A crucial process for any high school or college student to learn is teaching students how to write an essay.Encourage students to choose an essay topic of their own by assigning essays to read.Help students understand what makes a good essay.You can use your assignments to help students write their essays.
Step 1: You can assign the essay genre to your students.
There are many different essay genres.Determine what type of essay you want your students to write, and explain the genre to them.The genre's key features should be included.A narrative is a non-fiction account of a personal experience.If you want your students to tell a story about something they did, this is a good option.It's when you investigate an idea, discuss it at length, and make an argument about it.If you want students to explore a controversial topic, this might be a good option.It's a description of a person, place, object, emotion, experience, or situation.Allowing your students to express themselves through writing is a good way to do this.Students are required to take a stance on a topic and make an argument in favor of that stance.Students will not be discussing a concept at length and then taking a position in this essay.The goal of an essay is to take a position and defend it with evidence.
Step 2: Provide models of the type of essay you want your students to write.
Pick essays that were written in that genre to use as models once you have identified the type of essay you want your students to write.You can collect individual essays and assign 1 at a time, or use a reader and have students read essays in the genre you have selected.If you want your students to model their own essays after these examples, you need to pick essays that are well- structured and interesting.If you can, include essays written by former students as well as professionally written essays.
Step 3: Students are divided into small groups to discuss their essays.
Students will gain a better understanding of what makes a good essay if they work together to examine model essays in class.Give your students questions and have them work together to answer them.For each of the essays you assign your students, you could ask them to identify the author's main point or focus, structure, use of sources, and effect of introduction and conclusion.To help students understand how to write a good essay, ask the students to create a reverse outline.They will identify the thesis, main points of the body paragraphs, the supporting evidence, and the concluding statement.This information will be presented in an outline.
Step 4: Students should be encouraged to choose a topic that matters to them.
Encourage your students to write if they choose a topic that interests them.Allow them to choose their topics so that they will be able to pick something that interests them.If you have assigned your students a narrative essay, then you should encourage them to choose a story that they love to tell or one that has always been a dream of theirs.Encourage your students to pick a topic that they feel strongly about or learn more about so they can voice their opinion in the essay.
Step 5: There are examples of effective introductions.
One of the hardest parts of writing an essay is starting it.Your students may be tempted to begin with a broad, sweeping introduction, or they may start out with something that sounds generic or bland.Students will know what you're looking for when you point to good introduction examples from the model essays you assign.If you read an essay that begins with an interesting anecdote, highlight it in your class discussion.Ask students how they could incorporate something like that into their own essays and have them write an anecdotal introduction in class.If you read an essay that starts with a shocking fact that grabs readers' attention, point this out to your students.They should be asked to identify the most shocking facts related to their essay topic.
Step 6: Tell me how to write a strong thesis.
At the end of the introduction, a thesis statement is usually the central claim of an essay.Make sure to identify the thesis in each of the essays you read with your students so they have plenty of models to refer to.Make sure to spend time in class learning how to write a thesis statement.For example, you could provide a few model thesis statements that students can use as templates and then ask them to write a thesis for their topic as an in-class activity or have them post it on an online discussion board.
Step 7: Show students how to back their claims.
The claim that is supported by research should be included in each of the body paragraphs.Statistics, results of a study, or quotes from experts may be included.Show your students how to structure their paragraphs.You could spend a class session looking at how the authors of model essays have used topic sentences to introduce their claims.identify where the author provides support for a claim and how they expand on the source
Step 8: Students should be given examples of how to finish their essay.
It is common for conclusions to be abrupt or awkward when students are in a rush to finish an essay.Refer to the conclusions in the model essays you read with the students to understand the goal of the conclusion.The conclusion of a narrative essay can reflect on the significance of an author's experience.Ask students to write a paragraph where they reflect on the experience they are writing about and turn it in as homework or share it on a class discussion board.If you show students conclusions that restate the most important aspect of a topic or that offer solutions for the future, you've done your job.Have students write their own conclusions that restate the most important parts of their subject, or outline some possible solutions to the problem.
Step 9: Students will know to start early if there is an explanation of the writing process.
Many students don't see writing as a long process.Poor writing is usually a result of sitting down and writing an essay the night before it's due.Writing a good essay requires a lot of thought, planning, and revision.If you can give students a sample timeline for how to work on their essays, that would be great.They might start thinking about a topic, gather sources, and take notes 4 weeks before the paper is due.The goal is for students to have a full draft 1 week before the essay's due date.5 days before the essay is due, students could begin revising their drafts.Students will have enough time to read through their papers a few times and make changes as needed.
Step 10: Discuss the importance of creativity.
Explain to students how brainstorming can help them write better essays.Provide them with a list of different types of ideas and give them class time to try some of them.Freewriting is when you write about anything that comes to mind for a set amount of time, such as 10, 15, or 20 minutes.When you write a topic on a piece of paper and use lines to connect it to others, it's called clustering.When you make a list of any and all ideas related to a topic and ten read through it to find helpful information for your paper, it's called listing.Asking questions, such as what, when, where, why, and how of their topic.Defining terms, such as identifying all of the key terms related to their topic, and writing out definitions for each one.
Step 11: Students will be instructed on different ways to organize their thoughts.
Students may be wondering how to organize everything in a way that makes sense once they have some ideas for their essay.Show students how to organize an essay according to their topic and genre.If your students are writing narrative essays, it would make sense for them to describe the events in chronological order.If students are writing an essay about a topic, they should start by answering the most important questions and providing background information.For a descriptive essay, students might use spatial reasoning to describe something from top to bottom, or organize the descriptive paragraphs into categories for each of the 5 senses, such as sight, sound, smell, and taste.
Step 12: Writing exercises can be used to help students develop ideas.
You will often need to explain concepts to students, and this may involve you talking and writing on the board or using a PowerPoint for a portion of the classIt is important to get students thinking about the concepts you are trying to teach.Try starting or ending each class with a writing exercise to get students interested in a new idea.If you have just gone over different types of brainstorming strategies, you could ask students to choose one that they like and spend 10 minutes developing ideas for their essay.
Step 13: Students should be required to post regularly on the discussion board.
Students can use an online discussion board to keep up with the course material.They can access the board at any time of day or night.If you were to do timed activities in your classroom, this will create a more laid back environment for students to complete their writing activities.Have students respond to a writing prompt on a weekly basis.You might want to create a discussion board where students can post their ideas for an essay and get feedback from you and your classmates.
Step 14: Students should be given homework to help develop their essays.
It is important that the types of homework you assign are useful for your students as they work on their essays.You can assign students to write 1 paragraph of ideas for their paper as a first assignment.They could expand on those ideas in a new paragraph if they chose a focus for the next homework assignment.Students could be required to hand in a first draft as a homework assignment if you assign specific parts of the writing process as homework.
Step 15: Revision sessions can be scheduled in class.
Revision is an essential part of the writing process, but your students may not see it that way.Revision is part of the class to make sure students revise their work.Give your students class time to revise their work after you explain different revision techniques to them.Provide students with a list of questions and strategies that they can use and allow them to choose what they find most helpful.If you want to identify issues with organization and to weed out minor errors, you might suggest reading the paper backwards 1 sentence at a time.Students are asked to review each other's work in peer-review workshops.Students can work in groups or in pairs.Provide them with a copy of the assignment to help with their peer-review.