Evaluative and Persuasive Forms: Reviews, Critiques and Opinion Columns

"It was good."

Ask a friend about a movie and they might say, It was good. That tells you almost nothing. Good how? For whom? Compared with what?

Now imagine the community newspaper in your town asks you for a 450-word film critique, one of the curriculum's own examples of a Grade 11 form. Readers want to know whether to see the film, but they also want to understand what the film is doing and how well it does it. In this lesson you will write reviews and critiques that judge with evidence, and opinion columns that argue a position for the public, like the curriculum's example of an opinion piece on the use of hurtful language.

Review vs critique

• A review is a consumer guide. Its main question: Should you spend your time or money on this? It is short, lively, and ends with a clear recommendation, often a star rating.
• A critique (also called criticism) asks How does this work, what does it mean, and how well does it achieve what it attempts? It still gives a judgment, but spends more words on analysis and context.

Most newspaper film pieces mix both. In Grade 11, your evaluation must go beyond liking or disliking: you judge against criteria and explain why.

Five habits of strong critics

1. Give context. Genre, creator, source text (adapted from a novel), and what kind of film or book it is trying to be. Judge a comedy as a comedy.
2. Name your criteria, at least to yourself: for a film, story, performances, cinematography (camera work), editing, sound and music, pacing, themes.
3. Use specific, analytic evidence. Describe a moment and explain its effect. This is the same skill as analysing a novel, applied to a film, album, game or restaurant.
4. Balance. Even a rave names a weakness; even a pan finds something that works. Balance makes your verdict more believable.
5. Respect the reader. No spoilers for major twists; enough plot to orient them (usually one or two sentences); and a verdict that says who will enjoy it.

The shape of a critique

A common structure for a 400- to 600-word critique:

• Headline and byline: a headline that hints at your verdict (Lake of Lights finds beauty in a cold town); your name.
• Hook: a vivid moment, image or question, not In this review I will...
• Context: title, creator, genre, release or venue, a one- or two-sentence premise with no spoilers.
• Strengths and weaknesses, each tied to a criterion with specific evidence and analysis.
• Verdict: your overall judgment and who should see it. A rating if the publication uses them.

Voice: confident, precise and often witty, but never cruel. Wit about a work is fine; mocking people's appearance or identity is not criticism.

The opinion column (op-ed)

An opinion column argues a position on a public issue for a general audience. It is shorter and punchier than an essay (often 600 to 800 words in a newspaper; 300 to 500 in a school paper) and uses a personal, direct voice.

• News peg: open with why this matters now: a council vote, a new school policy, an incident everyone is talking about.
• Claim early: state your position in the first two or three paragraphs.
• Reasons and evidence: facts, examples, expert views, personal experience where relevant. Cite sources in the way newspapers do, by naming them in the sentence (according to Statistics Canada), not with MLA parentheses.
• Concession and rebuttal: fairly state the best opposing point, then answer it.
• Call to action: end with what readers should do, support or rethink.
• Short paragraphs (one to three sentences) suit newspaper columns.

An editorial follows the same pattern but is unsigned and speaks for the publication. A letter to the editor responds to something the publication printed (Lesson 7 covers letters).

The curriculum's example of an opinion piece on hurtful language is a good reminder: when you write about language that harms people, argue about the words and their effects without repeating slurs, and do not single out real individuals.