Teaching Writing in High School

Lesson Plans for Secondary School Writing Teachers

Sep 6, 2009

High school writing teachers face a challenge, especially when it comes to teaching essays. Breaking up the task into manageable segments is the key to success.

Except for very unique situations, teaching writing in high school means teaching how to write essays. Textbook lesson plans for teaching essays are sometimes helpful for teachers that have a very small class and an unlimited amount of time but most do not. Learning how to segment the assignment into manageable blocks makes teaching and learning much more productive.

Standard academic essays are normally presented in high school textbooks as having three major parts: an introduction, body, and conclusion. A teacher who develops lesson plans related specifically to each of these essay parts and then deals with them separately with the class before putting it all together will find the process and the end result satisfying.

Teaching Introductions to Essays

A good introduction with a captivating "hook" should be the goal of any essayist. Unfortunately, students become overly concerned with the beginning of their essays and sacrifice valuable time that could be better devoted to developing the body. If possible, teachers should suggest that introductions be written after the essay is completed. Whenever introductions are taught, a fair amount of class time should be spent on them. Creating a contest to see who has written the most interesting introduction in class will provide an entertaining sequel to the completion of the assignment.

Teaching the Body of Essays

This is the area where the bulk of class time should be spent on improving. A good way to break this daunting task into segments is to first spend a fair amount of time teaching thesis statements and then reviewing each one in class for all students to discuss openly. Secondly, developing main ideas that are related to the thesis means spending time researching and brainstorming facts and details. This work can be assigned individually and then further explored in peer or group sessions.

Lesson plans that promote fact finding, such as Internet scavenger hunts or class trips to the school library, will hopefully provide students with a wealth of information they can use to include in their essays. Close monitoring of student research is needed to avoid problems which may be encountered when developing the main points of the essay. Showing students how to categorize facts and details and group them under main ideas is a valuable activity worth spending as much time on as possible.

Teaching Essay Conclusions

Conclusions are probably the easiest part of the essay to teach. Summarize the main points or restating the thesis comes naturally to most students and usually just requires a few helpful suggestions by a peer or the teacher to be effective. Once again, conclusions can be shared in class and bonus points or a prize for the best one can enliven the entire project.

Teaching the Essay and Time Management

Breaking down the essay into these manageable segments will focus productivity on each important area of the writing project. It is a good idea to award grades or points for each part of the essay and then to add them into the final grade so students will develop a feel for the continuity of the project and learn that writing is a process and not a one time effort. It also helps to create a standardized checklist that the teacher and student can carry around during the assignment to keep track of strengths and weakness.

Initially, teaching the essay using the methods outlined in this article may seem burdensome and require a great deal of monitoring and bookkeeping but, in time, the process will become familiar to the teacher and the student and help to establish a framework that is reliable and amicable to positive intervention during any potential or troublesome stage of essay writing. High school textbooks about writing provide general guidelines that can be practically implemented into daily lesson plans. With a little creative interpretation on the teacher's part, little will be time wasted on maintaining discipline in the writing classroom.

The copyright of the article Teaching Writing in High School in Teaching Strategies/Mentorship is owned by John Byk. Permission to republish Teaching Writing in High School in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.