A persuasive writing and speech unit for Years 7 to 9 that each student plays on their own device. Students build a persuasive piece and a persuasive speech side by side, then rehearse it out loud on a working teleprompter. It runs in a browser with no logins, works offline, and gives feedback on every piece of writing.
Teaching from one screen instead? The Persuasive Writing Teacher-Led Edition is 12 lessons you run from a projector, TV or interactive whiteboard while students write in their books, finishing at the podium, with a Lesson Guide page for every lesson. It is in the Star Class Academy store, and so is the bundle of all four Teacher-Led Editions.
HOW IT WORKS
- Students make a cadet whose ship has crash-landed, and play at their own pace. Progress saves as they go.
- The crash site: three missions. Match lines to ethos, pathos, logos or urgency; argue whether to press on or turn back; match reporting verbs such as "conceded" and "countered" to what they signal.
- Six skill bays, each with three tiers that unlock as students earn reputation. Each tier has three prompts picked at random, so a replay is a new task.
- The Offensive: Command has three strategies on the table. Each student argues for one and writes the closing argument, answering an objection drawn for them, then delivers it at the Podium.
THE SIX SKILL BAYS
- Power Word Vault: swapping hedges ("maybe", "I think", "basically") for confident claims
- Audience Bay: arguing one position for different audiences
- Rebuttal Transcript Bay: punctuating a debate exchange, with reporting verbs beyond "said"
- Claim Bay: claim, reasoning, evidence and the other side in one paragraph (CLEAR, or PEEL or CER)
- The Appeals Wheel: ethos, pathos, logos and urgency on purpose, lighting up as the draft uses them
- Drafting Bay: cutting weak claims and tightening a draft with ARMS
THE PODIUM: SCRIPT IT, THEN SAY IT
Draft mode is a calm writing space with a word count, a rough speaking time and a Before You Rehearse checklist, with three quiet study tracks. Rehearse mode scrolls the script as a teleprompter: students set the speed and text size, and the timer says how long the run took. It works on any speech, including one written for another task.
FEEDBACK ON EVERY PIECE
After every bay task, written mission and the capstone, a crew member gives a short debrief: up to two things that are working, quoting the student's own words, and one next step. Revise It reopens the task with the draft, and the first draft is kept. The debrief reads words and patterns, not ideas, and tells students so.
SEEING YOUR CLASS'S WORK
Students press Hand In My Work to save one file with everything they have written, their Podium speech included. Drop the class's files into the teacher console's Class Work tab to see who has done what, the next steps the class got most often and the exit-ticket lines left unticked, and to read, print or download each student's work. The files are read on your computer only.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
- The game: one HTML file, with its artwork, music and sound
- The teacher console: present any task full screen, the Class Work tab, daily class codes and curriculum links for every lesson
- A Teachers Guide (PDF, 14 pages) and a START HERE read-me
SAVING AND PRIVACY
Progress saves in the browser on that device, including drafts as students type. A Cadet ID moves a student to another computer. Nothing is uploaded, there is no login, and no student data is collected.
CURRICULUM
Each bay is linked to Australian Curriculum v9 English, Common Core (W.1, W.4, W.5, SL.1, SL.3 and SL.4 for Years 7 to 10), Cambridge Lower Secondary English, IB MYP Language and Literature, and the UK National Curriculum (KS3), with a note on how close each match is.
MORE FROM STAR CLASS
The free Persuasive Writing Worksheets practise the same skills on paper. For speeches in any subject, the Speech Writing Tool + Teleprompter is a single-file drafting tool with its own teleprompter.
Licensed for one teacher and their own classes.
Questions? starclassacademy.com/help?ref=sh or hello@starclassacademy.com
