Should There Be Zoos? A persuasive text

I love this book Should There Be Zoos by Tony Stead. I must warn you that it is hard to find a copy. Thank you Sue O. for this lovely gift that appeared in my mailbox one day! I have looked for a copy of this book for three years (I know, what a nut). I found a lesson for this book in Reality Checks by Tony Stead. Let me tell you how it went: We began by answering the question: Should there be zoos? My fifth graders for the most part said yes. Just using their background knowledge it seemed to them pretty straightforward. If you look at the top of the poster you can see that almost everyone was in the first two categories. Next, we read the book together. It is filled with factual essays written by children that either support or are against zoos. Each essay is written to persuade the reader to lean in one direction or the other. We rated each essay with a 1, 2 or 3 for how persuasive they were. We talked about which points persuaded us the most.The children all said that the essays which played on their feelings were the most persuasive.

Almost all of the children changed their position after reading the book. Most of them moved their sticky to the strongly against zoos side. A few children still felt strongly that zoos are necessary and important. Only one child stayed in the same spot. I have to say that the class really enjoyed learning about the pros and cons of zoos. They told me the lesson really made them THINK (something I'm a fan of!) Christine