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Formulating a Modern Instructional Model to Help Improve the Persuasive Writing of Students

Persuasive writing is an important writing genre for students to master as they are required to compose strong arguments for research papers and essays for tertiary level education. However, English persuasive writing is introduced late to secondary school students and there appears to be a lack of specific instructions for ESL students in secondary schools. This lack of attention and specific instruction can cause students to produce weak persuasive essays as a result. The purpose of this case study is to uncover the reasons behind the students’ difficulties with argumentative writing to formulate a model that can be a relevant teaching tool for classroom instruction. This is done by analyzing the essays of 150 low-scoring secondary school students with Toulmin’s Model as well as a set of questionnaires that are targeted at the students and the interviews that were conducted with their teachers. From the results, the researcher can formulate a prototype modern persuasive writing model that can be used in the English classroom as a teaching tool.