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Essay Writing

Syllabus

Week 1

During Week 1, we will set a foundation for the semester by presenting expectations of students, modeling some of the different activities students will see throughout the course, and clarifying communication tools. Virtual introductions will help begin to build a reflective and safe community of learners. This week will also introduce the course content.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Familiarize yourself with the rules, policies and expectations of this course
  • Get comfortable with course navigation and explore the different technical aspects of this course
  • Get to know your teacher and classmates
  • Work as a group to create a "Social Contract" for this class to insure a safe, respectful, supportive and productive community of learners
  • Participate in a class discussion about the differences between creative writing and expository writing

Week 2

Week 2 will introduce the essay/expository writing as opposed to creative writing. Topics will include: subject, audience, purpose, the writing process, and types of essays according to purpose. The Writer's Notebook for generating subjects and ideas will also be introduced.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Analyze purpose in expository writing
  • Explore different types of essays and their organization when writing to achieve a purpose
  • Develop a logical system of steps for writing and recognize that writing is a process
  • Begin to generate ideas for the first and future essays

Week 3

Week 3 will introduce the difference between narrative fiction and narrative non-fiction. Students will brainstorm for ideas for a narrative essay, do a pre-write, and write a thesis. They will also review tense consistency when writing a narrative.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Analyze the difference between narrative fiction and non-fiction writing
  • Generate ideas and plan a narrative essay with audience relevant communication goals using a pre-writing technique
  • Demonstrate an understanding of tense consistency in terms of narrative flow

Week 4

In Week 4, students draft their narrative essay. The lessons and assignments this week will address the importance of having an effective introduction and techniques to make their essays more engaging for their audience. Students will practice sentence structure and length as a means of adding emphasis to their essay and the use of dialogue in their story to keep the reader’s interest.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Use transitions and time relationship words to develop a draft of a narrative essay that produces a moral that can explain the value of an experience
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of sentence structure in an effective narrative essay
  • Demonstrate a knowledge of correct dialogue usage in writing

Week 5

Week 5 will be a revision week for the narrative essay. Students will meet with two other classmates in a group wiki and collaborate on possible revisions to the first essay. They will provide useful feedback to their partners based on a peer review form and revise their own essay based on their partners' feedback and the teacher’s by the end of the week. Students will also be introduced to the next essay, which they will start next week and do some brainstorming and pre-writing to prepare them to write the rough draft.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Identify major areas of concern in the draft essay of a peer and use peer review forms to assist with revision
  • Revise and edit the first draft of a narrative essay to produce a final draft
  • Generate ideas and plan a descriptive essay with audience-relevant communication goals using a chosen pre-writing technique

Week 6

In Week 6, students will begin the drafting process of the descriptive essay. Lessons and assignments this week concentrate on using descriptive words and sensory images to paint a picture with words for the audience in order to make a point. Students learn about organizing the descriptive essay, avoiding trite expressions in favor of fresh imagery and vivid verbs, and then review how to punctuate modifiers when editing and polishing their essays.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Recognize the importance and impact of sensory details in descriptive writing
  • Recognize the components of effective description
  • Incorporate multiple descriptive writing techniques (imagery, sensory language, adjectives and adverbs) into a single piece of writing
  • Punctuate modifiers correctly

Week 7

In Week 7, students meet in their writers’ groups and provide partners with feedback on their descriptive essays. They complete a final draft of their own descriptive essay based on comments from their peers by the end of the week.

Students will also be introduced to the illustration or example essay and will complete a writer's notebook entry to brainstorm ideas, select a topic, and do a pre-write for an illustration essay. At the end of the week, they review difference between common and proper nouns and how to capitalize proper nouns. It's important to use proper nouns in this essay since they signal a specific person, place, thing or idea, and the effectiveness of the examples chosen for this essay depends on using specific detail.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Identify major areas of concern in the draft essay of a peer and use peer review forms to assist with revision
  • Revise and edit the first draft of a descriptive essay to produce a final draft
  • Recognize the importance of logical sequence, specific syntax and examples, and transitions in an illustration or example essay
  • Select appropriate examples to illustrate a point
  • Use specific word (proper nouns) in examples and capitalize correctly

Week 8

In Week 8, students write a first draft of an illustration essay, research for specific examples as evidence or draw on life experiences, learn how to cite any sources they have used, and practice making their writing more coherent using transition words, pronouns, and repetition of key elements.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Recognize the importance of logical sequence, specific syntax and examples, and coherence in an illustration or example essay
  • Select appropriate examples to illustrate a point
  • Demonstrate an understanding of evaluating Internet sites when researching
  • Write a rough draft of an essay using examples from life experience and/or research to explain a point
  • Demonstrate knowledge of MLA citation for examples taken from outside sources
  • Demonstrate an understanding of coherence in writing
  • Demonstrate ability to repair faulty pronoun reference

