1.+Take+A+Stand

During Reading - Utilizing Reading Strategy 1**. Take A Stand:**

· **Rationale: ** This strategy will help students who are reluctant or lack the knowledge to express their opinions on specific issues or concepts. This helps students communicate their stance and evidence to substantiate their stance on a particular issue in a coherent and organized piece of writing. It allows the teacher to assess the student’s communication skills in the form of a well-organized persuasive essay. · **Courses in which it could be implemented: ** I believe this Take A Stand utilizing – after reading – strategy can be used in Language Arts, history, and science. This strategy allows students to successfully communicate their opinions on a certain topic via a persuasive essay and hopefully convince their reader to believe as they do.  · **Diverse learners: ** All learning styles and diversity of backgrounds can utilize this strategy to communicate. This is a great way to get a student to share their opinions about a topic of interest to them and to try and use their communication skills to sway the reader to their side of the issue. This strategy helps student build their critical thinking skills by allowing them to incorporate their own voice in to their writing on an issue they have a strong interest in. Some of students' best writing is when they can voice their opinions on issues that matter most to them. · **Procedure: ** 1. The teacher models the strategy first with the class. She demonstrates how students should respond to each step. Beginning with the outline shown in the resources section of this strategy (below) students must decide on a topic of importance to them. The teacher may provide a listing of topics such as: abortion, gun control, gay marriage, global warming, and other controversial issues. Also, a similar outline form is shown in the book: __A Handbook of Content Literacy Strategies, 125 Practical Reading and Writing Ideas__ by Elaine C. Stephens and Jean E. Brown, (second edition), page 183, figure 7.5 The Graphic: Take A Stand. 2. The teacher models how students can formulate a position statement or what I call, a strongly believe statement based on their position. This is placed in the Position Statement box in the outline. On my outline below in the resources section of this strategy the top box is the students’ attention getter for their essay they will write and the second box at top is their topic sentence or Position Statement (strongly believe statement). 3. In the next step of the outline below/graphic on page 183, students begin listing support for their Strongly Believe/Position Statement. 4. Reviewing steps 1 and 2, the teacher asks, “Have you supported your stand on the issue?” 5. Students revise their outline/graphic as necessary, adding necessary evidence and support from their own thoughts and/or research on their particular view of the issue at hand. In the outline referred to under resources students use reason boxes 1,2, and 3 to list them. In the support boxes below the reasons, students provide evidence and support to back their reasons up. The very last box on the outline form below is the conclusions which should be a very solid ending to their essay. 6. Students then begin drafting, “The Message” or Persuasive Essay in which they articulate their positions fully.  · **Potential Issues: ** <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Students may be unfamiliar with the graphic/outline and do not understand how to complete it. At our school we try and be consistent with using this one outline/graphic piece when organizing thoughts for writing a persuasive essay. The 7th grade and the Speech class use the same graphic/outline for this purpose as I do for 8th graders. The reason we do this is because there seems to be very little consistency when teaching outlining for persuasive essays from elementary teachers/grade. Some students use other types of webs; some use outline forms with Roman numerals. We at the junior high/middle school provide an outline form so students can use this to organize their thoughts and evidence into a well-organized and thought-out essay; however, I tell students that if they feel more at ease using their own outlining tool/graphic, they may do so. Another potential problem is the choosing a topic to write on. Therefore, I offer choices to students on topics so that they can pick one that is of interest to them. Or, if they have one in particular they want to take a stand on, then that is fine as well. <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msolist: Ignore; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; mso-list: Ignore;">· **<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">References (Bibliography Information & **
 * <span style="font-size: 14pt; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> Cross reference the Resource Binder) : **

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=Tina's Own Development. (2006).=

<span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Persuasive Outline/ Graphic used at Lincoln Junior High School for Take A Stand Strategy is on page 183 in Stephens and Brown book. (Figure 7.5) or see link below: [|eportfolio Take A Stand Graphic Outline for Persuasive Essay.docx] Model Essay Rubric Model Speech Prompts

Stephens, E. C. & Brown, J. E. (2005). A handbook of content literacy strategies: 125 practical reading and writing ideas. //Strategies for Utilizing// (pp. 182-183). Norwood, MA: Christopher –Gordon.

(**All Cross Referenced in E-potfolio Content Area Reading 465 Reading Strategies Resource Binder.)