In my first year of teaching, I assigned a group of eighth grade students what I thought was a rather straight-forward assignment: a five paragraph essay on the causes of the Civil War. I had brilliantly lectured on the three chief causes of the war and so had high expectations that my students would be able to both regurgitate my content and then analyze with a modicum of creative thought. I even was kind enough to jot down this brief organizational structure on the board: Paragraphs: #1 Introduction #2 First Cause #3 Second Cause #4 Third Cause #5 Conclusion. Stop laughing.
The results were not as I expected. Most students came up with five paragraphs. Well, at least they were indented. The introductory paragraph largely consisted of either “In this essay I’m going to talk about the chief causes of the Civil War” or “Once upon a time there was a great Civil War.” The body paragraphs briefly summarized their notes on what I had said. The concluding paragraph largely consisted of “In this essay I talked about the chief causes of the Civil War.” The structure was relatively easy to master, but there was no analysis. The students had no clue about what to put into an introduction and a conclusion. I confess I had no clue either. I could “do them” (at least my college professors seemed to think so), but I certainly could not “teach them.”
Many intermediate, middle, and high school teachers fall into the same trap. Our content papers, on-demand writing fluencies, and standardized tests push us to teach the various domains (genres) of essays as end-products. We wind up teaching these structures, but fail to scaffold the essay strategies that enable students to write coherently with originality and authentic voices. Let’s spend more time on the process, rather than on the product, with respect to essay instruction and practice. It’s hard and sometimes tedious work for students and teacher, but the pay-off is worth the effort.
Following are articles, free resources, and teaching tips regarding how to teach essay strategies from the Pennington Publishing Blog. Bookmark and visit us often. Oh, and don’t forget to copy down the 10% discount code found only on this blog to purchase the quality curricula and resources offered by Pennington Publishing.
How to Teach Essay Strategies
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/grammar_mechanics/how-to-teach-essay-strategies/
Coaching writing, especially essay strategies, is a lot like coaching football. Ask any football coach what wins football games and you are likely to get practice as the answer. Football coaches live for the conditioning, the blocking sled, the tackle practice, and the omnipresent videotape. Perhaps we ELA teachers should take a page from our coaches’ playbooks and be a bit more process-centered. Now, I’m not talking about the writing process; I’m talking about teaching the essay strategies that will prepare students for the big game.
How Many Essay Comments and What Kind
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-many-essay-comments-and-what-kind/
So, to summarize how many essay comments and what kind, writing research would suggest the following: Comment on rough drafts, not final drafts. Limit the amount of comments and individualize those to the needs of the student writer. Balance the types of comments between writing errors and issues of style, argument, structure, and evidence. Hold students accountable for each mark or comment. Comments are better than diacritical marks alone. Comments should explain what is wrong or explain the writing issue.
How to Write an Introduction
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-write-an-introduction/
Few teachers know how to teach essay introductions. Simply stating a “hook” or a “lead” and then stating the thesis make a rather weak introductory paragraph. The article shares the best strategies to include in an essay introduction in a memorable and easy-to-understand format.
How to Write a Conclusion
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-write-a-conclusion/
Few teachers know how to teach essay conclusions. Simply re-stating the thesis and summarizing make a rather weak conclusion. The article shares the best strategies to include in a conclusion in a memorable and easy-to-understand format.
How to Write Body Paragraphs
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-write-body-paragraphs/
Writing good body paragraphs is more than using proper paragraph structure. That structure should also provide the evidence to develop the points of the essay. A variety of evidence is necessary to convince the reader of your thesis. This article teaches how to write effective body paragraphs with eight different types of evidence.
How to Use Numerical Values to Write Essays
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-use-numerical-values-to-write-essays/
Many developing writers get lost in the jargon of writing instruction. Simplify the terms and anyone can write a well-structured multi-paragraph essay. Using an intuitive numerical system, this easy-to-understand and teach system of essay development will quickly take writers from complete sentences to the five-paragraph essay and beyond. It just makes sense.
How to Write Effective Essay Comments
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-write-effective-essay-comments/
Conscientious teachers know that merely completing a holistic rubric and totaling the score for a grade is not effective essay response or writing assessment. Teachers may choose to grade and/or respond with essay comments after the rough draft and/or after the final draft. Using the types of comments that match the teacher’s instructional objectives is essential. Additionally, keeping in mind the key components of written discourse can balance responses between form and content. Finally, most writing instructors include closing comments to emphasize and summarize their responses. Here’s how to write truly effective essay comments.
How to Write a Summary
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-write-a-summary/
Learning how to write a summary is a valuable skill. California even includes the summary as a writing application on its CST writing exam. Learning how to teach what is andwhat is not a summary may be even more valuable. A summary is the one writing application that focuses equally on what should be included and what should not be included.
How to Teach Transitions
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-teach-transitions/
Transition words are essential ingredients of coherent writing. Using transition words is somewhat of a writing science. Teachers can “teach” the nuts and bolts of this science. However, using transition words is also somewhat of a refined art. Matters of writing style don’t “come naturally” to most writers. With targeted practice, students can learn to incorporate transitions as important features of their own writing styles.
How to Teach Thesis Statements
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-teach-thesis-statements/
The most important part of the multi-paragraph essay is a well-worded thesis statement. The thesis statement should state the author’s purpose for writing or the point to be proved. Learn how to teach the thesis statement and get three thesis statement worksheets to help your students practice.
How to Teach Proofreading Strategies
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/grammar_mechanics/how-to-teach-proofreading-strategies/
Writers make errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, proper use of quotes, paragraphs, usage, and word choice for a variety of reasons. Effective proofreading strategies can help writers find and make corrections to improve their writing.
How to Teach Students to Write in Complete Sentences
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/writing/how-to-teach-students-to-write-in-complete-sentences/
Developing writers often have problems writing in complete sentences. Three teaching techniques will help your students write coherent and complete sentences.
How to Write Complex Sentences
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/grammar_mechanics/how-to-write-complex-sentences/
Writers can increase the maturity of their writing by learning how to convert simple sentences into complex sentences. The article uses easy-to-understand language and clear examples to help developing writers.
More Articles, Free Resources, and Teaching Tips from the Pennington Publishing Blog
- English-language Arts Standards
- English-language Arts Instruction
- Essay Strategies
- The Writing Process/Writers Workshop
- Writing Style
- Grammar and Mechanics
- Spelling
- Vocabulary
- Structural Analysis/Syllabication/Oral Language
- Teaching Reading in the ELA Classroom
- ELA/Reading Assessments
- Reading Intervention
- Independent Reading
- Response to Intervention
- EL/ESL
- Differentiated Instruction (RtI)
- Critical Thinking
- Study Skills
- Test Preparation
- Educational Issues and Teaching Trends
- Developmental Characteristics
- Professional Development
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Teaching Essay Strategies is the comprehensive writing curriculum, designed to teach your students how to write coherent multi-paragraph essays. Students progress at their own pace through 42 sequential essay strategy worksheets and skill lessons (including writing style, parallelism, coherency, unity, and writing evidence) to compose 8 complete essays in the different essay genres. Also get 64 sentence revision (sentence combining and grammatical sentence patterns) and 64 rhetorical stance “opener” lessons, 8 on-demand writing fluencies, remedial writing worksheets, writing posters, holistic and analytical rubrics, graphic organizers, and editing resources. No other writing program matches the comprehensive resources of this curriculum. Truly individualize instruction with the resources found in this large three-ring binder. 359 pages