Grade 7

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Writing an Advertisement Essay

Now that you have chosen a product to promote, listed reasons to use it, and gathered details to support your reasons, you are ready to connect your ideas in a first draft. These writing activities will help you create a strong beginning, middle, and ending. You'll also read another student's advertisement essay to see how all of the parts came together.

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

The first sentence is the lead. It should capture your reader’s interest, getting people interested in your product.

Write a lead.

Review each lead-writing strategy and write an example of your own.

Ask the reader a question.
What weighs less than a pound and could save your life?
Start with a story.
After school, you walk out the door and throw on your backpack. You unlock your bike from the bike rack. Then you hop on and ride off. What’s missing from this picture?
Begin with an important quotation.
"Wear a helmet now. Finish living later." That's just one slogan of many submitted to the recent Bicycle Helmet Safety Slogan Contest.
Make a surprising statement.
When bike fatalaties occur, 97 percent of the time, the rider had no helmet.

Write your beginning paragraph.

Write your lead and then provide details as you work toward your opinion statement. Write the opinion statement as the last sentence in the beginning paragraph.

Lead Sentence

Detail Sentences

Opinion Statement

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Prewriting for Advertisement Essays

Prewriting is your first step in writing an essay to advertise a product. These prewriting activities will help you select a product to write about, develop an opinion statement, and gather and organize your reasons and details before you begin a first draft.

Prewriting to Select a Topic

The topic of your advertisement essay should be a product that you want to promote. For example, imagine that a malware-fighting program helped clean up your computer, and you want others to know about it.

Brainstorm topics.

Under each category in the chart, list four or five possible products that you could advertise. A sample topic appears under each category.

Entertainment	Food	Health/Safety	Grooming	Technology
Game Design Round Table	Chunky peanut butter	Taking walks	Hair gel	A new smart phone

Entertainment	Game Design Round Table
Food	Chunky peanut butter
Health/Safety	Taking walks
Grooming	Hair gel
Technology	A new smart phone

Teaching Tip

For obvious copyright reasons, most examples and models in this unit avoid brand names. However, many students are ardent fans of particular brands, whether they are buying jeans or music or pizzas. Allow students to advocate for a specific brand, artist, or product. The more specific students can be in their writing, the more invested and effective they become.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Reading an Advertisement Poster and Essay

Before you create your own advertisement for a product, you should see how other writers persuaded their audiences to buy. Study the poster and essay below and think about how the writer convinced others to purchase the product.

Reading an Advertisement Poster

A persuasive poster uses visuals and words to connect a product to the needs of the audience. The graphics on the poster should not only grab the attention of the reader but also begin persuading the person. The slogan continues convincing readers by connecting to their desires. The call to action completes the persuasive pitch, asking the viewer to do something specific (buy the product!).

Sample Poster

Teaching Tip

Students can use the lessons learned from this persuasive poster to make their own extra credit persuasive posters after they have written their essays.

Respond to the poster.

Answer these questions about the poster.

How does the slogan get your attention?
How does the image help to persuade?
What action does the poster call you to do? What reason does it give you to take that action?

Reading an Advertisement Essay

A persuasive essay has three main parts. The beginning paragraph starts with a lead that grabs the reader's attention and ends with an opinion statement. The middle paragraphs give reasons to support the opinion. The ending paragraph restates the opinion and provides an important final thought or a call to action.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Warm-Up for Advertising a Product

The world around you is filled with advertisements, from click-bait on Web sites to com

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Editing and Publishing Persuasive Essays

Editing Persuasive Essays

After making big changes to improve your persuasive essay, you need to make little (but important) changes to correct any remaining errors. When you edit, you look for problems with sentences, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, and spelling. The following activities will help you edit and publish your writing.

Editing for Subject-Verb Agreement

The two past-tense forms of the “be” verb (was and were) often cause problems when it comes to subject-verb agreement. (Was is singular, and were is plural.)

Katrice was in study hall when the first alarm went off.

"Katrice" is a singular subject, and "was" is a singular verb.

The lunch trays were found in a huge cupboard.

“Trays” is a plural subject, and “were” is a plural verb. The subject and verb agree in number.

Note: Always use the plural verb “were” with the subject “you,” whether “you” is singular or plural in number.

You were the hardest worker at the festival.

In this sentence “you” is a singular subject.

You were the last students to finish the test.

In this sentence “you” is a plural subject.

Choose the correct verb.

