Should You Eat . . . Opinion and Persuasive Writing

Opinion and persuasive writing can be fun!

But you may need some inspiring prompts to capture your imagination and to help you find a purpose. If the writing prompts help a child find a purpose, it is easier for her to explore counter-ideas and suggestions. Understanding other people's or animals beliefs, expectations and experiences help a child when writing and thinking about ways to include their audience's perspective.

A great way to introduce opinion and persuasive writing is to read books and to explore the ideas. The book may use reason as a way to support an idea. An opinion is something that someone feels or thinks about a subject. This is different from a fact that can be tested or proved. For example, "Today is Wednesday", is a fact, while "Wednesday is the worst day of the week", is an opinion.

Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld is a great introduction to talk about how people can look at the same thing and have different opinions and that neither is right nor wrong.

To demonstrate this, you can copy the shape from the Duck! Rabbit! book and let a couple of children or family members write what they see. You can draw a picture underneath using the shape as inspiration and then write "This is a__________!"

There are a wide range of optical illusions that you can explore together, go here to look at some optical illusions that may be suitable for kids. The book below contains wonderful ideas to make your own illusions.
Exploring illusions is one one to help a child enjoy opinion and persuasive writing. Something that i must admit I thought was terrible boring as a child . . . Using creative and inspiring ways to capture a child's attention is always important . . . Be inspired to explore this more formal side of writing.