In the NAPLAN 2012 Writing test, students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will be required to write a persuasive text. Students will be asked to respond to a topic by stating their point of view and seeking to persuade a reader to agree with it.
Students write to convince a reader of their opinion and structure their writing with an introduction, body and conclusion.
Students approach the NAPLAN Persuasive Writing test in different ways, some of which are shown in the support material provided in the following pages. (See ‘VCAA Sample Teaching and Learning Activities’)
Some students develop and justify their ideas, drawing on personal knowledge and experience or on more detailed general knowledge about a particular subject or issue. Some choose to present one side of the argument and may also include opposing arguments in order to rebut. Others seek to persuade by exploring both sides of the topic, before arriving at a clear and conclusive position.
Students also write in different forms. Most students present their argument in the form of an essay. Others choose to present their argument as a letter to the editor or as the text of a speech. Students also use anecdote or reference to stories to help convince their reader. Students may not, however, present their entire response as a narrative (a story), or as a dramatised dialogue in which two characters argue.
Students who learn to develop and support their own point of view and who have read, written and created a range of persuasive and other text genres, in a range of classroom activities, are well prepared for the NAPLAN 2012 Writing test.
At all levels of the VELS, students learn to listen to and create a range of written, spoken and multimodal texts, including persuasive texts, for different audiences and purposes.
All teachers across the curriculum share the responsibility for developing the thinking processes and the knowledge and skills that enable students to confidently express and justify a point of view on a range of topics.
The VCAA has developed sample teaching and learning activities, based on the English VELS, to prepare Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students for the persuasive writing task,.
Each of the sample learning activities involves preparing students to express their point of view in a written text by creating a wider range of texts, in a range of modes. The activities are not intended to be prescriptive or comprehensive.
Sample learning activities for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 can be found at:
Year 3 (DOC - 144KB)
Year 5 (DOC - 139KB)
Year 7 (DOC- 160KB)
Year 9 (DOC - 162KB)
The learning activities for all year levels focus on the same topic: ‘It’s cruel to keep animals in cages’. Separate teaching and learning activities for each year level reflect the different levels of the VELS and the range of NAPLAN Writing criteria.
Tables identifying links between the NAPLAN persuasive writing criteria and different levels of the English VELS can be found at:
NAPLAN VELS tables (DOC - 151KB)
The VCAA teaching and learning activities at each year level indicate links to relevant sections of these tables.
The texts that students produce vary depending on whether they are in Year 3, 5, 7 or 9, and there is a range of ability at each level. Younger students begin with familiar topics, for known audiences; later, students go on to develop the knowledge and skills that enable them to present arguments on complex ideas for a range of purposes and audiences.
The students’ persuasive writing samples were produced by Victorian students from Years 2 to 9 during trials of the VCAA Teaching and Learning materials conducted in November 2010. These activities were informed by the Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening modes of the VELS English standards.
During the course of the trial, students created texts in response to the topic: ‘It’s cruel to keep animals in cages’. Students’ persuasive writing texts were not produced under test conditions, but as part of a range of activities. They have been annotated, rather than assessed. The annotations relate both to criteria published in the ACARA 2011 Persuasive Writing Marking Guide (School release version) and to the relevant VELS English standards.
Sample student writing and annotations can be accessed by clicking on the links below:
Sample VCAA and other Writing test topics, which may be used as part of teaching a range of persuasive texts, may be found on: