This week, the eighth graders refreshed their memory on the art of persuasion, one of the skills that they had to learn last year when working on the gym renovation project. This time however, they learned to use it in writing–how to persuade their readers by providing information that clearly made obvious their opinions on the matter without clearly stating them.
To do this, the journalists participated in a debate. After watching clips of the recent Presidential Debate, the students were split into opposing teams, and using information only gathered from the videos, they were asked to argue for one of the political opponents.
The students were challenged to put their own political stances aside, or hopefully, form one after watching the debate. They also had to counter each other’s points and think of counterarguments that the other teams might make, which are good skills to have in the field of persuasive writing and would be beneficial for them as they begin writing articles for the newsletter.
The debate was extremely tense but fun, a winner was eventually decided, and both teams left understanding how to to make their efforts in persuasive speaking/writing better.
-Ms. Semple
Team captains Ajani Semple and Ajeya Watson congratulate each other after the debate.
DIVAS (Digital Interactive Visual Arts Sciences) for Social Justice aims to bridge the digital divide by combining media literacy and cultural awareness along with a vast understanding of technology to encourage young women in under served communities to pursue careers in computer science and new media.
