5 Steps to Essay Teaching Success

So, the new term is here. You’ve met your classes, prepped your room and (just about!) got used to those early alarms again, and now it’s time to get down to the serious business of lesson planning.

One of my absolute favorite topics to teach in the first term is essay writing. The 5-paragraph essay is an essential skill in English; teach it right at the beginning of the term and you set your students up to do well for the rest of the year. As an English teacher, it’s not often I use math, but a better essay technique = better grades + fewer corrections to mark each time. A win-win for every teacher out there who doesn’t still want to be correcting students’ uses of topic sentences and paragraphs come next June!

Teaching essay writing doesn’t need to be boring or time-consuming. You don’t need to spend hours preparing resources or scouring the internet for good example essays. And you definitely don’t need to take home stacks of marking at the end of the week!

The Essay Writing Scavenger Hunt pack has been designed to keep things as easy as possible. These are real, tried-and-tested resources used for essay writing every day in my classroom. Resources that I know work. Use them alongside the 5 steps and watch essay writing become a topic you love to teach too!

STEP 1: Teach the features

If you want students to structure their essays correctly, then first you must teach them what a good essay looks like. I like to start by giving students a list of the different features typically included in an essay:

The first step is for students to work out what these features actually mean! There are loads of different ways to do this. Got a really energetic class who loves to be active? Hand out a blank answer sheet and hide the printed definitions around the room. Then, ask students to find and match the definitions to the techniques on their sheet. You can make this more competitive by putting a countdown timer on the board; students enjoy the challenge of trying to finish first and in the time limit!

Do you have access to technology? This activity works really well as an independent research task- great for those lessons when you need a bit of quiet time (Friday afternoon lesson anyone?) Simply hand out the worksheet and ask students to research the different techniques. Save yourself even more time and get students to self-mark and extend their answers once finished using the official answer sheet.

For lower ability classes, hand out the glue sticks and get students to match the techniques to the correct definitions.  This is a great activity for reluctant writers too!

STEP 2: Crack out the colors!

Once students know what the features are, the next step is to see them in use.  

Is there any age group that doesn’t appreciate a bit of coloring-in time? Students follow the instructions on the worksheet to identify and color the different techniques in the example essays. No need to spend hours searching for the perfect model essays or writing out your own! This works great as an individual, paired or group activity, or can even be set as homework to reinforce the learning in class.

No colors in your classroom? No problem! Students can identify and write out examples of the different features instead.

STEP 3: Encourage students to argue (no, really!)

This part is my favorite! Now students know how to structure an essay, they need to choose an essay topic. Whether I’m teaching persuasive or argumentative essay writing, I always start with a discussion-based activity to get my students thinking. A good way to do this is to display on the board a number of controversial statements and ask students to argue their opinion in small groups.  

Pick your topics right and students get really into this! Some of the most successful discussions in the past have focused on the need for homework; whether football players are overpaid; whether the school curriculum should be remodeled; and whether it should be compulsory for everyone to give 10% of their earnings to charity. Hot topics of debate for sure!

With your students all riled up and passionate about changing the world, this is the time for them to choose and plan their own essay topics. I always like to give my classes a free rein on what they argue. Firstly, this means they are more passionate about a topic and work harder on constructing their argument and researching supporting evidence. Secondly, it helps me to get to know better my students and what really matters to them.

The rule in my classroom for planning is simple. Students can plan their ideas however they want to, but no writing takes place until they can explain clearly to somebody else in the room their three different supporting arguments, and what they will include in their introduction and conclusion to grab and hold the reader’s attention. If they can’t do that, they’re not ready to write!

Step 4: Writing the right way

In my classroom, we take writing seriously. Dim the lights, put on relaxing music, get out headphones, insist on silence…. do whatever you need to do to create a calm working environment.

The key to good essay writing is structure. What you don’t want at this point is for your students to get so passionate about getting their argument down on paper that they forget to include the features they’ve been taught!

A good way to avoid this is to make sure students have their plans with them as they write and a checklist of features that you want them to include.  Ticking off ideas and essay features as they include them in their writing means they should end up with a perfectly structured five-paragraph essay. You can grab a FREE copy of this Essay Editing Checklist, HERE!

If not, there’s always step number 5….

Step 5: Check and change

Final stop… editing. Rather than allowing students to hand in their essays as soon as they’ve finished, insist that they first check and improve their work. As teachers, we spend enough time marking; what’s the point in giving feedback on work that isn’t even the students’ best work?

Of course, this is easier said than done: we’ve all got students in our classroom who will give their work a cursory flick over and announce it’s perfect exactly as it is!

Peer-assessment using a checklist makes the process a whole lot easier. Using the same colors as before, students can color code the features used in their partners’ essays, making it easier to see if anything has been missed.This checklist is included in the Essay Writing Scavenger Hunt activity!

Once they’ve checked the accuracy of their writing and included any missing features, students are ready to hand in their work.

And voila! As promised, in 5 easy steps, you’ve got yourself a class set of beautifully structured, checked and improved five-paragraph essays ready for marking. No hours of preparation or resource-hunting required.

Whether you’re teaching essay writing for the first time to your students, or refreshing what they’ve learned in previous years, I hope these tips help to make the process both fun and hassle-free. Let me know in the comments any other tips you’d like to share!