E-asTTle Practice Writing - Persuasive

I am aiming to improve my writing in the following 3 areas: ideas, organisations, and structure and language.

I will do this by further demonstrating ideas in a clearer form, as well as using ones that sufficiently relate to the topic and largely sympathise with the readers to create a clear vision. I have noticed on multiple occasions how my writing often has the advice that I should relate to the wider world on a larger scale. I plan to further research topics instead and find situations that relate to my own writings. I aim to improve my organisation in my writing by planning further beforehand.

With this task, we were given no opportunity to plan, much less research the topic, however, this provides no excuse to the lack of organisation my writing has. Because of this, I plan to at least further plan my writing before starting it so I can have an elaborated outline before beginning. An example of how I could have done this at the beginning was to write down ideas of what to write about in each paragraph. In my next writing, I plan to have an outline of what to mention or say in the introduction and conclusion, as well as the paragraphs.

I plan to improve the structure and language within my writing by using more unique language features. These can include rhetorical questions, metaphors, or personification. The recent writing in this blog post only provides only one notable language feature, a singular rhetorical question -- So why is this not applicable for all children? -- I plan to change this by providing another rhetorical question within my introduction. I plan to do this because it is a commonly used trick to allow writers to convince their reader into reading their own writing.

The next four paragraphs detail the persuasive writing I wrote. It was on the topic of whether children should be taught to swim in schools or not. The yellow highlight shows what changes I have rewritten since its original draft.

School’s have been exposing children to swimming pools for many years, teaching them how to swim and so on, so why are teachers leaving the teaching of water safety behind? Because of this development, many children and adults have grown up without having the ability to swim. This lack of ability only holds people back! This life skill is a necessity to be taught to students because water covers more of our Earth than land does, and over half of the people who drown per year are children and this is out of the 1.2 million. Every landmass is surrounded by water and people should know how to at very least stay afloat in a worst-case situation where they cannot easily get to shore. This is not how we as humans should be progressing as we expose children to the wider world earlier within their lives. 

Many people often do have access to larger masses of water --such as a lake or a nearby ocean-- and this means they will often know how to swim. A large amount of danger that comes with living in that area is why. Children and adults in the area are taught to swim for their own safety. So why is this not applicable for every child? In 2017 alone ninety-two deaths were caused by drowning and most would’ve been prevented if the appropriate water safety training was given to them. This does not mean all though, as harsh waters cannot be avoided by simply knowing how to stay afloat or swim in calm currents. This is why students need to be taught how to swim in harsher environments. If a storm were to hit the coast when someone without water safety training is visiting, and they’re playing down on the beach, they could not reach safe land before the storm pulled them into the water. This is merely an example, but it does happen, especially to those who know nothing about water safety. The danger is relevant to everyone when there is no avoiding it.

Simple statistics can prove that water safety is not only applicable to those who live near masses of water. Seventeen of the mentioned ninety-two deaths were in a home pool, public pool, or another controlled water body. This shows us how water safety should be taught to not only those who live near water but those who live further away from it as well. These statistics demonstrate it’s important to those anywhere and any age group-- as the statistics looked at also showed us the largest number of drowned citizens, these people were either from ages fifteen to twenty-four or sixty-five and over, and this is only in New Zealand. These two age groups accounted for thirty-two of the ninety-two mentioned who drowned. This is another portion of statistics that demonstrates water safety’s importance to children and adults alike.

In conclusion, the importance of water safety is still applicable. Even as people progress onto bigger and better things, they are still in danger when something out of there control can affect them and their lives! This is especially relevant to those who have no other means of learning and is why swimming lessons should be compulsory. Students at very least should have the opportunity to learn as it is of the most importance when lives are at stake. Without the ability to swim, they are put in great danger in even of the smallest of situations. In a swimming pool at home, they could drown simply because their feet can’t reach the bottom. Eight out of the ninety-two people that drowned in 2017 drowned in a home pool. Without the knowledge of how to swim, children, teenagers, and adults are all at risk.