You can also use a voice recorder to get yourself started, dictating a paragraph or two to get you thinking. If you are more comfortable starting on paper than on the computer, you can begin that way and then later type it before you revise. A five-paragraph essay contains an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your objective for this portion is to draft the body paragraphs of a standard five-paragraph essay. You know what will go on that blank page: what you wrote in your outline. You have hours of prewriting and planning already done. Because you have completed the first two steps in the writing process, you have already recovered from empty-page syndrome. Use drafting strategies to prepare the first draft of an essayĭrafting is the stage of the writing process in which you develop a complete first version of a piece of writing.Įven professional writers admit that an empty page scares them because they feel they need to come up with something fresh and original every time they open a blank document on their computers.Identify drafting strategies that improve writing.Again, we used my realistic fiction unit and their novel study units. We used Jason Reynolds novel, Ghost for their mentor text. I have since also added a sixth grade example for everything. Now we’re on rough drafts too, and they’re seriously amazing. It was REALLY HARD for all of us, especially in the planning stages, but I scaffolded and modeled A LOT. Essentially, I was asking them to write another chapter of the book. Their middle school narrative essays still had to have a plot and climax that was completely developed. With this in mind, my 8th graders had to continue Ponyboy’s narrative. Even more so, instead of them just having to write from the point of view of a character, I actually wanted them to have to do some of that hard thinking that they might be missing out on by not doing a personal narrative. I still did the same thing with my 7th graders this year, and we are just about done writing our rough drafts.įor 8th grade, I had the same students, so I decided we would read The Outsiders. It was honestly perfect as I learned two new grade levels, but that meant I changed things up a lot in the following years. My first year teaching middle school ELA, I taught a lot of the same lessons to both seventh and eight grade. We also focus a lot on thinking critically about the texts we read. I use the novels to teach literary elements and they use that knowledge to write their middle school narrative essays. I used my Realistic Fiction and Literature Terms/Devices unit, along with Freak the Mighty. They were some of the best essay I’ve ever read. Students had to write from Freak’s or from Killer Kane’s point of view. My first year, we read Freak the Mighty in both seventh and eighth grade. Plus they’re final essay and their writing are just SO FREAKING GOOD. They truly use narrative craft because they have a complete and well done mentor text to constantly reference. I found that when students have to use narrative elements to become a character from a narrative mentor text, they don’t spend days trying to figure out what to write. Plus, sometimes it’s REALLY hard for kids to write something meaningful about the first time they were stung by a bee… or whatever small moment I spend hours and days trying to help them come up with. I just feel like kids have written 8-10 personal narratives by the time they get to me, and we are all over it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |