If you are teaching essay writing to beginning writers like
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Eighth grader Josh,
-
Tenth grader Caitlin,
-
Clueless Kate, age 38,
the techniques used in the Iowa Writers' Workshop are probably
not a good choice. Beginning writers need different kinds of help
than people working on their MFA degree.
When I talk about teaching essay writing to beginners, I do not
focus on the writers' ages. I define a beginner as anyone
who cannot write a competent essay in an hour on a topic with
which they are familiar.
You need to think and teach a strategic writing process appropriate
to novices who — let's be honest about this — don't
give a hoot about learning to write well.
Different strategic processes are needed to produce a poem than to produce directions
for installing replacement windows.
Even the students who are interested in writing need to become
competent expository writers before they can go off to Iowa for
two years to write their first prize-winning novels.
So, what do we do to start beginning writers off on the right foot?
We begin with the old standby: the 5-paragraph persuasive essay.
It has been the best tool for teaching essay writing for centuries.
If you don't know why
you should be teaching essay writing instead of creative fiction,
check out best teaching practices.
If you find my approach is a bit beyond your students, the next
best thing I've found is a homeschool
family's explanation of the five-paragraph-essay. It's less
detailed than my material, but entirely compatible with my approach
to teaching essay writing.
Repetition aids learning
The folks at the Iowa Writers Workshop will probably say the five
paragraph essay is boring, but that is precisely why it is useful
for teaching beginners.
If the rules change for every assignment, the kids who
already think they "can't do this writing stuff" will give up.
Instead of starting by having beginning writing students think
up a writing topic, give them one. That's what happens in the real
world. Authentic writing prompts are given 99% of the time.
Then take students through a writing
process for turning that topic into an essay.
Teach strategies for planning
The expository writing process has five stages. Of the five stages
When teaching essay writing to beginning writers of any age, emphasize
the two parts of the writing process beginners often skip: planning
and polishing.
The planning begins with a thesis
statement. Students either get that from
the writing prompt or develop it from options
suggested in the writing prompt. If you do your job well,
that step is easy for students.
The second step in planning is to prepare a three-sentence
outline I call a writing skeleton™ showing the reasons
for believing the thesis to be true. Students can create their
outlines by following a template.
Basically all beginners have to do is fill in the blanks.
As they complete the writing skeleton™, students are forced
to employ a strategy for linking a working thesis with the topic
sentences of paragraphs.
By creating sentence outlines for several different essays, students
will learn the relationship between thesis and topic sentences
in much the same intuitive way a driver learns the relationship
between a certain amount of pressure on the gas pedal and how fast
the car goes.
The third stage of planning is developing
evidence to support the topic sentences. Here again there
are strategies students can use for every essay. One strategy
gives students a template
so they don't have to develop an outline for each new essay.
Other strategies provide help students to
Sooner or later you'll find information about all those strategies
for teaching essay writing here on this website. Don't honk. I'm
writing as fast as I can!
Teach spiffy presentation strategies
You can teach development as a strategy
for presenting evidence. Once students catch on, they no longer
struggle with finding ways to "write more" about an
idea.
Composing (drafting)
is easy after all that planning. However, students need a way
to bring some energy and zest to their writing. There's a
strategy for that, too.
The entire final stage of the writing process is work. You can't
make revising and editing
fun, but you can teach students strategies for doing a thorough
job with minimal effort.
Bonus for planning & presenting well
If you teach students how to plan essays and how to present them
appropriately, you are unlike to have to deal with inappropriate
evidence uses that violate
copyright or result in plagiarism.
You must be sure you know the rules that govern source use. Many
people do not know what
copyright is or do not understand copyright
applies to information on the Internet.
The consequences of
plagiarism or copyright violation can be severe.
Teach strategies for self-monitoring
If students are going to learn how to write an essay and become
competent writers, they have to learn to monitor their own behavior
and correct their own work. You can help by teaching them how
to find and use resources that include everything from checklists
to word processors.
When Josh and Caitlin and Kate are competent
essayists, you can relax. You only have to concentrate on
teaching essay writing until students know enough to improve as
writers without additional instruction.
Isn't that something to look forward to?
Created 29-Aug-2008; updated 29-Nov-2009
