Everything You Need to Do an Argumentative Essay Project
A Complete Walkthrough of An Argumentative Essay Project from First-Day Directions to Final Grading
The idea of constantly evolving and changing how we shape lessons is one of the many reasons I am still a teacher. I have changed how I teach argumentative writing from shorter on-demand projects to longer multi-genre projects. We have done paragraphs. We have done essays. Normally for this particular project, I connect the topic choices to the novel we just got done reading. However, I always have to remind myself to be inclusive and responsive to the class that I am teaching. Here is the bottom line: My class just wasn’t into Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor. After trying to get a grasp on history, having great class discussions, and talking about plot elements in the text, my class was simply ready to move on. This feeling of wanting to press on along with the feelings of wanting to do more cycles of argumentative writing gave way to the approach I took for this project. I have combined many aspects of how I teach argumentative writing over the years. You will see essay packets, example essays and mentor texts, and the various ways I try to grade throughout the process to make sure I stay above the paper line. However, this post will also outline the intention of showing our students that learning this process can be ultimately tied to the debate process, and the issues we are talking about genuinely have an impact on our lives now. With a class that seemed a little out of touch, nothing can be a better tool to put them back in touch than an argumentative essay.
Topic of Project
For this paper, in particular, I chose the topic of banned books. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor has been a visitor on various banned book lists, so I am making connections to our whole class novel, but I am also expanding into a general topic. Sometimes when I make the topic about a specific book, my students associate the skills with that topic or book. I want them to focus on transfer. I can transfer the skills I am learning in mentor text routines, and I can transfer the skills I am learning in my first argumentative essay to other writing projects. Remember, I teach sixth-grade. For many, this is their first formal paper. They are learning how to insert in-text citations, how to write in a formal tone, how to organize their ideas, and also how to explain or elaborate on the evidence. Sara Holt from the blog Writing Up Dreams recently did a guest post “5 Tips and Tricks for Teaching the Argumentative Essay.” This is a great place to start if you are looking to establish some great essay teaching routines. The steps in her post and in this post can apply to any given topic in the argumentative genre.
Favorite Resources
PROCON.ORG
ProCon.Org is a nonprofit organization. This website is a great place to start if you are interested (like me) in finding materials for shorter cycles of writing that occur more often. My goal for the next argumentative essay writing cycle that we do is to allow students to access ProCon.org and choose topics of debate that are interesting for them. When you select a given topic, they give you a summary of the issue, and then multiple sides of the debate. The possibilities are endless with teaching argumentative writing, teaching claim statements, counterclaim statements, and teaching how to insert in-text citations before a bigger research unit. Be sure to read through sources to evaluate if they match the age-range of your students.
National Writing Project-College, Career, and Community Writers Program
I am part of the C3WP cohort at Western Michigan University where we share argumentative strategies, lessons, and scoring ideas. Their resources are amazing; however, fair warning: It is easy to get lost. They have Upper Elementary Resources and Secondary Resources available on their website. As a sixth-grade teacher, I am drawn to the upper elementary resources. I feel like these templates and lesson sequences are more appropriate for my “just entering middle-schoolers,” but I can also scaffold lessons from the secondary area. All of the tools available walk you through the entire process step-by-step. There are presentations, graphic organizers, and example lessons to show you the way.
NOREDINK
I am trying NOREDINK as my peer review tool this year. I have used the grammar function in the past, and now I am trying out the writing section on the website. Students can submit different parts of their writing or their whole body of writing for students to give anonymous feedback. I love the idea of it being anonymous, and I like the rigor push of giving my students multiple rounds of feedback. The key to using this tool will be using a checklist and helping my students give both positive and reinforcing methods of feedback. I want to be sure to gradually release how they are checking each others’ work by using items from mentor text work and items they revised from the revision code sheets. I will start with the items we have covered extensively in class and then build from there.
Examples/Mentor Texts
The beginning of this process is always with mentor texts. I show my students 2-3 samples of writing from the previous year. It is without question that there is a lack of available mentor text resources for argumentative, information, and expository writing at each student grade-level. I think this is largely due to the subjective nature of teaching writing, but also that teachers focus on different skill areas. Thus, the best mentor texts are former student papers. If I am a new teacher, it is finding examples like these that I like, and I want to use them in my classroom.
We make observations according to the six-traits of writing, and we share out loud. Students almost always want to be critics. They will point out a word spelled wrong or something that was phrased the wrong way. More times than not, this is them wanting to be peer reviewers, but not knowing how to review a piece of writing. The first time we make these observations I am helping them notice organization, format, ideas, and how evidence looks in each paragraph. I keep the questions very general. For example, I might ask: “Do you see evidence in all of the paragraphs?” “Which ones?” This, in turn, helps them start to look at writing from a big picture place. They can see from above that academic writing has a structure, organization, and tone that often follows a pattern.
Why Essay Packets/Essay Guides
Sequence of Lessons
My essay packet reviews the steps for students so they can treat it like a checklist. I then move through my sequence of lessons and teach them how to complete each step. I add my own presentations and resources to Google Classroom as I go. I break the essay process into three chunks: Introduction, Body Paragraphs, and Conclusion.
Introduction and Claim Writing
Body Paragraphs
After we transition from the introduction and the claim statement, we are ready to make body paragraphs. We first start by outlining the parts of each paragraph. I then move through the following sequence:
Review how to create topic sentences
Students find quotations that match their reasons.
Students receive a lesson on various ways to introduce a quotation.
Students review how to insert a quotation into their writing.
Students practice explanation and elaboration after a quotation.
Conclusion
Students struggle with the conclusion because they feel that conclusions are just repeated information. I like to think of conclusions as call-to-action paragraphs. I now know information, so what do I do with it? We look at examples of essays with a conclusion and rate how effective we think their call to action is to the reader.
Assessment Methods
Anytime I start a new writing unit I am met with two emotions: joy for teaching writing and dread for the piles of paper on my desk and in my bag to take home. The key to controlling paper is making a plan for assessment. I use four methods of grading: grade, score, conference, and peer review. Grading and scoring require me to physically hold papers in my hands, give feedback, and a grade of some kind. Conference and peer review involve more participation scores that can be checked while class is in session.
Grade-Specific score/Intensive teacher time
Introduction grade/rubric codes
Introduction + body paragraph grade/rubric codes
Draft #1 grade/rubric codes
Best draft rubric score
Score-Specific score/low teacher time
Draft checks (Hop-checks)
Workshop checks
Conference-General score/intensive teacher time
Individual writing conference
Small group conferences
Peer Review-General score/low teacher time
Introduction peer review
Boxes and bullets body paragraph outline/peer review
Draft #1 peer review
Best draft peer review