I introduced the lesson using an anchor chart similar to this one that I found on Pinterest:
I always have my students add some form of the anchor to their reader's notebooks so they can refer back to it during the unit. We made this anchor chart into a flip book and added our notes.
Then, I read aloud The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. This is a great book to show how the characters are persuading the man in the story. We discussed why they were persuading him and how they were persuading him. We also discussed how the book persuaded US as readers to think about taking care of the rainforest. (It was just Earth Day, so this was a great time to read this book!)
The next day, I read aloud The Principal's New Clothes by Stephanie Calmenson.
This time the students had to write about how the characters persuaded others and give evidence from the text to support their thinking. We used this page to write our thinking.
A couple of other great books to use for persuasive text are...
The Pigs' Picnic
by Keiko Kasza
Absolutely Not
by Matthew McElligott
We then talked about nonfiction texts. The book Should There Be Zoos? by Tony Stead is amazing! (but hard to find)
Before reading, the kids thought about how they felt about zoos and then voted yes or no on the topic. We created a graph to show our votes. After reading, the class discussed their thoughts again and we thought about how the book persuaded some of them to change their original vote.
The next day, the kids read the persuasive article Should We Pay for Plastic Bags? on their own. I downloaded that article HERE.
They completed this writing page to list how the author persuaded the readers and then wrote evidence to support their thinking.
It was a fun week with lots of great discussion!