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

I have been spending some time reading books, blog posts, and other resources on the internet about how to manage giving quality feedback without going insane. It is part of my Paper Problem Series I am working on because I believe that if I can figure out how to maintain the level of feedback I am giving AND not work 15 or more hours on a weekend-I can stay teaching. A lot of the books, articles, and other resources I am looking at bring up (to no surprise) the five-paragraph essay. I cringe whenever I read these parts. I think back to a moment that has happened many times over the past seven years. One of my students will come up to my desk and state: "Mrs. H I have a ton more reasons for my thinking, do I have to narrow it down to three for my essay?” I always die a little on the inside. For the given assignment? Yes, you have to narrow it down. For the real world? Not at all. Another one of my students bit the proverbial dust of the five-paragraph essay form. This happens each year because I would like to admit right away...I teach the five-paragraph essay. 

Welcome to the second part of the series The Essential Guide to a Compare and Contrast Essay! Today, Advanced English 6 and I went through our adv-compare-contrast-essay-2017 packets and checked off what we had accomplished so far.