S5 E19 - Why Students Find Writing Persuasive Texts So Difficult

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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn explores why students struggle with persuasive writing despite teachers implementing traditional "best practices" like modelled writing and scaffolds. Drawing on cognitive load theory, she identifies five critical mistakes: overwhelming students by modelling entire texts at once instead of breaking components down, providing written scaffolds without ensuring foundational text structure knowledge, focusing solely on text structure without explicitly teaching necessary vocabulary and syntax, failing to build sufficient background knowledge on topics, and not scaffolding the critical thinking processes required for generating and evaluating arguments. 

Jocelyn emphasises that persuasive writing requires simultaneous mastery of multiple complex elements (text structure, language features, background knowledge, and argumentation skills) which can overwhelm working memory, and provides evidence-informed alternatives including explicit instruction of individual components, ensuring automaticity through repetition and retrieval, and systematic knowledge building before expecting students to think critically. 

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