Explore PersuasiveTechniques with a Digital Game

When creating a recipe for the perfect persuasive essay, one of the top ingredients would surely be persuasive writing techniques… and plenty of them! Rhetorical devices are powerful tools that writers use to influence and convince their audience to adopt a particular point of view or take a specific action. Teaching students about persuasive writing techniques when teaching the persuasive genre is crucial as it equips them with the skills to effectively communicate their ideas, opinions and arguments in a compelling manner. 

This digital resource has been designed by our experienced teacher team to help your students solidify their understanding of rhetorical devices and how they can be used in a persuasive essay. Each slide contains a sentence accompanied by three persuasive technique options. The students must choose the correct rhetorical device used in the sentence. There are 20 questions to work through.

For example:

Screen time is incredibly dangerous in childhood as it melts children’s growing brains.

Is this an example of:

• A rhetorical question
• Hyperbole
• Evidence

In this case, the correct answer is… hyperbole!

If students choose the incorrect answer, they are directed to a slide that encourages them to go back and try again. If the student chooses the correct answer, they are directed to a slide that provides positive reinforcement and allows them to progress to the next question.

This resource downloads as a Google Slides presentation. Simply project the resource onto your screen and work through the slides as a class for a paperless lesson on the power of persuasive writing techniques!

Why Persuasive Techniques Are Essential in Persuasive Writing

As previously mentioned, learning how to incorporate persuasive techniques into their persuasive essays is a crucial skill for our students to learn. Here are a few key reasons why this skill is so important:

• Rhetorical devices build author-audience relationships – Using rhetorical questions, inclusive language or a well-crafted simile or metaphor can capture the reader’s attention and draw them to sympathize with the author’s stance.
• Rhetorical devices enhance credibility – Using evidence such as quotes from experts, research studies results or numerical statistics lends authority to the argument being presented, further convincing the audience that the author is knowledgeable and correct.
• Rhetorical devices pull at the audience’s heartstrings – Using emotive language helps appeal to the emotions of the audience, lending further support to the author’s stance.

Download To Explore Persuasive Writing Techniques

Use the Download button above to access this resource. (Note: You will be prompted to make a copy of the Google Slides template before accessing it.)

Be sure to operate the presentation in Slideshow mode to enable the interactive features.

More Resources for Your Lessons on Persuasive Writing

Click below for a peek at Teach Starter’s extensive range of curriculum-aligned, teacher-created resources to use when teaching persuasive writing techniques to your students!

teaching resource

Rhetorical Devices Teaching Slides

Explore types of rhetorical devices with your students using this detailed and age-appropriate slideshow perfect for your persuasive writing unit.

teaching resource

Identifying Persuasive Language Worksheets

Explore persuasive language with your students using this set of five persuasive texts on a variety of age-appropriate topics.

teaching resource

List of Rhetorical Devices

Download this list of rhetorical devices for your students to refer to when writing a persuasive essay.