HSPA Language Arts Tutorial Cluster 2: Writing to Persuade

Summary of Content to be Tested 

Students will be given 60 minutes to complete the Writing to Persuade section of the HSPA.

Persuasive prompts present controversies arising in either interpersonal, school/community, or societal contexts.

Interpersonal controversies arise when two or more individuals disagree about choices/decisions, behaviors, or ideas.

School/community controversies arise when two or more groups of people disagree about rules, behaviors, procedures, conditions (e.g. litter), or ideas.

Societal controversies arise when people disagree about laws, trends, conditions, or ideas.

Persuasive prompts ask students to respond, offering their opinion(s) in a persuasive letter or essay format. The audience for the letters and essays may be an individual -- friend, relative, neighbor, teacher, principal, or representative of an organization-- or members of an identified organization, such as the student council, PTA, etc.

In the writing samples, students will need to:

• respond clearly and appropriately to a given prompt.

• select a focus and appropriate details to support it.

• organize the response to include an introduction, appropriate transitions, and a conclusion.

• use elaboration to engage the audience.

• use varied sentence structure and word choice.

• use conventions of print and literary forms.

• use language appropriate to the audience.

Persuasive text will contain the following elements:

• topics that are age- and grade-level appropriate

• a clear focus

• elaboration using facts and opinions

• persuasive techniques, including but not limited to, propaganda, connotative and figurative language, and rhetorical devices

• a range of vocabulary for which adequate context is provided

Student responses will be scored using the New Jersey Registered Holistic Scoring Rubric.