Students Learn the Power of Persuasive Writing

Editor's Note: The following was submitted by Malden Public Schools.

This summer approximately 30 English language learner students in grades 6-8 from the Malden Public Schools participated in a five week long summer program to continue developing their English language skills this summer.

The students were led by their ESL teachers, Molly Ross and Mary Margaret Almonte, in discovering the power of persuasive writing. In class, students learned about the genre of persuasive writing discussing the importance of stating your point and backing it up with specific evidence.

The students and their teachers identified the Salemwood playground as a specific area of need. Students wrote letters to Steve Melanson, Director of Public Facilities for the City of Malden, identifying their concerns about the playground.

However, students did not stop with a letter. They asked permission to remove graffiti from the playground structures and also paint a mural in the playground that had been covered with graffiti. They also collected trash.

Mr. Melanson approved the project in addition to supporting the students’ efforts with supplies. Students planned a mural to represent the district themes of “grit” and their various cultures. 

A special thank you is extended to Mr. Steve Melanson who approved the project. In addition, thanks to Ms. Ross and Ms. Almonte who supported students in learning the power of persuasive letter writing and the importance of not only identifying problems but then taking action to solve them.

Read some of the students' letters below:

Dear Mr. Melanson:

Today we were walking around Salemwood middle school .In my opinion I think the Salemwood school playground should be changed, I have three reasons.

The first reason I have is the playground have a lot of graffiti. Some of them are dirty word. They are not good for children or smaller kids to learn them.

The second reason I have is the broken slides and climbing stuff, its very dangerous for kids or even teenagers to play on it, they could get hurt very easily.

My third reason is there is too many trash on the ground. There should be one or two trash cans around the play ground, after long time, the trash will produce diseases, and especially the play ground is for the elementary students. So the trashes should be cleaned up. 

What can we do:

Paint over the graffiti

Replace the slides

Putting trash cans around the playground.

THANK YOU.

Sincerely,
Yining

Dear Melanson,

Hi how are you? I would like to tell you that I would like to fix the playground at the Salemwood School. I would like to fix the slide because is really dangerous and the little kids can hurt themselves. I would also like to fix where there is a lot of graffiti in the park. To fix that kind of graffiti, we could paint. I would also like to change the trash if we could clean because it looks ugly and also the little kids can pick up trash and they also could get sick.

Sincerely,
Lizbeth

Dear Mr. Melanson:

Mr. Melanson, how are you? The Salemwood School has to be clean. I think the dirtiest place is the playground.

The first reason is because the students always play out there, they lost many pencil at the playground. So it has many pencils and pens in the playground. We should tell the student to put the pens or pencils carefully, and then it will not have pencil on the floor.

The second reason is because the students throw the trash in the playground. So because they think the trash barrel is too far away for them. So we should put more trash barrels around.

The third reason is because the grass wasn’t good; because the people don’t give- the water to the grass is very dry.

Mr. Melanson, I think we should change more things from our school we should clean and paint at school, make our school better and better.

I hope you can make our school beautiful.

From your Salemwood School’s Student,
Chengwu

Dear Mr. Melanson:

I think the playground at the Salemwood School needs to be changed, because the playground now it doesn’t look very nice. And I think we need to cut the trees that are growing around the wheelchair ramp, then we need to clean the play ground with those trash, and graffiti that way it looks nice and beautiful. The thing that kids play with now are broke so it is dangerous, and they are full with bad words. So I think we should make them look nice and beautiful. 

From Salemwood School Student,
Queenie