Curriculum, learning and teaching
The power of persuasion Hermione Paddle and Robert Clements report on an interdisciplinary learning unit
‘Texts use persuasive techniques to influence behaviour and decision-making.’ The unit is developed around multifaceted unit questions that invite an integrative understanding and can be studied in both disciplines. The central conceptual question asks: ‘How can we recognise a persuasive text?’. This focuses the teaching and learning on the creation, construction and understanding of what makes a text persuasive, how we can recognise and evaluate such texts, and then finally how students can create and develop their own. Further crossovers arise through the shared concept of ‘communication’, which was used as an entry point into the unit. Students develop an interdisciplinary understanding about the notion of communication, and how ideas, thoughts, messages and values can be conveyed not only through words and speech, but also through image and design. In the unit, students are asked to identify an issue that is of importance to them, related to fairness and development (the Global Context) within the school community. Using techniques developed in both English and Design, students create a persuasive campaign to convince members of their community to agree with and sympathise with
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their proposals. Ultimately, they are trying to persuade their audience that they must in some way change their opinions, beliefs and behaviours. In English, this must be an argumentative speech that provokes responsible action in addressing this contemporary social issue. In design, this is the creation of a product and, together, they create a persuasive campaign. The campaign Fundamentally, students need to raise awareness about issues which they feel need changing within the school community. Students are asked to reflect on times when they felt they didn’t agree with something and to consider the changes they would like to see in the way that they treat each other and within the school. In the past, students have created campaigns such as that: • we should all use our mobiles less frequently • teenagers should go to sleep earlier • we should stop swearing • we should show more school spirit • w e should stop pushing-in when queueing in the lunch line • we should all respect each other’s privacy Others are more contextually appropriate, such as the very German notion that we should all drink still water, as opposed to sparkling. Ultimately, students in Language A develop a persuasive speech on their topic of choice and design a product that in some way helps to convey their message. Learning in Language A In English, students build the skills required to make a formal, public speech to an audience of their peers. They must plan and write a four-minute speech, arguing their case and trying to win over their audience by providing credible and plausible arguments. Students are taught to use ethos, pathos and logos as well as other rhetorical devices. Speeches are three to four minutes and learning focuses not only on developing creative arguments but also on presentation skills. In addition to developing their presentation skills, focusing on body language, register and eye-contact, students develop their research skills by undertaking primary qualitative and quantitative research, often in the form of surveys, questionnaires and personal interviews. Autumn |
Spring
As our students walk down the street, ride the train or bus, watch television or get lost in an endless stream of social media, they are frequently bombarded with persuasive messages. Through advertising, but also through the news media, students in the twenty-first century are constantly aware of the continual streams of information that shape their everyday reality. Much of this information seeks to persuade them in some way – convincing them, if only subtly – that they need to think and act in a certain way. Part of our job as educators is to give them the tools to be able not only to acknowledge but also to critique these persuasive texts and ultimately to allow them to develop their own persuasive campaigns. One interdisciplinary unit, taught at the Bavarian International School, explores this concept of persuasion. For the past four years, and established by colleagues Tia Martin and Paul Dawes, the school has facilitated an interdisciplinary unit in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) MYP 3, Grade 8, between Language A (English) and Design. The unit investigates how persuasive techniques can be used in both disciplines to create a campaign that persuades an audience to change their behaviour in some way. Teachers collaborated to develop an integrative statement of inquiry:
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