Monday, April 25, 2022

Resources for Writing Essays

I have essay writing posts sprinkled haphazardly throughout the blog, so I thought I'd compile a few resources here.

I have a 7th grade student right now working on his first five paragraph essay; it is about Homer's Odyssey. We used The Odyssey for Boys and Girls, the version retold by Alfred J. Church in 1906 (link is to a free PDF).

Our essay prompt is a traditional one, and I got it at TpT. He chose option #3 from The Odyssey Essay Assignment (FREE).

This is what we have done so far...

Step 1: read the text

Step 2: choose your essay prompt

Step 3: write your thesis statement

Step 4: revisit the text and make notecards
we color-coded the notecards and used five colors, one for each paragraph

Step 5: learn about outlines
Outlines: A Blueprint for Success

    Roman Numerals
    I.

      Uppercase Letters
      A.

        Arabic Numerals
        1.

          Lowercase Letters
          a.

            Small Roman Numerals
            i.

Step 6: practice using outlines
again, I turned to TpT for some traditional Study Skills resources

    Outlines #1 - $1.98
    writing an outline from a paragraph
    Captain Jack Sparrow

    Outlines #2 - $1.98
    writing a paragraph from an outline
    ice ages

    Outlines #3 - $1.98
    writing an outline from a paragraph
    taste buds

    writing a paragraph from an outline
    body senses as warning devices

    Outlines #4 - $1.98
    writing an outline from a paragraph
    REM sleep

    writing an outline from a paragraph
    *not* scaffolded
    "Select a paragraph from any classroom textbook. Use outlining to take notes on the information."

Step 7: organize your notecards and convert them into an outline

Step 8: learn about in-text citations
learning how to cite direct quotations is the 7th grade skill in my blog post Breaking Down the Skills Needed to Write a Research Paper

Step 9: learn about "Throwaway Writing"
I have a blog post full of hilarious examples provided by my students

Step 10: convert your outline into a rough draft

Step 11: choose quotes from the text to add to your rough draft

Step 12: look at mentor texts to find examples of concluding paragraphs

Step 13: look at example of a research paper with footnotes & bibliography, compare a bibliography to a works cited page, note formatting of the paper

Step 14: type rough draft of essay in MLA style

Step 15: explain what a rubric is, choose a rubric that suits the assignment

    I like this blog post Middle School Writing Rubrics by Dr. Catlin Tucker because she includes three different rubrics (they are free)

    - Middle School Argumentative Writing Rubric

    - Middle School Informative Writing Rubric

    - Middle School Narrative Writing Rubric

    for a more general essay rubric, try this one: Essay Rubric (PDF)

Step 16: print essay rough draft, revise essay using rubric for guidance

Step 17: create works cited page
how to do a "hanging indent" in Pages
Purdue OWL

Step 18: print essay first revision, give to someone for feedback

Step 19: print essay second revision, edit essay carefully

Step 20: print final essay, use the chosen rubric to score your essay


We hand-wrote the index cards, the outline, and the rough draft. We then typed the rough draft, the two revised drafts, and the final essay.


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