Chewing
Gum In School:
Dirty Habit or Brain Booster?
Essential Question:
How do good writers persuade others?
Did you ever wonder why kids are not allowed to chew gum in school?
Do you wish you could chomp on your favorite flavor of bubbleicious while working on your seatwork?
Or do you think that schools are right to keep students from chewing
gum- I mean, it is bad for your teeth and creates a
sticky mess….right?
Well, decide for
yourself!
In this
activity, you and your partner will read the following articles. The first link
is from the perspective of a 7th grader who thinks kids should be
allowed to chew gum in school. The second article is from a website teachers
use to help them figure out how to deal with students who are breaking the
rules- in this case, chewing gum in class! And the third link is to the first
part of a news article that tells you about how some middle school students
were recently suspended for chewing gum. As you read, think about the following
questions:
·
Who
do you think is right?
·
Who
do you agree with?
·
What
reasons did they give to support their stance?
·
How
did they persuade you to agree with them?
A Kid’s
Perspective:
A
Teacher’s Perspective:
http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/shore/shore012.shtml
In the
News: The Gum-Chewing Problem
http://www.al.com/news/press-register/metro.ssf?/base/news/1234446335313000.xml&coll=3
Directions:
1. Read
the articles with your partner and create a planner in your ILA journal. In the
planner, you should record notes about the pros and cons of allowing chewing
gum in school.
2.
Discuss the ideas you and your partner have about whether gum chewing should be
allowed in school or not. Think of other reasons that may not have been
included in the articles or links. Record you and your partners
ideas on your pros and cons list also.
3. Use
your notes, and what you and your partner discusses to
decide what you think: should chewing gum be allowed in school or not? After every group has decided what they
think, we will discuss and share our ideas as a class. We will also discuss how
good writers persuade their audience to agree with them using facts and word
choice, as well as expressive language.
4. Next,
you will be planning and writing a friendly letter to someone, convincing them
to agree with you. If you decided gum-chewing should be allowed, you will be writing
a letter to our principal, telling her all the reasons why gum-chewing should
be allowed. If you decided gum-chewing should not be allowed, you will be
writing a friendly letter to a fellow classmate who disagrees with you, telling
them why gum chewing should not be allowed.
5. You
will be using use the friendly letter planner we have practiced using this year
to create a plan for your persuasive letter.
6.
Finally, you will get to write your letter. Be sure to include all the elements
of a friendly letter and most importantly….make sure to be persuasive by
providing lots of facts, choosing meaningful words to formulate good reasons,
and using expressive language!
Once we have all
written our persuasive letters, we will get a chance to read them to each other
and even get a chance to share our letters with our principal….let’s see who is
most persuasive…maybe we will change someone’s mind!