How can I best teach students how to write an organized personal essay?
Introduction: Context of Study
For my Inquiry Project, I investigated the best way to teach
students how to write a clear, organized, personal essay. This project
took place within an English classroom at
The 8th graders at Ben Franklin are enrolled in both
an English class and a
In this project, I planned to study how to teach students to write
personal narrative essays. I focused on organization, specifically on
how to write good openings and conclusions. I also aimed to develop
skills involved with voice by encouraging students to choose words that
clearly express the image or emotion they want to convey. In addition,
students learned how to develop fluency in their writing, particularly
in using transitions between paragraphs. I want my students to learn how
to write an essay that is cohesive, with each idea flowing in a logical
pattern. I have chosen to study the development of these skills because
they are essential in the writing process. In any kind of essay,
regardless of whether it is a short response paper, a scholarly research
article, or a personal narrative, organization, clarity and fluency are
key elements that make a paper stand out. In addition, writing a
personal narrative in itself will prove extremely useful later in the
students’ lives. Many of the students in my class have plans to attend
college, and the experience gained by writing this personal narrative
will aid them when they write their college admission essays. Most of
this study was performed over a period of two weeks in November;
however, the baseline assessment was performed at the end of September
when the students wrote their first narrative essays on “The Ransom of
Red Chief.” The conditions of this study may have been supported by the
fact that the two students I chose as my focus are actually applying to
The two students I have chosen as the focus of this study differ in several ways—be it gender, learning styles or personality—yet they share the same desire to be admitted into B.C.T.H.S. Elizabeth is a female in my first period Honors class. Perhaps the best adjective to describe her is “bubbly.” She is happy, outgoing, social and intelligent. She participates in class and completes her work on time. She wants to go to B.C.T.H.S. to study nursing. I chose Elizabeth for this study for several reasons. First, she showed a strong desire to attend B.C.T.H.S. in the interest assembly at the end of October. Secondly, despite her participation in class and her ability to complete her assignments on time, her “The Ransom of Red Chief” essay showed that she needed improvement in organizing her essay and developing her introduction and conclusion. Darcy, on the other hand, is male and in my tenth period Standard class. This class contains the students who have the most difficulty in English. Seven students in the class have I.E.P.s, and this combined with the fact that it is the last period of the day, makes getting through material slow at best. Darcy is quiet and withdrawn in class, although he will participate occasionally. He struggles with learning information quickly, but genuinely tries to maintain the information. For this reason, he is occasionally picked on by other students in the class. I chose Darcy because he too showed a great interest in attending B.C.T.H.S., and he is one of the students in the class who sincerely tries to do well on his assignments. I also thought that observing these two students who differ so much in personality, learning styles and social interaction would prove for an interesting study.
The Work Samples: Baseline Assessment
The assignment I chose as my baseline assessment was a narrative essay written after reading O. Henry’s short story, “The Ransom of Red Chief.” In this essay, students were asked to assume the identity of Johnny Dorset (the boy who was kidnapped) and tell the story from Johnny’s perspective. The students were given a brainstorming graphic organizer, in which they were instructed to establish the setting in the first paragraph, describe three major events in the second paragraph and explain what the experience meant to them (as Johnny) in the third paragraph. The students were given time in class to brainstorm and complete their essays, and most finished within the time allotted. I chose this as a baseline assessment because it had a similar format to the personal narrative essays they would be writing in November. Both essays are three paragraphs in length, include an introduction, body and conclusion, and require students brainstorm, write a rough draft and revise.
This baseline assessment provided great insight into the individual needs of the students I had chosen. Elizabeth received a 92% on this assessment. She handed it in on time, had the correct heading and format, chose important events and described them fully. The second paragraph of her essay was excellent. However, her introduction and conclusion lacked detail. They were too short and didn’t give the reader enough information before continuing with the major events. In addition, the transitions between her paragraphs were awkward, with each paragraph beginning with little or no connection to the one before it. The first essay that Darcy handed in was not graded. He did not understand that the assignment was asking for a summary of the events from the story, and rather filled his essay with lessons “people” should learn from the story. He was given the chance to redo his essay, which he did, and received a 95% on it. Though it was an improvement from his first essay, his introduction and conclusion still needed developing. Darcy’s first essay also contained several common grammatical mistakes, such as run-on sentences, improper use of punctuation and lack of subject-verb agreement. His second essay contained few mistakes; however, this essay was typed on the computer and therefore many errors may have been corrected by Spell-Check.
