Essay Poster Project 3

 

Graphic Organizer: The 7 Steps of the Writing Process

Please note once again I am following the suggested steps as mentioned in the textbook Great Essays. I took the seven steps of the writing process – choosing a topic, brainstorming, outlining, rough draft, peer editing, revision, and proofreading – and created several small activities which the students produced pieces daily that would help them write their essays.

We had 10 days of class time and I could have just stayed with the textbook, but I chose to get the students interacting with the concepts through class activities, homework reading, and assignments. My rationale was that the students were bored with the textbook process in general and were sitting on substantial knowledge that they didn’t believe or trust that they had. It was my job to set small steps that would elicit what they knew already. Their production at each step would fit together like legos and they would be able to see, reflect, and reproduce their writing process, not because they read and practiced it in a textbook, but because they had actually created their own essay and poster which celebrates the process more than the product.

 

  Lego

Now let’s move to Day 1 and I will walk you through the process.

Day 1 – my students don’t know me and I don’t know my students and we really have no time to get acquainted. Additionally, the students already knew each other because they had been studying together for two weeks. Knowing this situation I had prepared a warm-up, where each student told me something about their neighbor. I then asked more follow-up questions to get to know them and model my speaking for them. This allowed me to get a quick assessment of their speaking skills and some time for them to get used to my speech.

After our brief warm-up, we moved right into our lesson. Checking to make sure we had textbooks, notebooks, clearfiles, pens, pencils, and erasers, I emphasized how important these tools were to our study time. Without them, we would be unable to do our work. We would need them every day as we would be using them every day in some way.

I chose an essay from the Appendix and gave them in-class time to read (varies from class to class). I then pointed out that there were a total of 7 steps to reach that essay. And then I introduce their homework.

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They have to start their essay by choosing a topic. They will have a “quiz” tomorrow where they will tell me what their topic is.

I gave them a strip of red paper and told them they had to make a bookmark to help us keep track of where we were in the book because we would be jumping around a bit.

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On the bookmark, they could use their creativity for it, but it had to be on one side only and contain their name, a photo of them, and the seven steps of the writing process.

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This bookmark would help the students have a graphic reminder of the seven steps of the writing process no matter what page we were on in the textbook. It also was to become a “header” for their poster.

Find other Project-based learning ideas at: Project Palooza Monday

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