Persuasive Techniques Intro

Unit: Powerful Persuasion Techniques

Lesson 1 of 4 Duration: 60 minutes Class size: 10 students Year Level: Year 7

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Lesson Description

This lesson introduces students to the concept of persuasion and the various text types used to persuade—advertisements, speeches, letters. Students will explore foundational persuasive devices such as emotive language, repetition, and rhetorical questions. These will be demonstrated across different media formats: written text, visual advertisements, and video clips. The class will build a shared glossary of persuasive devices to use throughout the unit.

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Victorian Curriculum Alignment

Content Descriptions:

• AC9E7LY06: Plan, create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts, selecting language features and structures to convey information, ideas and opinions in ways that may be persuasive.
• AC9E7LY02: Use interaction skills to discuss and present ideas, including evaluations of features of spoken texts.
• AC9E7LE06: Identify and explain how literary devices create layers of meaning in texts.

General Capabilities:

• Literacy: understanding persuasive devices and texts.
• Critical and Creative Thinking: analysing and applying language devices.
• Personal and Social Capability: participating in discussions and peer collaboration.

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Learning Objectives (WALT)

We are learning to:

• Identify what persuasive devices are.
• Understand how persuasive devices are used across different types of texts.

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Success Criteria

Students can:

• Name and define at least three persuasive devices (emotive language, repetition, rhetorical questions).
• Identify these devices in a variety of given examples (text, visual, video).
• Contribute to a class glossary of persuasive devices with definitions and examples.

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Resources

• Visual anchor chart showing persuasive devices with definitions and examples.
• Printed examples of advertisements, extracts of speeches and letters.
• Short video clips demonstrating persuasive techniques.
• Glossary template (can be a large poster or shared digital document).

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Lesson Outline

1. Engagement and Introduction (10 minutes)

• Begin with a class discussion: What is persuasion? Have students share examples of advertisements, speeches, or letters they’ve seen that tried to persuade them.
• Explain the purpose of this unit and today’s focus on persuasive devices.
• Show the visual anchor chart — briefly introduce emotive language, repetition, and rhetorical questions with simple definitions.

2. Interactive Teaching (15 minutes)

• Present a short written advertisement, a speech excerpt, and a letter. Read or play each one aloud.
• As a class, identify instances of emotive language, repetition, and rhetorical questions in these texts.
• Discuss why these devices might be effective in persuading the audience.

3. Group Activity — Text Analysis (20 minutes)

• Split students into pairs (strategically pairing diverse learners together). Each pair receives a different persuasion text (could be written, visual or video).
• Task: Identify and highlight any use of the three persuasive devices studied.
• Each pair shares findings with the class; teacher records and adds new examples to the class glossary.

4. Creation of Class Glossary (10 minutes)

• Collaboratively build a glossary of persuasive devices on a large poster or digital platform.
• Include device name, student-friendly definition, and at least one student-generated example from the activities.

5. Extension & Plenary (5 minutes)

• Invite advanced learners to research a persuasive device not covered today (e.g., anecdotes, statistics) for the next lesson. They prepare a definition and an example for the glossary.
• Recap WALT and success criteria.
• Ask students to reflect: Which persuasive device do you think is most powerful and why?

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Differentiation

• Visual anchor chart with clear definitions and examples supports EAL/D and learning support students.
• Pairing students strategically allows peer support and scaffolding during activities.
• Use of multimodal texts (written, visual, video) engages varied learning styles.
• Extension activity challenges advanced students to deepen understanding and take ownership of glossary content.

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Assessment Opportunities

• Observation of student participation in discussions and group work.
• Student contributions to glossary demonstrate understanding of persuasive devices.
• Informal formative assessment through successful identification of devices in texts.

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This lesson plan not only aligns with the Victorian Curriculum but also includes culturally responsive and student-centred teaching methods encouraging engagement, collaboration, and reflection, which are vital for Year 7 students' development in understanding persuasive language. It integrates multimodal texts to cater for different learning preferences and includes scaffolds and extensions to differentiate learning effectively.

You will see students grow their metalanguage and critical thinking skills by the end of this lesson, preparing them for deeper analyses in subsequent lessons in the unit.

If additional curriculum links are desired or support materials developed, please let me know!