This baseline assessment told me that both these students need to be instructed on how to organize a clear, fluid essay. Both students seemed to see the essay as consisting of three separate, unrelated paragraphs that happened to be about the same subject. I wanted to teach them to view the essay as a whole, with each paragraph flowing in an organized, logical manner. In order to accomplish this, I first focused on writing a good introduction and conclusion. Since both of my students struggled with these areas of the essay, I taught them the purpose of the introduction and the conclusion in an essay and provided them with examples of good introductions and conclusions. I also provided my students with a list of transitional words and phrases that they can use in the essay to show the relationships between the paragraphs and help their essay flow better. I think the students’ lack of transitions between paragraphs stem more from not knowing what transitional words are than from not understanding how to use them.
The Work Samples: First lesson and assessment
My first assessment within this study came directly after a lesson on how to write good introductions and conclusions. Personally, beginning an essay is always the hardest part of writing and I wanted to give them ideas on what information they could include. My goal for this lesson was also to help my students understand the importance of the introduction and conclusion; since it is the first and the last thing their audience reads, I wanted to stress how important it is to make a good impression in those paragraphs. This short, 20 minute lesson was structured around providing students with examples of both good and bad introductions and conclusions. First, I put an example on the overhead of a bad introduction. I asked students to identify mistakes within the introduction, such as beginning each sentence with the word “I”, or using conversational language such as “like” and “really.” I also asked students to analyze the tone of the introduction, such as whether the author sounded desperate or confident. After this discussion, I showed them an example of a good introduction and the students identified elements of the introduction that worked. I distributed a graphic organizer that would help them brainstorm ideas for what to write in their introduction. Then I showed the students examples of a bad conclusion and a good conclusion (see conclusion link above). I explained that in a conclusion, one should summarize the key points that they have already addressed in the essay. Again, we analyzed the tone of the two conclusions, and discussed the use of formal and conversational language. After this minilesson was done, I gave the students time to brainstorm ideas on their graphic organizer and begin writing their introductions. The students were given the rest of the period, and an additional period to work on their essays. Their rough draft was due on a Tuesday after a long weekend, so if they did not complete the rough draft in class, they were required to do so at home over the weekend.
I assessed my students’ progress with this essay by reading their rough drafts of the essays. For the class, I did not formally assess their rough draft; rather, I merely checked that they had written it. I made a point, however, to read through both Elizabeth's and Darcy's rough drafts. Though they were not formally assessed, reading through the students’ rough drafts gave me an insight on what areas they need to improve. Both Elizabeth and Darcy improved in producing a clear and detailed introduction and conclusion. In the introduction, they both included reasons why they wanted to attend B.C.T.H.S. Though Darcy did not include reasons why he was a good candidate for the school (as I had suggested), his introduction was clear and included enough detail that he didn’t need to add anything more. Elizabeth did include the reasons why she was a good candidate for the school; while the transition between these two ideas needed work, her introduction on a whole was clear and detailed. Though her introduction in this assessment was only four sentences, the sentences themselves were longer and included more detail than they had in the baseline. In addition, both students included a topic sentence in the introduction that encompassed the whole of their essay.
In their conclusions, both reiterated the main points of their essay. While the conclusion in Elizabeth’s baseline assessment was only two sentences that didn’t seem to relate to the rest of the essay, the conclusion in this essay referred to specific points in the introduction and conclusion. For example, she reiterated the reasons why she would like to go to B.C.T.H.S. (“Going to B.C.T.H.S. would help further my career in nursing”), the reasons why she wants to become a nurse (“I would like to help people”) and she concludes by thanking the reader for his or her time. Darcy’s conclusion was also well-done. In his baseline assessment, his conclusion was rather disconnected from the essay, talking more abstractly about how kidnapping is wrong and how kidnappers should be punished than from Johnny Dorset’s perspective. His conclusion was detailed but unrelated to the rest of his essay. This first assessment demonstrated that he has grasped the role of the conclusion in the essay; he ties it in nicely with the rest of his essay, restating why he wants to go to B.C.T.H.S., and his plans for the future. Like Elizabeth, he ends his essay by thanking the reader for his or her time.
