Persuasive Writing Prompts for Year 3 and Year 5

These persuasive writing cards are the perfect addition to your persuasive writing lesson planning. Each prompt demonstrates t-chart planning by presenting five reasons ‘for’ and five reasons ‘against’ the title statement.

The topics covered in the set of writing prompts include:

• All Families Should Own a Pet
• City Life is Better Than Country Life
• Movies Are More Enjoyable Than Books
• Outdoor Play is Better Than Indoor Play
• Zoos Are No Place for Animals.

These are great to use with students to show how arguments for or against a particular topic can be formed. It also provides your students with ideas, and while coming up with their own arguments is just as important, these cards allow you to spend time focusing on the construction of their writing.

Preparing for NAPLAN Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a curriculum-aligned topic, so is an important aspect of your students’ literacy skills. However, it also may feature in the NAPLAN, so you must set your students up for success. Here are some ways you can prepare students for the NAPLAN writing task:

• Teach persuasive writing strategies to your students, including persuasive language, and the main structure of a persuasive text.
• Lots of practise! Give your students daily writing prompts to get them to come up with arguments and write persuasive texts.
• Use real-world examples! Linking the topics directly to something important to your students will have them wanting to write persuasive texts.
• Use persuasive writing templates to help guide their ideas.
• Time management! Practise writing within a time period (including their planning). Give them an idea of how much time they should spend on planning their text and how much time they have to write.
• Strengthen their fine motor! Particularly for year 3 students, they’re going to need strong fingers to just keep writing during the time frame. Get out the playdough and spend time strengthening those finger muscles!