Welcome to HIT—How I Teach….In this episode, I bring you a super fun essay writing project of the 3 Paragraph Essay or the 5 Paragraph Essay variety! Yes, essay writing can be fun for students, especially when they learn how to write thesis statements, topic sentences, transition sentences, opening paragraphs, closing paragraphs and more!
I love to teach essay writing as it is a cross between story writing and research writing, so it captures the attention of students who fall in either of those two camps. This is especially so with a fun project like “three medieval castle objects I would like to be friends with”! (That makes me want to write this essay!)
I know I sound like a broken record (my kids often thought so as we raised kids here at home for thirty-five years—but they humored me!). But I hope that none of my teacher, parent, teaching parent readers are giving kids writing prompts without the skills. I hope we aren’t telling them to add an opening paragraph without teaching them how. I hope we aren’t assigning quotation inclusion without plenty of samples and training in quote writing.
Let’s give them the tools, expectations, skills, and time to be successful!
Okay…moving on…
I explain in this HIT episode how I use sample essays to teach from. These samples are some of my best teaching tools!
Rather than just learning what a thesis statement is, we can show them how it is incorporated and how to make it flow in your paper—with a full sample project.
Rather than just learning the importance of a topic and/or transition sentence for each body paragraph, we can show them clever ones and get their creative wheels turning—with a full sample project.
Rather than just telling them that quotes add credibility and substance to an essay, we can show them how to weave a quote in at various points of an essay—with a full sample project.
I hope you have as much fun with this episode as I do teaching it to kids—and as I did teaching it to you!
Of course, just like every lesson in my one-month downloadable books and my one-semester Meaningful Composition books, this one also has the invaluable sample essay. (It’s super cute!)
And for your convenience, How I Teach…. is available as a podcast (follow along in your TN sheets for that week) and a YouTube video (with Power Point containing the same as the TN)!
Note: This lesson came from Write for a Month With Beauty and the Beast, Level III, a month-long downloadable product!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher’s Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog
Master (continually updated) Teacher’s Notebook downloadable booklet
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
