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Middle school essay writing: resources?


madteaparty
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It will totally depend on how much you info/ideas you need for teaching, and what your student's learning style is. (For example, we found Wordsmith Craftsman to be too scattered and disorganized in approach to work here. -- Sorry, @Momto6inIN 😉 )

Questions to consider to help narrow down what you need/want:
- How old is the student?
- How good/poor of a writer is the student, or how much does the student like/dislike writing?
- Is the student solid with the foundations of writing already -- because that is crucial before moving on to essay writing, which is usually multi-paragraph to multi-page long, AND requires heavy-lifting in the thinking department -- on TOP of needing to be able to write complete sentences, a variety of sentence types, complete paragraphs, and the stages of the writing process (brainstorm, organize, rough draft, revise, proof-edit).
- Also, are you looking to teach a specific *type* of essay writing? Because there are a LOT of different kinds of essays, and each has its own unique quirks and special needs: Descriptive Essay, Personal Narrative Essay, Informational Essay, Definition Essay, Literary Analysis Essay, Comparison Essay, Argumentative Essay, Cause-Effect Essay, Timed Essay from a Prompt for Testing, College Admission/Scholarship Application Essay, etc.


Possible classes/programs:
Bravewriter (Essay Prep series) and Lantern English (Essay Basics + Essay Practice + Growing the Essay) -- online classes
middle/high school; both break learning general essay structure into several different classes that build up in a series, allowing the student to focus on one aspect of essay writing at a time.

Jump In (Christian)
gr. 6-9; focuses on thinking of what to say and how to organize your thoughts, and building up from 1 paragraph to 3 paragraph to multi-paragraph essays at the middle school level, focusing on persuasive essays.

Windows to the World (Christian)
gr. 8-12; the chapter in this program on writing a literary analysis essay had the clearest, step-by-step instructions that I've seen, plus a template for generating a simple thesis statement.

How to Write a 5-Paragraph Essay Step by Step
No personal experience, but if you click on the "paperback" version, and then keep clicking on the "surprise me" option when you use the "Look Inside" feature, you can see sample pages to see if this might be a fit for you


Possibly helpful (or not, lol) resources:
Teacher Created Resources: How to Write an Essay (Arquilevech) -- gr. 6-8; written for classroom; lots of activities/exercises/graphic organizers
Twisting Arms: Teaching Students How to Write to Persuade (DiPrince) -- g.r 5-8; helpful resource for for pre-thinking pre-persuasive essays
Mastering Short Response Writing: Claim It! Cite It! Cement It! (Sitomer) -- gr. 9-12; focus is on reader responses in high school, but helpful in showing the basic essay concept of making a thesis claim, supporting with evidence, and commentary (explaining how/why the evidence supports your thesis claim) is useful


BEST of luck finding what is the best fit for you and your student! Warmest regards, Lori D.

ETA - PS
You might also try perusing this fairly recent thread for ideas: "7th grade writing"

Edited by Lori D.
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My kids are taking a writing class taught by a local friend who is a CM-inspired friend of ours. They are using Michael Clay Thomspon's Essay Voyage alongside Lively Art of Writing. They have complemented each other quite well and my kids are thriving AND don't hate writing essays like they have every other time we've attempted essay writing.

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We use Michael clay Thompson for language arts.

we are still on paragraph town series, but we have essay voyage already.

Mct is an amazing program. It appears overwhelming until you crack open the books and begin, then the ease of everything seems dreamlike. 

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On 2/25/2021 at 2:06 AM, carrierocha said:

My kids are taking a writing class taught by a local friend who is a CM-inspired friend of ours. They are using Michael Clay Thomspon's Essay Voyage alongside Lively Art of Writing. They have complemented each other quite well and my kids are thriving AND don't hate writing essays like they have every other time we've attempted essay writing.  Also, there are other online resources, which can really be helpful with essay writing. For example, I know that there are blogs dedicated to essay writing, with different tips and recommendations, sources with samples, resources like https://uk.edubirdie.com, where students and not only them can get help with writing. Personally, I believe that writing skills are necessary not only for self-development but also for the future because the more developed skills you have, the better place you'll have in life.

 

It's really great that your kids like essay writing, because it's good for skills development. And from my experience can say, that university tasks will be more easier for them, because at uni students write a lot of essays.

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