Engaging your audience: creating effective opening and closing paragraphs
I can craft an effective opening and closing paragraph for a persuasive speech.
Engaging your audience: creating effective opening and closing paragraphs
I can craft an effective opening and closing paragraph for a persuasive speech.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- It is important to consider how the tone of a speech opening will engage the audience.
- An introduction should hook your audience in, regardless of the topic.
- The ending of your persuasive speech presents the last opportunity to influence your audience.
- At the end of your persuasive speech, your audience should know exactly how to help or what to think or feel.
- Using rhetorical devices can elevate your opening and closing paragraphs.
Keywords
Impactful - memorable and significant
Compelling - convincing and attention grabbing
Viewpoint - a person’s opinion or perspective on something
Reinforce - to strengthen or further support something - in this context- an idea
Common misconception
I don't have time to write an effective closing, I just need to get my work finished!
The ending is arguably the most important part of the piece of writing. You need to leave your audience with a clear message that is memorable. Writing effective closings will get quicker the more you practice using specific strategies.
To help you plan your year 10 english lesson on: Engaging your audience: creating effective opening and closing paragraphs, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 10 english lesson on: Engaging your audience: creating effective opening and closing paragraphs, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 english lessons from the Spoken language: the language of change unit, dive into the full secondary english curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
You will need access to a copy of the 1998 essay ‘The End of Imagination’ by Arundhati Roy for this lesson.
Content guidance
- Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering
Supervision
Adult supervision recommended
Licence
Lesson video
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