Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goals: Students learn persuasive letter writing skills through using language techniques to write a letter to a politician.

Teacher content: How do you and your students feel about the usage of energy in Australia and the impacts it is having on the environment?

Electrical energy is part of our everyday lives at home, at work and at school. Most of our energy is produced by burning fossil fuels and this has a range of environmental, social and economic impacts. One of the most significant impacts is the release of greenhouse gases. A solution is a transition to clean energy sources. Another solution is to think about our personal energy footprint and reduce the amount of energy we use.

All electrical appliances in your school or office use energy and create greenhouse gases. These gases enter the atmosphere and add to the enhanced greenhouse effect and climate change. Counting the number of appliances (light fittings, Smartboards, computers, heaters, fridges, radios) and estimating the number of hours used, you can calculate the consumption per kilowatt hour and the amount of greenhouse gases created per item. Students use their specific states Emission Factor to calculate the kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.

Once this has been established, you can work out which items are the highest energy consumers and changes can be made to reduce your power consumption.

Student and classroom organisation:

Step 1: What's up with energy?

As a class conduct a brainstorm about energy and the impacts of our usage on the environment. Summarise and record the students responses on the board.

Next, sort your students into pairs and appoint one student to be the scribe.

Students then brainstorming a list of 'energy issues' that exist in society.

Students will use the 'Ranking Ladder' thinking tool to assist in organising their ideas. The aim of the ladder is to rank the identified issues frommost important to the least important. Students need to agree on the positions of the issue on the ladder, this encourages discussions. Students will need to be prepared to explain and justify their answer.

Step 2: Persuasive writing techniques

Discuss the following persuasive writing techniques with your students. Ask student which techniques would be appropriate for writing a formal letter to a politician.

PERSUASIVE LANGUAGE TECHNIQUES - example issue: why teachers shouldn’t give students homework!!

Technique	Description	Example
Repetition	Repeats a work or phrase to give it emphasis and to make the point stick in the readers mind.	“Homework destroys our life, destroys our family life, destroys our social life and destroys our freedom.”
Rhetorical Question	A question where the answer is implied or so obvious that the reader will automatically agree.	“If students are losing sleep and producing lower quality work due to the stress of homework it will be reflected on the teachers at school. Do you really want to lose your job?”
Evidence	Provides proof to back up what the writer is arguing.	“Research has shown that an astonishing 80% if students absorb more information in class than they do at home.”
Anecdote	A personal story that shows that the writer has direct experience with the issue and is therefore considered a more reliable source.	“I sometimes feel so burdened by work and study that I have to say no to invitations and can’t go out and socialise at all, it makes me feel lonely and depressed.”
Exaggeration	Making the issue seem bigger or more significant than it really is.	“To students, homework is an arduous and archaic task that sucks all the fun out of life.
Alliteration	Using the same starting letter or sound at the beginning of a series of words on order to make the ideas in the sentence stand out and stick in the readers’ mind.	“Horrible homework from hell hits helpless children hard.”
Appeal to patriotism	Appeals to the values of belonging to your country and what it stands for.	“True blue Aussie kids are too busy throwing shrimps on the barbie to waste their time doing homework.”
Emotive language (with rhetorical questions)	Using words that are designed to provoke the reader’s emotions and make them feel angry/sad/afraid etc.	“Can’t you see how much you hurt us when you give us this work? Don’t you have any heart or feelings? Surely you want us to be happy, and to enjoy our childhoods, not suffer under the weight and pressure of work day and night.”

Step 3: Writing a letter to a politician

Put the following scenario to your students:

A politician is visiting your school to find out what kind of future you think is important when it comes to energy. The politician’s findings will go back to Canberra.

Ask students to write a letter to the politician outlining their energy concerns. They should use persuade language techniques to convince the politician to improve or solve the energy issue.

Encourage students to think about including the key information and supporting details for the specify audience.

Note: If students are completing the digital worksheet, they can submit it to their teacher by pressing the 'submit' button at the bottom of the page.

Get Out Your Pens, People! Year 7 & 8

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