Opinion Writing

As part of the Common Core Standards for Writing, first graders should be able to: "Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure."
I have been teaching the children to remember the important elements of an opinion piece with the acronym OREO, to which they can all relate!!
Here is a graphic organizer used in the classroom to help the children organize their thinking before they start writing.  See if your child can explain to you how OREO relates to opinion writing.

After reading the book Duck! Rabbit!, I asked the children to write about their opinion.  Did they think the creature in the book was a duck or a rabbit? The children organized their opinion piece like an OREO:
O:  State your opinion R:  Give a reason E:  Explain your reason O:  Restate your opinion
The children know to include at least two reasons in order to make the piece stronger. We also discussed several appropriate sentence starters...

I made this activity that much more meaningful by connecting it to our last math chapter which focused on picture and bar graphing. After writing about our opinions, the children made both picture and bar graphs to organize the data.

Ask your child what his/her opinion was and why.  Be sure they give you at least two reasons.  :)

Other mentor texts we've used during our Opinion Writing unit: