Writing an Essay...with a Partner

I love technology for collaboration!

Teaching writing to middle school students is not easy. All students come with different skills and knowledge. With 35 students in a class, it's impossible to sit down one on one and assist students with the writing process. Teaching students to write a literary analysis is particularly challenging because most seventh-graders have little, to no experience. Students need to learn to develop a thesis statement, find evidence from the text to support it, provide the context of the selected quotations , and write insightful commentary on the evidence they selected. Remember, these kiddos are twelve! Graphic organizers are particularly helpful to these young writers. The biggest challenge is providing feedback to students as they are writing, rather than after they turn their work in for a grade. Students need to be able to use the feedback they receive and see the difference it makes in the final product. I was adamant that I was not going to grade over a hundred horrible essays. I was adamant that my students would genuinely learn how to write a literary analysis. Here's what I did:

1) I created a Google Form and asked each student to give me the names of three students they would be okay with working with on a "partner" essay. This is great because no child ever knew who may or may not have requested them. I am still scarred from my experiences in middle school PE when captains picked teams for kickball. I was always the last one picked. No hurt feelings = happy students

2) I went through the Google Spreadsheet and created partners based on their requests. All students ended up with one of their top three choices!

3) Students met with their partners and picked from one of the five short stories we had read for their essay. They filled in a document stating which story they were choosing. I projected it onto the screen. I grouped students together who had chosen the same story and had them write three possible theme statements for their story. I had given them a handout earlier of thematic claims that they were welcome to refer to.

4) Partners picked a theme statement, wrote it down, and turned it in to me for approval. I went through every statement and gave feedback. If it was awesome, I highlighted it in yellow.

5) The next day I returned the theme statements and had students find four pieces of textual evidence to support their theme. At the end of the period, I collected these and did the same as the previous day.

6) The next day I gave a lesson on how to provide the context of a quote, as well as how to provide commentary. I gave students a graphic organizer to fill in for each body paragraph. At the end of the period, regardless of whether it was finished or not, I collected it and gave feedback. I used my yellow highlighter to let students know that what they had written was okay. I also gave suggestions and asked questions as needed.

Graphic organizer

7) During class each day students brought up their graphic organizers for me to highlight and give them the feedback . Because they had a partner, it was much easier to address their questions and give feedback in a timely fashion.

8) Finally, I showed students how to write the introduction. Once students had all parts of their graphic organizers highlighted, they were given the green light to begin their essays. The beauty of this process was that I assigned it in Google Classroom and was able to comment on the essays BEFORE they turned them in for a grade. It's been so wonderful watching students revise their essays BEFORE I grade them.

This would not be possible without technology, and it would not be possible if I had not allowed students to work with a partner. Listening to their conversations as they worked validated my decision to let them work together. Each person had their own insights and ideas; each person had their strenghts in regards to writing. Plus, I think they had more fun working with a friend!

Because I had given so much feedback already, grading these essays was not so time consuming! Although, I had to invest a LOT of time into providing feedback as they worked, the end results were worth it!