Telling Our Stories of Giving
How can our voice be used to make communities stronger?
Photo Credit: Homework Club by Howard County Library System is licensed under CC by 2.0
Students learn about and complete prewriting activities for three styles of writing: news stories, personal narratives, and persuasive essays. They each write and publish one piece of writing as an act of advocacy to raise awareness of community needs and encourage active involvement in solutions.
Students become familiar with the structure of the newspaper and the purpose of the different types of articles as they explore "stories" about acts of giving and sharing time, talent, and treasure for the common good. Students recognize the types of voices and articles in the newspaper. They analyze the components of news articles and complete pre-writing for a news article about their own acts of philanthropy.
Students learn about the characteristics of an effective personal narrative and compare those to a news article. They do prewriting activities and practice writing details to show rather than tell about an experience.
Students learn effective techniques and complete prewriting activities for writing a persuasive essay. As a culmination of the unit, students choose one of the three styles of writing--news article, personal narrative, or persuasive essay--to write, edit, and publish about their experience with giving time, talent, or treasure for the common good.