Lesson 6: Argumentative Style Of Persuasive Writing

Semester A Unit 5 Lesson 6

Introduction and Objective
Persuasive writing is a type of nonfiction writing used to convince the reader to agree with the author about an issue. The author will rely heavily on facts to express his or her opinion and use them in an argumentative type of writing style. The tricky part of reading nonfiction persuasive writing is distinguishing the claims that are supported by reasons and evidence; some writers will use faulty reasoning.

Today's lesson objective is:

• Students will be able to distinguish claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not.

Take a moment to think about this objective. What learning skills might you use to achieve it? You’ve already learned how to break
You want to pay attention to the language and visuals that are trying to get you to believe or do something. What you want to look for in evaluating a persuasive text is the logical reasoning and evidence.

Logical reasoning is correct reasoning, meaning that when you put information together you conclude, “If one thing is true, then the other must be true.” Evidence is the support or proof that backs up an argument, claim, or conclusion.

In a persuasive text, a writer presents a conclusion. To be effective, the writer makes his or her argument, provides reasons, presents logical evidence, and then draws a conclusion based on that evidence. Your job as the reader is to evaluate the reasons and evidence to distinguish whether or not the reasoning and evidence are supporting the argument and conclusion.

Let’s look at an example and determine whether logical reasoning and evidence exists.

Example: If Mr. Jones was a great lawyer, he will make a terrific
Jones was a great lawyer, successfully winning 1,000 cases out of 1,050 in the last 20 years and obtaining recognition with many prestigious awards; therefore, he would make an excellent judge in our judicial system.

This is still an example of “if one thing is true, then the other must be true,” but it is supported by the fact that he won cases and worked in law for a long time and backed up by the evidence of 1,000 cases won and 20 years of experience.

ELA6_SA_5_6_ACT_1

Persuasive techniques include the use of logical appeal, emotional appeal, and logical fallacies. Mistakes in reasoning are called logical fallacies. If a person reads a text too fast, an argument built of fallacious reasoning may seem to make sense. Persuasive writing can be exciting, and effective if it appeals to logic through emotions. It is important to be able to identify not only logical reasons and evidence, but also the fallacies and emotional appeals that can exist.

There are common types of logical fallacies to watch for when reading, though many more do exist.

• Hasty generalizations. A generalization is a broad statement that applies to a group of people or things. They are not completely true because there may be examples or situations in which the generalization does not apply. Valid generalizations require solid