7 Ways to Introduce Opinion Writing to Elementary Students

How do you introduce opinion writing to your students? Do you use fun videos, interactive games, books to build background knowledge or current events? There are many different ways teachers can help students understand the purpose of opinion writing. Here are a few ideas about opinion writing to get you started.

This blog post about introducing opinion writing compliments another blog post I have about how I teach our opinion writing unit. This blog post is filled with great ideas on how to introduce opinion writing as well as ideas you can use throughout your unit.

Here is a list of other blog posts about opinion writing:

Use What Students Know and Ask Them What They Think

This might seem like an obvious one, but using what students already know hooks them into the lesson and builds on a solid foundation. When you use something that students are already familiar with, you generally don’t need to teach new vocabulary or new concepts and can get right to the core of what it means to form an opinion.

When you use familiar content you can go deeper with the academic language. I talk a bit about this concept in a blog post on using academic language, specifically for English learners, but the idea can apply to all learners. If the content is too high, students will have more difficulty using academic language. If the content is lower and more familiar, they can learn new and more complex academic language.

Now, you don’t want to keep the content low for the entire opinion writing unit, but to introduce the concepts and learn to write opinion paragraphs and essays, starting with familiar content is key.

What types of familiar content do I use in my classroom?

I usually start my opinion writing unit with very tangible concepts, like what students do at recess. Our writing time came after our first recess, so students had just been on the playground and I was able to tap into what they had chosen to play 20 minutes earlier.

This is an anchor chart that we created about recess games. We later cut it apart and brainstormed reasons for several of the activities. You can see more about that process in my How to Teach Opinion Writing blog post.

Other familiar concepts include food, games, family activities, and school subjects. Books can be a familiar topic, but border on becoming too complex, depending on the level of your students and classroom culture around book discussions.

Use Books to Build Background Knowledge

These days, there is a ton of great literature that lends itself to opinion writing. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Hey Little Ant
• A Bad Case of Stripes
• I Wanna Iguana (and other books from the series)
• Who Would Win books
• Stella Writes an Opinion
• The Day the Crayons Quit
• Pigeon Books
• A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea
• Emily’s Perfect Pet

You could extend a few of these book discussions into identifying point of view, as well.

Use Video Clips to Introduce Opinion Writing

Another great resource to introduce opinion writing is video clips from YouTube. Using digital resources piques students’ interest and focus.

Before watching the video, be sure to tell students the object and how you want them to watch the video. You might also consider watching a video clip several times or watching a variety of video clips to see different ways opinions and reasons are used within each of the clips.

Videos for Opinion Writing

Here are several videos that you might find useful for your classroom.

This website has several writing prompt videos that are great for second grade and above. Here is one of the videos geared toward opinion writing.

For the Birds is a great video to use with bullying, as well. There are no words in it. Students can develop their own language around the actions they observe in the video.

This Ted-Ed video about eating bugs is great for older learners. You can likely find many Ted-Ed videos that highlight odd or quirky things people do. Students can form an opinion about the activity.

This video introduces the concept of opinion writing. It’s more academic than fun, and is a teaching video, but still quite good.

TV commercials are another way to spark opinion writing. Students can watch a video and decide how the video persuades to buy the product.

Create Anchor Charts to Help Students Have Class Discussions

While watching the videos, consider hanging an anchor chart with opinion statements. Use the sentence frames to develop students’ oral language with stating an opinion. This activity also goes along well for teaching and practicing some of the Speaking and Listening standards.

I’m not exactly sure why I have two anchor charts for this concept. Some of the sentences are slightly different. They will both give you a good place to start with classroom discussions for stating an opinion.

Use Current Events to Teach Opinion Writing

If you teach a higher grade level or you want to challenge your students, you might consider using current events to teach opinion writing. This may require some extra work to build students” background knowledge and help them become familiar with the event.

Some great sources for current events are NewsELA and Scholastic News. Both require a subscription.

Use classroom, school, and community issues, problems, and events

While current events around the world are a great resource, sometimes bring the focus back to the community can ground students and build momentum for the opinion writing unit. This goes along with creating student buy-in for classroom, school, and community routines and events.

Classroom Ideas for Opinion Writing

• Why a certain team should receive points for something
• Why we should keep the classroom library clean
• Deciding on what to do at the end of the school year

School Ideas for Opinion Writing

• Why we should have extra time to eat lunch
• Ways to stay safe on the playground
• The next school performance

Community Ideas for Opinion Writing

Community issues and problems will be unique for each community.

A problem in our local community, for instance, is that one of the busy roads in our area doesn’t have adequate crosswalks. Many people have bene injured. Students can write an opinion piece from the perspective of an injured person and from the perspective of the city for the need for crosswalks or bridges.

Brainstorm Opinions in the “Real World”

Along the same lines, consider brainstorming with students where you see opinion writing in your own community. Have students go on a hunt to find opinion writing in their neighborhoods.

Some examples include restaurant reviews, movie and video game reviews, or infomercials (think kid things like Slushy Magic, Hover Ball, Wubble). Have students record the opinion and supporting details while watching and reading reviews.

Would You Rather Questions

There are a ton of great resources for “would you rather” questions.

• Some are questions in books others are in worksheet form.
• Rachel Lynette from Minds in Bloom has quite a few options on her website.
• Here’s another option for free questions

Oreo Opinion Writing

One final idea for opinion writing is the common Oreo Opinion Writing. It’s a popular acronym and makes for a memorable unit. Be sure that you focus on the writing, not just the acronym.

How do you introduce and teach opinion writing to your students? I’d love to hear some more ideas in the comments below!

Opinion Writing Unit

Are you interested an Opinion Writing Unit that develops students’ academic language through engaging games and activities? Here’s a blog post all about it.

More Opinion Writing Blog Posts

Would you like to read more about how to teach opinion writing in the classroom? Take a look at these blog posts.