Parent Tips: Lesson 3.3
In Lesson 3.3, we ask kids to use what they’ve learned in Level 2: Arguments in Microcosm and Lessons 3.1 and 3.2 to write two types of essays: expository and persuasive. Children who do Level 2 of our program learn to write both types of arguments at the paragraph+ level (as well as narrative paragraphs). Some kids end Level 2 comfortable writing long essays using these skills, and so Lesson 3.3 will be their chance to go deeper into their analysis capabilities or move into multi-page writing. Other kids who are not yet comfortable writing multi-paragraph essays will use Lesson 3.3 to scale up to writing five-paragraph essays. We ask kids to write on the same topic for both their expository and persuasive essays so that they develop a strong understanding of the difference between the two.
Of course, we’re June Writers, so we don’t want our students to write formulaic essays. Instead, we guide kids on how to use their new power of rhetorical analysis to write thoughtful, nuanced analyses of topics close to their minds and hearts. The combination of the new scale of the writing plus the level of analysis we expect makes this lesson a Big Brain Leap.
