Book excerpt: These engaging writing activities will introduce and develop essential persuasive writing skills! This workbook contains 50 guided 2-page exercises where students decide on the best and worst features of a person, place, event, activity, or situation. Each activity asks students to list three positive and three negative aspects of the given topic. Students then choose the best and the worst aspect and write a short paragraph explaining the choice. Each topic also includes a full-length writing task where students use the three good points or the three bad points as supporting ideas for a complete opinion piece. Key Benefits - Introduces and develops strong persuasive writing skills - Simple, straightforward, and engaging activities give students ongoing practice - Students have extensive practice brainstorming and listing reasons and supporting ideas - Encourages students to produce well-organized full-length opinion pieces - Includes full-length writing tasks for opinion pieces, essays, letters, articles, and flyers - Format allows for review and feedback as the student progresses - Encourages critical thinking by having students think of pros and cons for a wide range of topics Develops the Persuasive Writing Skills Listed in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study - Forming and clearly stating an opinion - Brainstorming reasons and selecting the strongest reasons - Supporting a point of view with reasons - Using details and examples to support ideas - Producing focused and organized opinion pieces - Structuring opinion pieces based on supporting ideas