One of my favorite units to teach in the upper elementary grades is my persuasive letter writing unit. Because I want students to learn to write for real audiences, yet the business letter format is a little bit beyond many of my students, I have created the template pictured below.
I use this template to model writing a letter to a company whose product or service has disappointed me in some way. Some students already have some complaints they want to express. Some students even send their polished final copies to the businesses and get responses.