Disguise that Turkey....and a Persuasive Piece

Here is an oldie, but a goodie that the kid really love to do.  A few years ago I was on my favorite teacher website in the whole world, ProTeacher, and I came across the idea of doing a "Disguise that Turkey" project.  The idea of it is simple....the students are given a turkey picture which they then have to take home and "turn into" something else.  What fun!

So I decided to go with it....and there were such FABULOUS turkeys that came back!  Here is the thread from ProTeacher that I got all of the templates from.  These are simple, to the point and perfect.

Now, admittedly, this was more of a project for the primary grades.  BUT I made it a bit more upper grade by having the students then write a persuasive essay convincing me exactly WHY the turkey was indeed not a turkey but the thing it was disguised as.  I WISH I took pictures of the writing because the excuses and arguments were OUTSTANDING!  The kids really thought about the traits that the new persona would have and went with them full force.  My EL students got to use such wonderful language while describing the new persona and it really was a great, standards based project all started in fun!

Here are a few persuasive writing Thinking Maps that you can use to help organize your students' writing.  When using these, have them think of the two arguments as the two traits that are special to the new persona the turkey is adopting.  They can then use them to write their persuasive essays.  Enjoy!