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Opinion writing is one of many types of writing students will be asked to do in school. This type of writing spans all subjects—from ELA to social studies, science, and beyond. To help you guide students when writing their opinion pieces, we’re providing nine steps on how to teach opinion writing in any class so you feel confident in assigning, grading, and guiding your students in these lessons.
Opinion writing, also called persuasive writing, gives the author’s point of view on a topic and uses personal experiences, feelings, and beliefs to convince the reader why their opinion is valid. Examples of opinion writing include:
Book, movie, TV, video game, or music reviews
Letters to the editor
Essays
[9 steps to teach opinion writing](id-steps)
Use these steps to help your students understand how to form an opinion and write an opinion essay or text that accurately shares their point of view:
1. Clarify facts vs. opinions
Before starting an opinion writing lesson, make sure your students know the difference between facts and opinions. A fact is something you can prove is true based on tangible evidence. An opinion is something you think or believe based on experiences and feelings.
You can do a fact vs. opinion sorting activity to ensure students can identify one from the other in their writing. For example, you may ask students what they know about cookie dough ice cream. They may respond that it’s cold, it’s delicious, it’s the worst, or it’s sold at the grocery store.
Using all their responses, you can have students work in pairs or groups to sort which responses are facts and which are opinions and give reasons why they know which categories to sort each response into. Students may say cookie dough ice cream being cold is a fact because you could measure its temperature with a thermometer. They may say cookie dough ice cream being the worst is an opinion because another classmate said it was delicious, and they can’t prove who’s right or wrong.
2. Introduce students to forming an opinion
Learning how to form an opinion starts with choosing a side and taking a stance. You can teach students how to do this in the classroom (or refresh their memories) with a simple intro activity.
First, divide the classroom in half. One side of the room is “Agree,” and the other side is “Disagree.” Then, pose an issue with two clear sides to students, like “Zoos should be banned” or “All clothing marketed to women should have pockets.” As you read the statements, students should move to one side of the room or the other to showcase their point of view on the issue.
Once students have chosen their point of view, they each have to give one reason why they chose that side. Giving a reason is the most important part of this activity. It’s easy for students to make quick decisions about what they like or don’t like, but in opinion writing, they have to justify that opinion with reasons.
3. Give examples of good opinion writing
Mentor texts that are good examples of opinion writing can help show students the structure and components of this type of piece. The best opinion mentor texts come from real publications, like newspaper letters to the editor or reviews for media students enjoy.
To be most effective, students should do more than just read the mentor texts. They should also analyze them. Students should look for places where the authors state their opinion and make note of what reasons they used to back that opinion up. They can also compare mentor texts on similar topics to see how different authors shared and presented their ideas.
4. Share the opinion writing prompt and rubric early
Sharing the writing activity prompt and rubric early in the lesson or unit can help students get familiar with the topic. When you share the prompt, it gives them time to consider what their opinion is on the topic and how to craft a persuasive essay around it.
Sharing the rubric early also helps students prepare for grading later in the process. By sharing the criteria and expectations for the assignment, they can use it as a guide when planning and writing their essays.
After students have had time to look over the prompt and rubric, they can start brainstorming. Share some opinion response sentence starters with students to help them figure out how to frame an opinion, address counter opinions, and gather evidence to support their ideas. You can also use these sentence starters to create an anchor chart that you can hang in the classroom that students can reference while practicing opinion writing.
6. Practice opinion writing section by section
Practicing writing section by section can help students learn how to craft an opinion text. The main sections to cover include:
Intro/Topic sentence: This section states your opinion. It orients the reader to the author’s point of view and lays out what they can expect in the rest of the text.
Body/Evidence: This section gives examples of beliefs, experiences, and feelings that support the author's opinion from the introduction. It’s also where the author can address counterclaims.
Conclusion: This section references the topic sentence again, summarizes the main points of the text, and gives the audience a final push for why the author’s opinion is the right opinion.
Create mini-lessons that help students learn how to write each part of an argumentative essay. You can teach the mini-lesson for the first part of the class period and use the rest of the time to work on the sections of their own papers independently.
How can Newsela Writing help with opinion writing practice?
Newsela Writing has a sentence checklist and rubric meters to help students evaluate their own opinion writing. Sentence checklists for single-paragraph opinion assignments include items like:
Explanation
Position
Background
Evidence
Concluding statement
Sentence checklists also give a definition for the sentence types, tips for writing each type of sentence, and examples to see how this sentence type functions in an essay.
Newsela Writing also includes rubric meters that pair with the rubric attached to the assignment for students to monitor how well they’re meeting the rubric criteria. For argumentative essays, these meters may include:
Prompt task
Development of explanation
Organization
Language use
7. Have students complete rough drafts and collect feedback
When students are familiar and comfortable with writing each section of their opinion essays, they should then put them together into a complete rough draft. Within the draft, they can work on making transitions between sections to make sure their ideas flow and connect across each part of the essay.
When the rough draft is complete, students can turn it in to receive feedback from you, or you can set up peer review workshop sessions to have students edit and comment on each other’s work. With Newsela Writing, students can also receive AI feedback to influence their revisions.
8. Ask students to revise and polish their final opinion writing drafts
After receiving feedback from teachers, peers, or a writing program like Newsela Writing, students should revise their rough drafts into polished, finished copies. These revisions may include rewriting sentences for clarity, fixing spelling and grammar errors, or reorganizing sentences and paragraphs for flow.
Students should also use this time to self-reflect on their work. They can use the rubric as a guide to make sure they haven’t missed a key area of the assignment. When revisions are complete, students should submit their final draft copies for a grade.
9. Publish or present students’ opinion writing pieces
After submission and grading, give students the opportunity to share or display their work. This could include hanging their essays up in the classroom or hallway, encouraging them to submit their essays to the school paper, or reading their essays to the class.
Another way to share student work is to look out for Newsela Writing Contests. A few times per year, we invite students to share their best work in a variety of genres for a chance to become published authors on our platform. Check out the winners from our 2025 Winter Writing Contest about Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy.
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