02+Teaching+Writing

Post resources related to teaching writing, grammar, language, composition, etc. on this page. Include your name and a brief description of your material(s).

[] Just check it out. That's all I've got to say.
 * Katie Mason: Letters of Note**

I got this idea from the article "High Stakes and Low Stakes in Assigning and Responding to Writing" by Peter Elbow.
 * Kelly Connelly: Responding to Poetry**

[] It is just a quick video that touches on some commonly misused words and grammar mistakes. It is actually pretty funny. Students really enjoy it.
 * Jake Thimesch: Fix Your Grammar**

This is the outline that I used in my powerpoint for the development of my students thesis in their argumentative district essays.
 * Tyler Slattery: Argumentative Essays**
 * Go to this website
 * []
 * Follow along as we create our thesis together (15-20 min)
 * copy your thesis down in your outline
 * Review each others thesis statements (4-5 min)
 * Copy down your reasons/counter claims

Their argumentative essays are over which speech (Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" and Nelson Mandela's "Glory & Hope") was more effective. For preparation, I had my students mark up the MLK speech and analyzed Mandela's speech in a similar way by applying our prior knowledge in a discussion and I had the students take "thinking notes" over his speech to aid them in their essay writing. The essay is centered around the essential question: "How do we as individuals change the injustices in society.

For this lesson I began the day with your standard vocabulary quiz and lit term of the week(because we were a bit behind from the snow days) and after that we did a quick recap Because argumentative writing is much different than regular formal essay writing that any of these students have encountered I decided to find a resource that would aid them in writing their thesis statements.

We reserved a computer cart and did this in class and the activity went quite well. This generator is very informative and allows the students to interact with technology in order to help them understand each component of the thesis and how each reason breaks off in to their reason's and eventually in to their paragraph and essay development! If you have any other questions feel free to ask me.