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This lesson can be adapted to teach a variety of writing styles. Here, we will be looking at how it can help students to create a piece of persuasive writing, but in the past I have changed it to teach descriptive, narrative and argumentative styles. It can also be used at the same time to teach different text types with just a few quick and easy changes. Play around with the general ideas found outlined below and see what you can come up with!

Use a classic film clip to kick start a pacey lesson that will boost students’ writing skills

THE GREAT PERSUADER

WHY TEACH THIS? Help students to learn how

to dissect, analyse and create in one quick and easy lesson,

while developing independence and resilience..

MAIN ACTIVITIES

Lesson plan: ENGLISH KS3

KEY CURRICULUM LINKS

+ Applying knowledge of grammar, punctuation and

structure to writing.

+ Discussing reading, writing and spoken language with precise, confident use of terminology.

+ Knowing purpose, audience and context of writing to support comprehension.

+ Using standard English confidently in writing

and speech.

STARTER ACTIVITY This is a fairly simple starter activity. I ask students to recount as many persuasive devices as they can; while they are doing this, I have footage of Charlie Chaplin’s famous speech from The Great Dictator showing on the board. This is designed to aid and remind students. We feed back as a class and look at which devices we know how to use and which ones we are unsure of. This helps to plan for later in the lesson.

Download a FREE lesson plan that will develop

persuasive writing skills even further, at

teachwire.net/ persuasion

1) Listen and learnAs a class, look at the opening of Chaplin’s final speech from The Great Dictator. Play it two or three times, asking students simply to watch it the first time; write down a series of questions the second time around; and to try and answer their own questions or the questions of the classmate next to them on the third and final viewing. Feed back from the class and ask students to look for any linguistic patterns in what they have found. Next, we need to display the speech on the board and for each student to have an A3 copy of it. On the student copy, make the writing nice and big with plenty of space between each line; they are going to need as much space as possible! Here (if they

don’t already know), you guide students in how to annotate and dissect a piece of writing. The idea is to show students how pulling apart a text can help them to build their understanding and develop their own written work. Focus on different areas in depth, taking into consideration language choice, linguistic devices, punctuation and author’s intentions.

2) Model successThroughout the task, the teacher should have a completed example of the annotated speech on a wall outside their classroom. Students are given a short period of time to run outside and gather as much information as they can before running back inside and passing it onto their

How can Charlie Chaplin help students to become persuasive and voice their emotions?

Q

teammates. As the teacher, you can decide how this works; sometimes I only allow a table of top ability students outside to see the example, they then have to feed that information back to the class while completing their own work at the same time. At other times, I will only allow the lowest attaining students outside to see it; they will have to find a way of passing that information on to the rest of the class, too. Give students a set time in which to complete this task; you can create a sense of pace within the classroom by playing fast music. If my class have been particularly well behaved, I often ask them to write down the name of one song and the artist that performs it on a sticky note so I can create a

playlist for them while they work – be sure to check the songs have no swearing in first, though!

3) Original writingWhen students have annotated their own version of the text with the devices used and (most importantly) the reasons behind their use, we can move on to the next task. Here, you have two options. You can ask students to respond to an exam style question using

DISCUSSIONI really enjoy teaching this lesson. It is fast paced, requires very little input from

the teacher, and the students get lots out of it. It cuts down planning time, as once you have the systems and methods up and running, you can easily change the text type or the purpose of the written task. This doesn’t just need to be an English lesson, either; I have seen colleagues from a wide range of subjects adapt this for their classes. For example, I saw a science specialist use this model to teach report writing in their subject. Play around with the way in which students work, too – independently, or in small, mixed ability groups of three. The one thing I would say is vitally important in this lesson is that the teacher must be constantly moving about the room, constantly pushing students to work quicker, to develop their ideas, to question choices. The pace of this lesson is central to its success!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

You will need sugar paper, copies of Charlie Chaplin’s speech, A3 paper, access to Youtube to show the footage from the film,

coloured pens or pencils, fun and fast-paced music.

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THE AUTHORAnthony O’Brien is

head of the English and Communications Faculty

at Nightingale Academy in Edmonton, London.

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GOING DEEPERMore able students can take their own speech they have created and begin to analyse their

own work. Ask them to highlight, annotate and explain their linguistic

choices. Does it live up to Charlie Chaplin’s version? What could

they improve on?

NEXT STEPSWhen the students get so engrossed in a topic

they are passionate about, I love to hear them verbalise their thoughts

and emotions. Ask students to perform their speech in front of the rest

of the class. The art of oration is dwindling in this modern era, so we should

give students as many opportunities as possible

to practise it.

the information found in their annotations (boring!) or you can set them the task of creating their own persuasive speech. I like to steer clear of clichéd titles such as “Why we should ban homework” or “Let us wear our own clothes to school” as they don’t develop any real passion from the students. Give them something emotionally mature to deal with; the results will far exceed your expectations.

HOME LEARNINGYou can ask students to find other examples of persuasive writing or speeches from people they know and respect; the likes of Big Shaq and Stormzy can be equally (if not more) as inspiring as Ghandi or Obama. Set them some questions to answer, such as what techniques have been used and why? Why did this person say this and what did they want to achieve? Rewrite the speech as a Tweet using only 140 characters.

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