However, there were still many elements my students needed to work on. First, both students needed to work on using transitional words both within and between paragraphs. When I was first introducing the essay topic and expectations, I explained to the students that they were required to begin paragraph two and three with a transitional word. I distributed a list of common transitional words and phrases from which students could choose. This, however, was not enough. Elizabeth did correctly use transitional words at the beginning of her second and third paragraphs; however, she failed to use them to link different ideas within some of her paragraphs, and this resulted in an awkward flow of ideas. For example, in her introduction, Elizabeth moves from stating why she would like to attend the school to discussing why she would be a good candidate without using any transitional words to link the two. While her second paragraph is quite cohesive- she varies her sentence structure and uses transitional words- she again fails to use them in her conclusion. Darcy, on the other hand, had a clear, logical flow of information within his paragraphs, but lacked transitional words that would link the paragraphs together. While it is interesting that Elizabeth struggles where Darcy succeeds, and vice versa, it is not altogether surprising. This shows that Elizabeth is the more independent and conscientious learner of the two, while Darcy may have more natural talent for writing. I did not directly teach the students how to use transitional words in their essay to link ideas; I merely instructed them that they needed to use transitions at the beginning of the second and third paragraph and I provided them with a list of common transitional words from which to choose. Elizabeth followed my directions exactly, choosing transitional words that would link her paragraphs together. However, since I did not instruct them to use transitional words within the paragraphs, her sentences lacked fluidity within the paragraphs. Darcy, on the other hand, did not follow my instructions at all; he failed to include transitions at the beginning of the paragraphs, and as a result, his essay lacked fluidity between paragraphs. This showed me that Darcy needs more direction when it comes to instruction; I cannot merely give him a handout and tell him to include transitions. Rather, I must explain to him what transitions are, clarify what purpose they serve in the essay, and give him examples of how to correctly use them. This assessment also showed me that perhaps Darcy has more natural talent for writing than Elizabeth, for although I did not even mention using transitions within the paragraphs, Darcy did anyway and his paragraphs were actually quite good.
The Work Samples: Second Lesson and Assessment
In my next lesson, I specifically targeted how to use transitional words both within and between paragraphs. I provided the students with examples of ways authors use transitions within their works and we discussed the effect these transitions have on the essay as a whole. First, I had students compare a paragraph without transitions to one with transitions in order to completely understand their effectiveness. I placed both paragraphs on the overhead and read them aloud. Then I asked the students which paragraph they liked better and why. I explained to them that the reason why many of them liked the second paragraph better than the first was because it used transitional words to link their ideas. Next, I showed students an example on how transitions are used between paragraphs by putting an excerpt from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on the overhead. I asked students to pick out the transitional words in the excerpt as I circled them. Then we discussed the function of these transitional words at the beginning of each of the paragraphs, and speculated on why J.K. Rowling might have chosen these particular transitional words as opposed to others. This lesson took about fifteen minutes, and the students used the remaining class time to finish and edit their final essays, which were due the next day.
My second assessment was the final draft of my students’ essays. While these essays were formally graded according to four FCA’s (Topic sentence, Sentence variety, Transitional words and Spelling), I focused only on the development of the introduction and conclusion and use of transitional words for this study. Elizabeth's essay was somewhat improved from her first draft. She improved one sentence, which originally read, “To start out nursing, I would like to help children and adults,” by adding a transition. The final sentence read, “After I start nursing, I would like to help children and adults.” However, the majority of essay remained unchanged. Her introduction still lacked fluidity, though her second paragraph was more developed. Reading Elizabeth’s essay, it is clear to me that she has improved in writing a good, detailed introduction and conclusion, but still needs work on using transitions to increase cohesion within paragraphs. In addition, she also needs work on using formal language rather than conversational language in her essays.
