On Friday, we read the story "Paper" by Catherine Lim and students had a corresponding worksheet to complete. Today, I went over the structure of literary essays and I explained my expectations. Students will be writing an in-class synthesis essay on Wednesday, so we will be prepping for this during tomorrow's class.
I gave students a booklet containing resources for essay-writing. Firstly, we went over the topic choices for the synthesis essay. I then went through the structure of introductions, the structure of body paragraphs, and the structure of conclusions. We also looked at samples for thesis statements and samples for integrating quotations. In the booklet, there is also a writing rubric that we went over, as well as graphics for essay structure. The essay booklet is very valuable; don't loose it!
To prepare for the upcoming essays, we did a collaborative brainstorming session. I wrote the different essay topics on chart paper, students split up into groups of five and each group had to write down anything from the stories we studied that connected with that particular essay topic. After about 5 minutes, we rotated the chart paper. Consequently, each group wrote down their ideas for all the essay topics. Many students took pictures of their ideas to help them plan for the essay.
Reminders:
- Literary Terminology Quiz: Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2015
- In-Class Synthesis Essay: Wednesday, Mar. 4, 2015
- Short Story Projects: Monday, Mar. 9, 2015
