
Writing Opinion Letters leads your students step by step through writing a letter that expresses and supports an opinion. Instructions, activities, examples, interactives, and downloads help students gain new strategies and skills for persuasion and argumentation. You can also present this unit right from your interactive whiteboard.
Students warm up their thinking by exploring the difference between opinions and facts. Then they read a sample opinion email and opinion letter. After responding to the reading, students are ready to write their own opinion letters:
- Prewriting activities help students understand the parts of a business letter, think about topic ideas, select a topic, develop an opinion, and gather and organize reasons to support their opinion.
- Writing activities help students write each part of the business letter: heading, inside address, salutation, body, closing, and signature. Within the body of the letter, students get instructions and examples for strong beginnings that state the opinion, middle paragraphs that provide reasons and details, and an ending that calls the reader to take action.
- Revising activities help students create a persuasive voice that is appropriate to the topic. They also learn to use transitions, get a peer response, and use a checklist to revise.
- Editing activities help students vary sentences and correctly use commas in dates and addresses. An editing checklist helps students check for common errors.
- Publishing activities help students create a clean final copy of their opinion letters and reflect on their writing.