Darcy’s final essay also needed improvement in terms of transitions. In the first assessment, his essay flowed well within the paragraphs, but lacked transitions in between paragraphs to link them together. In this final draft, he included a transition at the beginning of the third paragraph, but not one at the beginning of the second paragraph. Darcy also labeled his topic sentence as the first sentence of the second paragraph; perhaps he thought if it was his topic sentence, he didn’t need a transition. I think Darcy still struggles with understanding exactly why one needs to use transitions between paragraphs, especially since the transition used at the beginning of the third paragraph (“Finally”) does more to alert the reader that this is the end of the essay then to link the second and third paragraph.
The final assessment of both Elizabeth and Darcy’s work tells me that I needed to spend more time on teaching them the purpose of using transitions. While my second lesson did somewhat improve their essays, this assessment proved that they did not grasp the entire concept. More time could also have been spent teaching them how to reread and revise their essays; many mistakes could possibly have been caught through careful rereading.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I feel my students have made some progress in writing a personal narrative essay. The greatest improvement is seen between the introduction and conclusions of the baseline assessment and the first assessment. In both Elizabeth's and Darcy’s baseline assessment, the introduction and conclusions were not detailed or long enough. However, after my lesson on how to write good introductions and conclusions, the student’s writing greatly improved. Their introductions were detailed and clear, and their conclusions highlighted the most important information.
However, I am also disappointed on the relative little progress my
students have made in using transitions to link their ideas. Even when
transitions were used, many times they failed to link the two ideas. I
think if there was more time for the students to practice using
transitions to link ideas, they would have grasped the concept better.
Since the essays needed to be handed in, graded, and given back to the
students by the week after Thanksgiving (the students picked up the
I firmly believe that modeling increases a student’s ability to write
well. Oftentimes it is not that the students cannot write; it is that
they do not know how to write.
Thus, in my lessons, I provided examples to guide students in writing
their essays. In the lesson on writing good introductions and
conclusions, I provided the students with both good and bad examples of
both. These were samples that I had written myself to show the students
what to do and what not to do. I think this model worked very
effectively; by reading the good and bad examples back to back, the
students could see how important word choice and tone was in the
introduction and conclusion. They also gained ideas of what they could
write about in their introductions and conclusions, such as thanking the
reader at the end. In the lesson on transitions, I also used models, but
instead, I used an example of an excuse note to show transitions within
a paragraph and an excerpt from Harry Potter to show transitions
between paragraphs. I think this lesson would have been more effective
if I had chosen models that were from a sample personal essay rather
than from a different genre. I had chosen these models because both of
them used transitions to prove or give examples of something. Both had a
topic sentence at the beginning and supporting sentences that began with
transitions (in the case of the excuse note, every sentence began with a
beginning; in the case of the Harry Potter excerpt, the beginning
of every paragraph began with a transition). I also chose the Harry
Potter excerpt because I thought it would be something many of the
students would have read, and therefore, would have been more interested
in. Looking back, I understand my reasoning, but I think if I had used
student samples from the past or if I had created my own samples, the
lesson on transitions would have been more effective.
This assignment has been extremely helpful in helping me understand the learning needs of my two students. It has shown me that every student is indeed different, and that the needs of some might be completely the opposite of another (as was the case with these two students). I’ve learned that some students can be given a task to complete independently and they will be able to do it, while others need more direction. I have also learned that while a student might be able to do a task independently, they may not strive to do more than what I have given them. Elizabeth did what I instructed and used transitional words between her paragraphs; however, when it came to using them within the paragraphs, she didn’t take the risk. Meanwhile, Darcy needed more direction when it came to using transitional words between paragraphs, but was able to use them naturally within the paragraphs. In addition, I learned that I must be more aware when choosing mentor texts. I must choose the most relevant texts to the topic being studied. Just because a text is relevant or interesting to the students (as was in the case of the Harry Potter excerpt) does not mean that it will be effective as a mentor text. Rather, I must choose a text based on its relevancy to the material being studied, and then make it relevant and interesting to the student.
Finally, there is one thing that still puzzles me regarding this inquiry project. When should one allow students to work on a task independently and when should one give more direction? Obviously every student is different, and each is able to work independently at different levels, but how should one modify one’s own teaching style? At the moment, I feel that I rather err on the side of caution and give more direction to students, but I think as I grow and develop as a teacher, I will come to learn when I can allow students to work independently and when I need to give them more direction.