Week 9

In Week 9, students meet in their writers’ groups and provide partners with feedback on their illustration essays. They complete a final draft of their own illustration essay based on comments from their peers by the end of the week. Students will also be introduced to the persuasive essay and will complete a writer's notebook entry to brainstorm ideas. They will select a topic, do a pre-write for an Illustration Essay, and develop a thesis statement.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Identify major areas of concern in the draft essay of a peer and use peer review forms to assist with revision
  • Revise and edit the first draft of an illustration essay to produce a final draft
  • Generate, gather and organize ideas and information to write for a specific audience (i.e. a piece that persuades classmates and the teacher that a particular opinion or idea is valid)
  • Understand methods for organizing writing for an audience so that it is effectively able to convince them of the writer’s intended point of view
  • Compose an effective persuasive thesis statement

Week 10

In Week 10, students will write a first draft of their persuasive essay. They will examine the use of logos, ethos and pathos when writing an argument or persuasive essay, the use of connotative as opposed to denotative language when writing to persuade, and learn to recognize logical fallacies in persuasive essays. They will watch a video showing illogical reasoning and participate in a discussion with classmates about the prevalence of logical fallacies in our environment and making up their own minds about a topic. They will analyze the importance of the conclusion as a call to action for the audience.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Clearly establish a convincing point of view and support it with evidence from texts, their prior experiences, prior knowledge or own ideas in a first draft of a persuasive essay
  • Organize writing for readers so that it is effectively able to convince them of the writer’s intended point of view
  • Understand the elements of persuasive writing
  • Build strong support
  • Identify and explain the goal of different types of propaganda techniques
  • Write a conclusion with an effective call to action

Week 11

In Week 11, students meet in their writers’ groups and provide partners with feedback on their persuasive essays. They complete a final draft of their own persuasive essay based on comments from their peers by the end of the week. Students will also be introduced to the compare/ contrast essay and will complete a writer's notebook entry to brainstorm ideas. They will select a topic and complete a Venn diagram for a compare/contrast essay.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Identify major areas of concern in the draft of a peer and use peer reviews to assist with revision
  • Revise and edit the first draft of a persuasive essay to produce a final draft
  • Generate, gather and organize ideas and information to write for a specific audience
  • Understand two methods of organizing writing for an audience to illustrate similarities and differences about a topic
  • Demonstrate understanding of the compare and contrast strategy by visually representing information in a Venn diagram or Compare and Contrast Map

Week 12

In Week 12, students will watch a video about teens and discuss the comparison techniques in the video, they will learn two ways to organize a comparison essay, how to use parallelism effectively in a comparison essay, how to punctuate parallel sentences correctly, and will write a rough draft of their compare/contrast essay. They will also explore how to avoid faulty comparisons.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Recognize how comparison/contrast is useful as a critical thinking strategy to organize complex ideas and raw information
  • Employ common strategies of comparison, including point-by-point comparisons or subject-by-subject comparisons
  • Watch a video and participate in a class discussion to identify similarities and differences among teens
  • Demonstrate effective use of parallel structure and punctuation of parallel structure in a compare/contrast essay
  • Demonstrate an understanding of faulty comparisons and avoid using them in writing

Week 13

In Week 13, students meet in their writers’ groups and provide partners with feedback on their compare/ contrast essays. They complete a final draft of their own compare/ contrast essay based on comments from their peers by the end of the week. They will return to the writing process from beginning of the course, explore ways to revise one of their previous essays in a different format in writers' groups, and choose one essay to revise by the end of the semester.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Identify major areas of concern in the draft of a peer and use peer reviews to assist with revision
  • Revise and edit the first draft of a compare/contrast essay to produce a final draft
  • Generate, gather and organize ideas and information to write for a specific audience
  • Use editing and proof-reading skills to correct errors and improve writing
  • Discuss the process for choosing the correct essay pattern for subject, audience and purpose
  • Work collaboratively in writers’ groups to choose a previously written essay to revise and edit in another essay pattern

Week 14

Students will begin their revision of a previous essay into another essay type. They will learn some proofreading, editing, and polishing tips and practice proofing and editing skills. They will discuss types of questions found on essay exams and how to effectively choose which essay type to use in their response and how to organize their responses.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Learn some editing and proof-reading skills
  • Demonstrate an understanding of editing for commonly confused words
  • Using editing and proof-reading skills to correct errors and improve writing
  • Revise a previously written essay using a different pattern
  • Participate in a class discussion about essay exam question and how to choose the most effective essay pattern for an answer

Week 15

Week 15 will be a wrap up week. There will be two surveys, a goodbye to classmates discussion, and a lesson about careers in writing using different types of writing (i.e. narrative-journalist or technical writer, descriptive-food writer, menu writer, travel writer). Students will do a peer review of their final essay and complete their final draft by the end of the week.

This week's activities will focus on the following objectives:

  • Identify major areas of concern in the draft of a peer and use peer reviews to assist with revision
  • Revise and edit the first draft of a previously written essay to produce a final draft in a different pattern
  • Use editing and proof-reading skills to correct errors and improve writing
  • Explore and discuss possible careers in expository writing.
  • Take a course survey
  • Say goodbye to classmates