As you start talking about persuasion with your students, you'll enter the world of persuasive appeals. When you introduce Greek terms, you may see the student's eyes start to glaze over a little bit.
"Ethos? Path-what? Logos?"
"What's this old stuff? Does it really matter?"
Is that a question you can answer? Do you know WHY it's helpful to teach students persuasive appeals? What's the point of teaching persuasive appeals?
1. Your students need to learn how subtle persuasion can be.
One year, I decided to show my students some ads. (Which I didn't realize was increasingly being archaic thanks to Netflix, but I digress.) I asked them how they were being persuaded, and they didn't understand. We watched again. I pointed out a few things and I saw some of them brighten up and started to speak up with what the ad was trying to get them to do. I showed them political ads from both sides and it continued. They started catching more and more- the emotional language, the one-sided statistics, etc. From a neutral viewpoint, I wanted to show them that everyone is constantly trying to persuade them one way or another. Without studying it, it's difficult to even realize what's happening!
2. It will strengthen their own persuasive efforts.
I had my students do persuasive games and activities to try to warm them up as we headed into the new unit. We did something similar at the end as an assessment as well. Learning to identify and use persuasive appeals greatly changed how they approached it. Their method became more intentional and calculated. Instead of spitting out a bunch of arguments at us, they actually pulled together a much stronger argument!
Do you feel your students have a strong grasp on persuasive appeals? You can assess them using my new game with persuasive appeals. Check it out and see if it's a good fit for your classroom!
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