Highlight or underline the verb that agrees in number with the subject in each of the following sentences. Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Revising Persuasive Essays

Once you finish a first draft of your persuasive essay, set it aside for awhile. When you return to it, you can see it anew. That's what revising means—seeing your work with new eyes. When you revise, you look at your essay from your reader's perspective to make sure your writing includes compelling details and flows smoothly. These activities will help you revise.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Writing a Persuasive Essay

Once you finish prewriting, you are ready to create the first draft of your essay. These writing activities will help you create a strong beginning, middle, and ending for your persuasive essay.

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

The beginning paragraph of your essay is very important. It should get the reader interested in your topic, and it should state your opinion. To gain your reader’s interest, share some important background information, ask a question, begin with a quotation, or start with a surprising statement.

Read a sample, and write your beginning paragraph.

Read this beginning paragraph, and then write your own.

Topic NamedMany local schools have decided to install metal detectors. But are metal detectors the answer for all schools?Key Question The answer to this question for King Middle School is no. Our school has a good safety record. For this and other reasons, metal Opinion Statement detectors are not needed.

Beginning Paragraph

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Prewriting for Persuasive Essays

Prewriting is your first step in writing a persuasive essay. These prewriting activities will help you select a topic to write about, develop an opinion statement, and gather and organize your reasons and details before you begin a first draft.

Prewriting to Select a Topic

For your own persuasive essay, you need to select a debatable school issue that you feel strongly about. A debatable issue has differing opinions. For example, few people would debate the need for education, but many would debate the idea of extending the school year.

Brainstorm topics.

Complete the sentence starters to consider issues about school life that you have strong feelings about.

One thing I'd like to change about our school is . . .

One problem I see often at our school is . . .

One way we could make school better for all students is . . .

One cause, sport, or activity I wish our school would take part in is . . .

Select a topic.

Share your topic ideas with one or two classmates to find out which ones they like. Also ask yourself which topics you feel most strongly about. Put a star (*) next to the topic for your persuasive essay.

Prewriting to Develop an Opinion

To write a convincing persuasive essay, you need to feel strongly about your topic. These activities will help you develop your opinion of the topic.

List your thoughts.

Answer the questions below to consider what you know and want to know about your topic.

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Reading a Persuasive Paragraph and Essay

Before you write your own essay, you can read a persuasive paragraph and essay that others wrote. As you read, think about how the writers put ideas together and how you might support an opinion in your essay.

Reading a Persuasive Paragraph

A persuasive paragraph has three main parts. The topic sentence states the opinion. The body sentences support the opinion with reasons. The ending sentence restates or emphasizes the opinion.

Sample Paragraph

Listen to "Overcrowded Schools"

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Overcrowded Schools

Topic Sentence:
Opinion Overcrowding is one of the biggest problems facing today's schools. To start, crowded hallways lead to tardiness and wasted class time. Students struggle to get from class to class when they have to dodge their way through crowded hallways. And when students are late, teachers lose out on time for teaching. Body Sentences Cafeterias are too crowded, too. Lunch lines are so long that some students have to make the choice between eating or being late for class. Going to class hungry or anxious won't put any student in the right mind to learn. Finally, crowded classrooms make it difficult for teachers to manage teaching and discipline. Meanwhile, students lose out on individual attention when teachers have to deal with so many other students. Ending Sentence Until schools solve the overcrowding problem, students and teachers will continue to suffer.

Respond to the paragraph.

Answer these questions about the paragraph.

What opinion does the writer develop?
What three reasons does she give to support the opinion?

By Anonymous (not verified), 12 March, 2026

Warm-Up for Persuasive Essays

Persuasive essays share an opinion and attempt to convince readers to agree with it. This unit will show you how to build a strong argument that influences your readers.

What Is a Persuasive Essay?

Listen to "What Is a Persuasive Essay?"

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A persuasive essay allows you to express and support an opinion about an important topic—often a topic that pulls people in different directions.

Does homework really help you? Are school uniforms a good idea? Is more security needed in your school? You have opinions about these topics, right? In fact, you have opinions about a lot of things. Everyone does.

The purpose of persuasive writing is to convince readers to agree with an opinion. To be convincing, you must learn a great deal about your topic. Then you must write about it clearly and thoughtfully. In this unit, you will write a persuasive essay about an important school-related topic.

Thinking About Opinions

An opinion is a personally held belief that cannot be proven to be true. The central idea or argument of a persuasive essay is expressed in an opinion statement. An opinion statement shares a specific opinion about an interesting topic.

Sample Opinion Statement

A special bike lane is needed on all busy streets.

Specific topic: Bike lanes
Thought or feeling: Needed on all busy streets

Analyze opinion statements.

In each of the following opinion statements, highlight or circle the topic and underline the feeling or belief about it. The first one has been done for you.

Grade 7