INFORMing Our Opinions

I’m sure you are not surprised to learn that your children are full of opinions! We have started opinion writing in Writer’s Workshop.

Over the past few weeks we’ve focused on learning about all sides of an issue before we form our opinion.  We learned we need to resist the temptation to only find information that will support our opinions.  Rather, we need to investigate all sides of an issue and then form our opinion based on evidence from reliable sources.  Our topic for this unit is one near and dear to their hearts: chocolate milk.  We have to decide if schools should OR should not serve chocolate milk to students.

While most agreed they would like to see chocolate milk served in school, many determined it was not a good idea after they read widely about the topic.  We read articles, watched video clips and investigated the nutritional labels for both white and chocolate milk to inform our opinions.  We organized our notes FOR and AGAINST schools serving chocolate milk in school.

Soon we will flash draft our opinions on whether or not schools should serve chocolate milk and learn to revise our arguments using evidence from experts.