After writing their paragraph on coming of age, students prepared to write an essay on the topic. Students took notes on introduction paragraphs, thesis statements, and conclusions paragraphs to prepare them for this. They also examine models of each.
In the paragraphs students submitted, I noticed that many students were simply paraphrasing the quote in their explanations, so I also had students reconsider the difference between strong and week explanations. |
The Analytical Essay
For the first essay, I wanted students to be mainly focused on writing strong paragraphs, so we worked through the prompt as a class. Together, we developed the three-prong thesis statements and the topic sentences that would match. The responsibility of finding quotes and filling in the rest of the essay was left to the students.
The Research Paper
The second essay students wrote was a research paper. Students selected their own topics and found their own sources. Since by this time students had become much stronger at writing paragraphs, the next step was to learn how to develop their own thesis statements and outline their own essay. I used this handout to take students through the steps of developing a thesis and essay outline.
I used the topic of vegetarianism throughout the research project as model to show them how to find sources, document them, and ultimately write an essay. These supplementary documents can be found in the gallery below. |
Student samples
Click on any sample to view it larger. To see how these students did at the paragraph level, click the button to the right marked "Analytical Paragraph" and scroll down. To see where they went from here, click the button marked "Premise-Based Argument."
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