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Essay Writing Lesson
Essay Writing Lesson
Context:
Date and time for which lesson will be taught: 2/28/17 11am-11:45am
Course name: English Advanced/Honors
Grade level: 8th
Length of lesson: 45 mins
Description of setting, students, and curriculum and any other important contextual characteristics:
There are 18 students in the class.
Students are in the midst of preparing for their writing SOL. They have been practicing writing introductory paragraphs,
including their thesis. They are familiar with the basic 5-paragraph structure of an essay. Students have also had experience
looking at prompts and comparing them with rubrics. This lesson will work to help students develop their skills with adding
detail into their body paragraphs.
Performance (do):
4. Students will be able to create a paragraph using specific details.
Assessments: Methods for evaluating each of the specific objectives listed above.
Diagnostic: Students will demonstrate what they already know about by
In the introduction, students will share with me what they know about how to improve the details in the paragraph. They get
an opportunity to brainstorm ways to add details, and they will share those ideas with me. (1, 2)
Formative: Students will show their progress towards by
Students will turn in their paragraphs at the end of the workshop period. I will look over them to see how they incorporated
details. (2, 4).
Students will write an answer the question, Why do we need to use details when writing? beneath their paragraph before
turning it in.
Summative: Students will ultimately be assessed (today or in a future lesson) on by...
The SOL
Research Project
Materials Needed:
This is just a list of the materials you will need for this lesson to occur. In the Materials Appendix below, you will include the
actual materials or links to what you will be using.
Google Doc
Instructional Steps (Procedures): Detail student and teacher behavior.
[Note: Any words that represent what I would say directly to students appear in italics.]
In this lesson today, one thing that surprised me was how many students had ideas for how to make the paragraph
more interesting and detailed in the very beginning of the lesson. Many of them were excited to raise their hands and offer
feedback. I think that this shows how students learned a lot from a previous lesson where they used the rubric to grade
someone elses paragraphs. After this enthusiasm, I was then surprised to find that the students had a difficult time applying
their ideas to their own paragraphs. What this taught me was that if I had used that initial conversations as a diagnostic
assessment, then I would have thought that the students were prepared to apply the writing skills. Because the students had
troubling applying concepts, I think that the necessity of writing workshop time was reinforced for me.
I was also surprised by how uncomfortable it is to talk for a long period of time without student engagement. I was
performing a think-aloud, and I could see eyes glazing over, so I went ahead and stopped a little early and only edited two
sentences instead of three. I had concerns about this before teaching, but I assured myself that other teachers do this and if I
did it for less than 13 minutes or so, then they would be okay. I think that if I were to do this again, I would involve the
students after the first edited sentence that I model. I will model one sentence, and then have the students give me suggestions
for my second sentence and possibly the third or fourth sentences. I think that having students more engaged will be a much
better way to have them learn the material.
I wish that I had planned the conferencing better. I tried to conference in groups, and once I got there, I did not
entirely know what to ask. I felt like I was helping one or two students, but in general, I think my conference ended up being
pretty worthless. I would like to not only get more experience practicing these conferences, but I also need to be better about
scripting and coming up with objectives for each conference. I needed to ask different questions for the students who I talked
with at the beginning of writing a paragraph and the students who I spoke with at the end of writing a paragraph. I think I
could have had a list of questions, but also a list of suggestions. One thing that I think I did well in the conferences was really
talking through each time of detail the students could add to their paragraph. I also offered suggestions for how they could
add those details. One student said, That was really helpful. I didnt realize there was a way that I could incorporate the
senses into this paragraph. She wanted to go back and add more descriptive imagery to make her paragraph stronger. In a
way, I think that a part of my workshop was successful. I was more successful with the students who had strong topics. I need
to improve my ability to help students when they are not really on a solid path. One student had a really shaky topic, and I did
not take the time to really work that out with him because I was so distracted trying to remember questions to ask. Having
that shaky topic made the rest of the workshop really hard for him, especially when he had to restart completely and lost a lot
of time.
The next time that I teach conferencing, I want to do smaller groups. I think two is better than three, which is
definitely better than four. I think I went into those groups of three and four as if they would be quick conferences, but I
should have really gone into them more like small-group reading instruction where I was offering ideas for each of them. I
think to begin conferencing, I need to practice more one-on-one. I also need to be more assertive in pushing them to develop
stronger ideas. I need to be better about not shying away from offering critical, constructive feedback. I should be prepared to
ask more questions to push the students to develop their ideas, explain their ideas, and have them create strong starting points
so that they can be successful.