Students are glued to their media…YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are the top apps used by secondary kids. As educators our job is to engage our students in the process of learning and what better way is there to engage than through video?!?! In this post learn some awesome strategies for teaching argumentative writing through video.

Ted Talks

There are tons of excellent Ted Talks out there that follow the structure of an argumentative essay but in the form of a talk. All Ted Talk speakers are trying to prove one single point, they all have reasoning, anecdotes, evidence in the form of statistics or references to scientific studies or articles.
Here’s an example of how to do this…

1. Show a video such as the one below.
2. Have students write claim, reasons, evidence. It is super fun to let students write on desks with expo markers to do this. You can see some of my students’ responses to the video below too:)
3. Show the video twice if students missed some info.
4. Allow students to discuss their findings from the video!
5. Refer back to the strategies used in the Ted Talk you showed while students are writing argumentatively

More of My Favorite TED Talks by Kids:

• Steven Claunch Overcoming Obstacles (Animated TED Talk)
• William Kamkwamba: How I Harnessed the Wind
• Thomas Suarez: A 12 Year Old App Creator

PowToon 

Students LOVE creating videos of their own. Why not have students create a cartoon of their argumentative essay. They can use graphics, music and their own voice to convey their claims with Powtoon! Here is another article I wrote about this topic: 10 Ways to Use Powtoon in the English Classroom.

My Simple Show 

My Simple Show is an easier version of PowToon. It really is just a very simple way for students to create a video about their topic. The really awesome part is that they have to write a script before adding in the graphics, music and sound.

YouTube

There are so many student facing videos to teach argumentative writing on YouTube! They are short, entertaining and teach important writing skills. Below are a few of the videos I’ve created to teach argumentative writing and some of my favorite educational YouTube channels!

Shmoop
Excellent channel with lots of free resource videos for a wide range of topics from teaching point of view to dialect in poetry. Of course there’s argumentative writing material too!

Critical Thinker Academy
This is definitely a channel secondary English teachers should subscribe too. It is jam packed with videos and podcasts to play for your students on the topic of argument, analysis and critical thinking.

Teaching without Frills
Lots of awesome short Powtoon cartoons on this YouTube channel for teachers to use in their class. More for the elementary level but could definitely see myself using it with my sixth graders!

Want more videos to teach writing?!?! I create about a video a week just for writing workshop! If this sounds good to you, then should consider subscribing to my YouTube channel…