Helping Students Write Persuasive Essays

From the Marshall Memo #430

In this article in Exceptional Children, Sharlene Kiuhara and Steve Graham (Vanderbilt University) and Robert O’Neill and Leanne Hawken (University of Utah) describe a study of the effectiveness of the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model with tenth graders with disabilities as they wrote persuasive essays. Here are its three acronyms:

• STOP is a guide to the planning process: Suspend judgment by listing reasons for each side of a position before deciding on a premise; Take a position after evaluating the listed ideas; Organize ideas from strongest to weakest or most important to least important; and Plan the essay.

• AIMS helps students construct an introduction: Attract the reader’s attention; Identify the problem of the topic so the reader understands the issues; Map the context of the problem or provide background information needed to understand the problem; and State the thesis so the premise is clear. 

• DARE includes the basic elements they need to include in their paper: Develop topic sentences; Add supporting ideas; Reject possible arguments for the other side; and End with a conclusion.

This approach was successful in getting students to write effective persuasive essays, vindicating the authors’ hypothesis that explicitly teaching strategies coupled with acronyms works.

“The Effectiveness of Teaching 10^th-Grade Students STOP, AIMS, and DARE for Planning and Drafting Persuasive Text” by Sharlene Kiuhara, Robert O’Neill, Leanne Hawken, and Steve Graham in Exceptional Children, Spring 2012 (Vol. 78, #3, p. 335-355)