HSPA Language Arts Tutorial
Cluster 2: Writing to Persuade
Cluster
Practice for Educators
The "Writing to Persuade"
portion of the HSPA Language Arts test uses conflicts to prompt
student writing. For example, the following conflict is
presented on a previously-released "Writing to Persuade"
HSPA item:
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Recent
news reports have called attention to the high risk
of several popular sports. After re-examining the
athletic program, your school board has proposed eliminating
all sports identified with a high incidence of tragic
injuries. This proposal has become a controversial
issue among students, teachers, and parents in your
community. In response to the heated discussions,
your local newspaper has published editorials both
for and against the proposal. You decide to express
your views by writing a letter to the editor.
Write
a letter to the editor either supporting or opposing
the proposal to eliminate high-risk sports from your
school’s athletic program. Support your position
with reasons, examples, facts, and/or other evidence.
Convince your readers to take your position seriously.
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What strategies might you present
to your students in order to help them become more comfortable
and proficient at being able to write persuasively as they respond
to the given controversy?
For this assignment, you must
complete two specific tasks related to preparing your students
for the "Writing to Persuade" portion of the HSPA:
- Identify and summarize strategies for
pre-writing and brainstorming to prompt the writing process
- Create two practice prompts to be used
by your students to practice applying the strategies you identified
The following checklist
will be used to score this Cluster 2 assignment:
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The controversies selected
are timely and authentic.
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The controversy is one
with which a wide range of high school students will be
able to identify.
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Practice prompt directions
are clearly worded.
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The directions include
a scoring rubric based on the HSPA holistic scoring rubric.
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The prompt includes references
to your strategies to be used to facilitate the creative
writing process.
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A sample response to each
prompt is included that adheres to a "high" score
of 5 or 6 on the holistic scoring rubric.
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