October content that focuses on informational writing, horror and scary book recommendations, and added resources for sub plans, warm-ups, and creative writing.

September content that focuses on finding routines, becoming laser-focused on self-care, argumentative writing, and planning a year built on a framework for equity.

I first became familiar with the pre-writing portion of this assignment during a C3WP session I attended in 2019 through the National Writing Project. C3WP stands for College, Career, and Community Writers Program. If you are unfamiliar with the National Writing Project, it is an amazing network of literacy educators that often think outside of the box when it comes to teaching reading and writing. There is also a mission entrenched in the idea of “teachers as writers,” and continuing professional development as an integral way to continue building skills as an educator. Many of the writing sessions that are geared toward both adults and children focus on the inspiration from the life of the writer as a way to access the entire writing process.

Back in 2019 when I first wrote about generative writing, I said:

“...generative writing really is at the heart of all writer’s workshops because it uses the students’ interests and personal experiences to create the topics, provide the organization, and make the connections that are so necessary for engagement and comprehension.”

The term “generative” writing has a few different meanings in the world of writing.

It can take the form of an idea brainstorming in creative writing. It is often unedited and looks like a stream-of-consciousness exercise where the writer is not concerned with conventions like grammar, spelling, or punctuation. The cool thing about generative writing is that the students are the prompts. Your job as a teacher is transformative when you help facilitate the writer to discover their own writing process-including idea generation. Generative in the sense of this post means the ideas are generated from the writer’s life and then transposed into a variety of genres. This post will walk you through how to do this with argumentative writing, and then apply it to a writing workshop. 

Whenever I met with my middle school English department, sat down with a colleague to collaborate, or simply talked to other others that teach any type of writing, the question would always come up: “So, how do you teach the essay anyway?” The academic essay is often largely subjective in terms of skill sequence and design involved in a unit plan. As I get the opportunity to work with more and more teachers, I find that this type of assignment is largely assigned based on the teacher’s own personal learning experiences, the teacher’s experiences with their mentor teacher, or a commonly known set of skills that everyone thinks is accurate. I am not saying that my way to teach any academic essay is better than anyone else’s method of teaching the essay. This post serves as a starting point for a larger discussion about how the genre of academic essays is implemented throughout the various grade levels. The goal should always be consistent. For the sake of this post, I am going to use the Six Traits of Writing as a common language to talk about how writing is taught in a classroom. I like the six traits of writing because all of the terms used can apply to many different types of writing. Throughout this post, you will find examples and tips on how to approach each part of the academic essay.

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.

When that beautiful time of year rolls around to teach the argumentative essay to your middle school students, you might find yourself crinkling your nose and thinking, “Oh boy, let’s just get through this.” 

I don’t blame you! 

Teaching the argumentative essay is no easy feat. You aren’t just teaching students the flow and structure of writing, but you are also teaching them how to research, evaluate evidence, make a claim, argue, convince, and write in a formal style. Many of these skills might be new to your students, so it is important to go slow, keep it simple, and make it very clear. 

Today we are going to be looking at 5 tips and tricks to help you teach the argumentative essay to your students in a fun, clear, and simple way!

1. Mentor Texts are Golden

2. Structure is Everything

3. Research is Key 

4. The Little Details Matter

5. Checklists are a Must

Looking at these documents, you may think I am a little bit crazy. I am okay with that. However, I am excited to have a go at this project with my third hour group. I am constantly evaluating how I end a novel unit, and I enjoy reflecting on the type of paper writing I express as important to my students. When my grade-level colleague and I attended MCTE in October and listened to Kelly Gallagher, we got excited about the idea of a multi-genre project with our sixth graders. We teach a variety of paper genres throughout the school year, including the five-paragraph essay, but we wanted students to get a chance to be innovative and inquisitive about the world around them.

Essay Packet: a workbook for students that contains all the steps of the specific essay assignment included; life saver for the teacher of writing; communication method for parents