How to teach: English - Chris Curtis 2019

Writing an essay together
How to teach essay writing

Modelling writing a paragraph on the board can be very powerful. It shows students what a good example looks like and, while writing, you can commentate, thereby uncovering the choices and decisions a writer makes. A few years ago a colleague revealed that this was the approach he used with lower sets and, to this day, it is something I regularly do with classes of all abilities. Plus it keeps them quiet and focused for an hour.

With more challenging classes, I might develop the process slowly. Better to ease them in gently with a paragraph or so and then build up to longer pieces over time. Another way I use it is as a solution to a problem. Say you have given the students a writing task that they are generally struggling with. I might use this approach to rescue them. Are you finding this difficult? I tell you what, why don’t we do this together? Another way of getting them engaged is to turn it into a competition and, like the Star Wars opening, make the text disappear. Students have to be quick to keep up and you create a sense of urgency.

So, what does the process look like? Simple. Open a word document. Have it displayed on the interactive whiteboard. Type an essay. The students copy it down. Then they go back through the text and highlight key choices or decisions. I’ll often spend a whole lesson writing an essay in this way. Then, in the next lesson, students attempt one on their own. Get them familiar with the process then repeat it until it becomes automatic. The first essay-writing lesson is a collective one. It is a two way process: I will constantly ask questions, such as:

Look! All my sentences start with ’the’. Anybody got any ideas about how I can fix this?

What do you think my next point should be?

Have I covered this idea enough?

I’ve used the writer’s name too many times. What can I do?

Is this quotation effective? Could I pick a better one?

I model the process and not just the result. Modelling isn’t about waving a good example around and asking students to copy it but in their own words. It is about teaching them what good writers do during the process of composition. Over time, students will have a collection of good examples in their books and a range of writing experiences. They are simply working on their ’muscle memory’ and how it feels to be reflecting on your work.