Five-Week Plan
A week-by-week sequence from claim and evidence to rhetoric, refutation, audience and a credible call to action.
Open resource →
Year 9 Power of Speech • Oratory
Persuasion
A five-week unit on speaking to persuade. Students learn how advocacy works, how to build claims and evidence, how to structure a case, how to use rhetorical devices responsibly, how to refute counterarguments and spot fallacies, how to read audience values and how to end with a credible call to action.
What this packet is. It contains 16 public resources, including this overview. Students move from the purpose of persuasion and the anatomy of a claim to evidence, structure, rhetoric, refutation, fallacies, audience values, calls to action and ethics. The model speeches and examples are original, and the success criteria are formative and labelled as such.
Unit outcomes
- Explain the difference between informing, persuading and manipulating.
- Build a clear claim supported by relevant, credible evidence.
- Structure a persuasive speech with reasons, evidence and a call to action.
- Use rhetorical devices purposefully and sparingly.
- Anticipate and refute counterarguments fairly.
- Identify common logical fallacies in speech and advertising.
- Analyse audience values and adapt an argument without abandoning truth.
- Deliver a persuasive speech with credible presence and ethical judgement.
The five-week shape
| Week | Focus |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | What persuasion does. Distinguish advocacy from manipulation; analyse claims; collect evidence; record a baseline persuasive turn. |
| Week 2 | Structure and rhetoric. Build a case; place evidence; practise repetition, contrast, triads and questions. |
| Week 3 | Refutation and fallacies. Steelman an opposing view; refute fairly; identify common fallacies in real texts. |
| Week 4 | Audience and action. Analyse values and objections; design a credible call to action; rehearse delivery. |
| Week 5 | Build and deliver. Draft a short persuasive speech, rehearse, deliver it and reflect on one change. |
Public resources
Outcomes and Skills
What students learn, how a persuasive speech works, and where the line between persuasion and manipulation sits.
Open resource →What Persuasion Does
Advocacy, emotion and the line between persuading an audience and manipulating it.
Open resource →Claims and Evidence
How to state a contestable claim, choose evidence that supports it and explain the reasoning in between.
Open resource →Persuasive Structure
Hooks, claims, reasons, refutation and calls to action: how to build a case a listener can follow.
Open resource →Rhetorical Devices
Repetition, contrast, triads and questions: how to use rhetoric for clarity rather than decoration.
Open resource →Counterargument and Refutation
Steelman the other side, concede what is true and answer the strongest objection without misrepresenting it.
Open resource →Spotting Fallacies
False dilemmas, straw men, ad hominem and slippery slopes: how to notice when reasoning breaks.
Open resource →Audience and Values
Why facts alone rarely change minds, and how to frame an argument for the values and objections in the room.
Open resource →Calls to Action
How to end a persuasive speech with a specific, realistic request the audience can actually act on.
Open resource →Delivering a Persuasive Speech
Conviction without aggression: voice, pace, presence and the delivery choices that make a case credible.
Open resource →Persuasive Ethics
Truth, fairness, consent and the line between advocacy and manipulation.
Open resource →Building a Persuasive Speech
A complete workshop: claim, evidence, structure, refutation, rhetoric, rehearsal and a credible call to action.
Open resource →Teacher Notes
Planning, differentiation, sensitive content and classroom protocols for the Persuasion unit.
Open resource →Sources and Provenance
What is original, what is excluded, and how the packet handles evidence, attribution and copyright.
Open resource →Planning and support
Read the teacher notes for planning, differentiation, sensitive content and participation guidance. The sources and provenance page records what is original, what is excluded and how the packet handles copyright. Differentiation is built into the teacher notes rather than published as a separate student page. The sources and provenance page records what is public, what is linked rather than copied, and what the packet deliberately leaves out.
No assessment instrument. This packet does not publish confidential class briefs, scores, bands, weights, task numbers, due dates or test papers. It is a teaching and formative-feedback resource. Teachers keep their own school instruments offline.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Counts on this page match the public HTML pages in this folder.