This year, more than ever, I can see that our middle school students lack some basic essay writing skills.
When it came time to determine what they know about essay writing, it was clear that they had had a firm foundation at one point, but had lost many of the bits and pieces along the way before arriving in middle school.
They absolutely struggled with being able to organize an essay and could not seem to remember how to approach the whole essay writing process. It was clear to me that we needed some interventions.
1. Simply the framework.
I found that many of our students simply forgot what the structure of an essay is all about. They need a clear-cut plan for writing. Now, what I am about to suggest may seem a bit formulaic and as teachers, we like to give our students options to exercise their creativity. BUT - when students are lost, they aren't worried about creativity - they're worried about understanding what to do.
I use a special mnemonic to break down what each sentence in the essay should be about.
The mnemonic lays out the pattern of writing an informative essay in clear, plain language with a picture to serve as a memory cue.
Once students have mastered this basic structure, then I will surely add in things like word choice and voice. But for now, this intervention is all about getting that structure down-pat.
2. Use Essay Frames
Now that they have notes to follow, I decided to use a frame. To me, an essay frame is a fill-in-the-blank essay. Like this one is from the book Tangerine:
As you can see, I put all the structure in the frame and the students have to follow along with that structure (using their notes) to fill in the blanks with their evidence and elaboration. It's a great way to put some training wheels on the essay!
3. Provide different kinds of practice that are not writing full essays.
So maybe this one seems obvious. Students need practice but writing a full essay is absolutely not going to work. So what to do?
Well for introduction practice, I made these "micro" texts and asked students to write an introduction based on them. You can either do one per day as part of a bell work routine or you could have students complete them in groups and then share their work.
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