Increasingly Focused Writing Unit

I'm looking to create a unit that focusses on current events and nonfiction, persuasive writing. My plan is to follow the format of one of the teachers from an Annenberg Learner video we were required to view for class. The unit will give students choice in what they write. As the teacher from the video said, "Choice creates excitement, and excitement creates the product." The unit will involve political discussion and other current events.

The following is taken from Annenberg Workshop Numero Two:

• Students pick an article, give a brief summary, including evidence, and then students shares why they chose the article. Then students vote on which articles they found to be the most interesting. The top three vote getters will receive further exploration. Next day, class will go to lab to do further research. Teacher attempts to broaden topics so there’s more to research the next day. Class will get broken into three groups, and each group will take one of the articles.
• Students accumulate articles related to their topic, and then independently post the articles on a discussion board along with a description of what they found. Each group decides which article to use as the focus for individual letters to the editor.
• Students bring in drafts of their letters to the editor. Volunteers share their letters, and students discuss.

At this point, I guess I haven't figured out what else I am going to do. I'm not sure how many days these three bullets will span. I think I'd like to follow a similar format for other areas of the unit, but change the purpose/the audience. This could involve at least one lesson on audience and word choice. This is all I have for now.