To think "Persuasive Writing" lessons shouldn't encourage students to make up 'facts' and statistics?

[diagonallies]

My two DCs have both had several English lessons on the topic of persuasive writing in both primary and secondary school. These have focussed on persuasive techniques, but every time they have been told it's fine to make up some statistics or facts to strengthen their argument, presumably on the grounds that it's an English lesson, not a science lesson or a lesson on critical thinking.

But surely critical thinking should be at the heart of everything our children learn at school? If it's ok for future journalists, politicians, bloggers and advertising copywriters to make up persuasive stats in their English essays, then can we really be confident they will ever unlearn that?

So those students who never get beyond GCSE are never told they should reference any stats/facts they use or to look for references in texts they read online. That's the problem

Why won’t they? I spent a term talking about media bias, false claims (350 million for the NHS, anyone) and the importance of looking for other sources/where information had come from so you can assess the credibility of the writer.

I also did debates for a term, where we looked at ensuring we had evidence for any claims made. Real evidence.

I did all that as part of a phse tutor program. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I didn’t do it as part of my transactional writing lessons.

You can’t use hyperlinks in exams or essays

Why they can't be used in essays? They're used all the time in the real world, either as embedded hyperlinks or footnotes in reports.

Re exams, previous posters (teachers) on this thread have suggested other ways that referenced stats can be included there.

*Why they can't be used in essays?

I’ve never managed to get a hyperlink to work on paper. Maybe my fingers aren’t sensible enough...

I’m sorry, I just can’t take the OP seriously now. They have to be on a wind up.

SmileEachDay: "I’ve never managed to get a hyperlink to work on paper."

My DCs do their homework essays in MS Word ... they do print them out on paper though if that's what you mean.

Printed reports in "the real world" often have clickable hyperlinks in the electronic versions and, in case anyone reslly does need to print it out (not generally encouraged in modern offices) http references are included as footnotes.

In exam seven children like mine who use a laptop for Sen reasons have everything on the laptop disabled (spellcheck, internet capability, auto correct, hyperlinks etc.

And they are scanned in for marking (I assume as pdfs).

And what teacher marking an essay is going to be clicking on hyperlinks that could lead to anything.

i work in the real world.

A hype link in a document printed out for a meeting or given to someone on site would be useless.

Re exams, previous posters (teachers) on this thread have suggested other ways that referenced stats can be included there.
If you are talking about my grand plan to smile regarding crib sheets, I thought it was fairly obvious the piss was being taken.

I’ve never managed to get a hyperlink to work on paper. Maybe my fingers aren’t sensible enough.
If your teacher had taught you better then you'd know how to do this. Keep up.

So OP is either unable to understand, or is just fucking about. I suspect the latter.
Me too. I'm still waiting on the carefully curated reference list to support all the unsubstantiated claims that a particular teaching technique for writing skills is responsible for Brexit, Trump, local campaigns against housing developments.
In the spirit of a poster caring about fake news

My DCs do their homework essays in MS Word

Do they have IT as an exam concession? If so, they should be working on Wordpad to mirror the exam IT.

If not, they’d be much better getting the practice at handwriting.

I thought it was fairly obvious the piss was being taken

Oh bloody hell Lola I’ve got you a guest spot at INSET to launch it 🙄🙄🙄🙄

SmileEachDay
In which case it's a date! I'd hate to disappoint.

Do I get a clicker with a shiny red laser?
I promise I'll overrun and take questions from people who will ask pointless questions that have no relevance to anyone else in the meeting. I've heard this is what staff love.

And what teacher marking an essay is going to be clicking on hyperlinks that could lead to anything.

I know! Can you imagine. What teacher in their right mind is going to click in a hyperlink on their school's laptop that could well lead to a virus at best, hard core porn at worst - cos you know, teens like to piss around. Sure fire way of getting sacked.

OP - hyperlinks are generally a pretty shit reference btw in real life, and as I said before shouldn't be cited with just the link.

Maybe you were never taught 'don't believe all you read in the internet.' Kids these days are

"and as I said before shouldn't be cited with just the link"

In RL they're cited with or without explanatory text - the preferred house style in any given context isn't the point; the point is that a reference is provided (and if you don't want to follow it up then don't - so long as you can if you want to).

That’s not a citation. It’s a link to a website which may or may not be accurate.

And in real life would be ignored as lazy.

I get the absolute rage when I see stuff like 'don't teach for the exam'- no, bloody teach me how to pass the sodding thing!

I had a teacher who claimed she didn't like the way you were marked for the exam so she didn't want be limited by the requirements. And guess what, despite it being a subject I generally enjoyed and was quite good at, it was my single lowest mark as whilst I could cover all the material that she hadn't, I wasn't some genius to figure out exactly what was relevant.

And it sure as hell didn't foster a love for the subject in later life!

OP, several professionals have taken time to explain to you, not why referencing isn’t important, but why it does not need to be explicitly taught as part of the writing thread of the English Language GCSE curriculum.

Please could you step back from the minutiae of how we reference and what we could do if we had endless hours to teach, and consider for a moment the fact that professionals have answered your question, answered it clearly, and - to a woman - disagree with your standpoint. That’s a cooked kipper, isn’t it? The argument’s done.

OP - I'll put it simply for you: kids are taught to analyse sources and not to assume facts are real, they're taught to critically think. The fact that they're also taught other things doesn't negate that.

Now, a word of advice: when you've painted yourself into a corner, stop loudly insisting the door's behind you, wait till the paint's dried and quietly walk over to the actual door, perhaps uttering a quiet apology for not understating fully the door layout of the room.

titchy

I hope you’ve got the original architect’s drawing of the room. In order to fully establish the facts.

Fully referenced, with planning permission and a hyperlink to the local planning guidance

Comefromaway: "And in real life would be ignored as lazy."

No it wouldn't. Hyperlinks (with or without descriptive text, but better with) are used all the time as a practical tool to link to online sources.

Oh man. Is this still going? OP, seriously, go do something more useful. Teachers, relax! It’s the summer! We’ve earned it, teaching made up stats and what not for the ‘consumers’

Hyperlinks (with or without descriptive text, but better with) are used all the time as a practical tool to link to online sources.

Do you have a source for that?

Wonder if OP realises that saying something happens 'all the time' is a great example of a certain persuasive writing technique...

Oh man. Is this still going

Maybe you should also be teaching your students that the best way to end an online disagreement is to walk away, rather than to keep posting irrelevant insults and niggles that just push the thread back to the top of everyone's in-tray.

From my perspective the original discussion ended days ago, with several people (including teachers) agreeing with the original point and several (including teachers) not agreeing with it.

For what it's worth I don't buy the "I'm a professional therefore I know best" argument, and you won't find many people who do. We all know there are good and bad teachers, and many parents are educated to a much higher level than the teachers who are employed to teach their kids. I said earlier in the thread that I think teachers should be paid more, but it goes without saying that I would expect the overall quality of teaching to improve as a result - and of course it would, because more competitive salaries would attract higher calibre applicants.
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