have purchased on TPT. It is very complete and my 6/7 grade students are doing a wonderful job writing a persuasive essay because of it. I would highly recommend this resource! Thank you so much for providing such a quality item!"

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “The unit is a hit with me. The lessons were clear, concise and a real time saver."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “This helped so much. The kids struggle with intro and close and other parts so I love how this broke all their struggles down into parts and gave practice. Will definitely use again and again. Thanks"

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“WOW! What a difference this made in essay writing. I actually enjoyed the writing process this time! Thank you SOOO much!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Absolutely Love it! This is such a well structured resource. I love how the bundle scaffolds learning. I use the PPTs as is for instruction and use the worksheets for guided groups. Have definitley seen progression in student writing. Thanks heaps."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“I used the Audience ppt lesson for my observation with the principal. She was so impressed!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“I currently teach 5th grade. I used the information in this unit for a two week persuasive writing lesson. A few weeks later my students took the state writing assessment. I was VERY pleased to see that some of my students had persuasive prompts and were making pro/con charts, thesis statements, and great introduction/closing paragraphs. Thank you!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“A thorough guide for teaching persuasive writing. Unit is broken down very sensibly into suggested timelines from start to finish. Very professional! Will definitely use this for my 8th graders! Thanks!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“I love how this is broken down. Thank you so much for sharing your work! My students are loving persuasive writing.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“This is a well put together resource for teaching persuasive writing. I teach an advanced group of 5th graders and this is something that really helped to improve their writing. Thank you for the great work!”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️“I used this with my 6th grade students and loved it. It was organized and went very well. I am so pleased that I chose to try this unit. Thanks so much.”

This unit is also sold separately as individual lessons:

- Audience and Opposing Views in Persuasive Essays

- Opening and Closing Paragraphs for Persuasive Essays

- Take a Position and Make an Outline for Persuasive Essays

Please let me know if you have any questions using the Q&A tab.

You might also be interested in:

Expository/Informative/Explanatory Writing Unit

Essay Writing Lessons Bundle

Narrative Writing Activity 

Plot Diagrams, Summary, and Writing Activities