The 5 Essays You Must Master To Be College Ready

My new book is finally available! After many years of teaching college students who are not quite ready for the demands of college-level writing, I identified the information and practice that they needed in five different rhetorical strategies to be ready. This book incorporates my most successful classroom curriculum, modified for secondary students who are homeschooled or working with a tutor or parent to enhance their skills. 

This is a full program, with exercises, step-by-step processes for each essay type, samples, and clear essay assignments for each essay type. Writing teachers will also find valuable information and projects for their classes. I'll be using it as a textbook for my future classes. 

This baby has been years in the making, and I'm proud it's finally here! Click here to purchase. 

Finding Bias in Non-Fiction

Critical reading of any text is an important skill for secondary students, and recognizing bias is a fundamental part of the process. It's easy to teach students how to recognize bias in potential sources for research, but it's not as easy with book-length non-fiction.

When you consider the investment in reading a book-length work, and the artful way the information is often presented, it is not surprising that it is hard to identify bias. Another reason it is difficult is because any work will contain some bias, simply by the necessary choices of what to include, what to leave out, and what point of view to present, among other decisions. I know from my time as journalist that even a just-the-facts story can be presented in a way to promote a particular viewpoint from something as simple as the information presented in the first few sentences.

I teach units on the non-fiction books The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore and Zeitoun by Dave Eggers in my classes. Both of these books present stories that are compelling, descriptive, and read like novels. It is easy to lose yourself in the stories and forget to stop and consider the choices these masterful writers are making to present their stories. During discussions about bias with these two books, students have often bristled or become upset when I raise the possibility of bias. This is a good thing. It means they have engaged deeply with the reading, and if there is bias, it matters to them.

It helps to point out that it's impossible for any writer to present another person's story with complete accuracy, and that they did not set out to manipulate the truth. Both of these books, I argue, come from the authors wanting to tell the truthful stories of their characters, but they also want to promote a particular viewpoint. That necessarily involves crafting a narrative to do so, even while sticking to the facts. (Although in the wake of the hero in Eggers' novel being arrested multiple times for domestic violence after the story ends, many critics wonder if Eggers turned a blind eye to his less-than-saintly qualities.)

Whatever your approach, here are some questions that can open up a good discussion:

What information has the author chosen to focus on?
What information might the author have left out?
How does the point of view affect how the reader feels about the characters and story?
How much of the story is re-created by the author's imagination?
Is the author making an argument?
How does the story promote the author's argument?
Could there be an alternative telling of the story, and how might it be different?

Will "Ze" Ever Be?

In my last blog (click here) about my support for standardizing the singular use of the pronoun "they," I glossed over one of the central issues, which is the use of the gender-specific pronouns "he" or "she."

Using "they" is not a perfect solution to this problem because there are times it doesn't make sense. 

"Each student must turn in their assignment by tomorrow" is a sentence where "they" flows seamlessly and does not cloud meaning. There are multiple students and each is turning in an assignment. The plural here makes some sense, even if it doesn't traditionally agree. This is how we generally speak, and most would not even notice there is a technical error here. 

"Erin must turn in their assignment by tomorrow" however, sounds strange. Even worse, what if we are still talking about Erin, but want to avoid "he" or "she" (perhaps we don't know Erin's gender, or perhaps we are uncertain of Erin's preferred pronoun): "They need to pick up their reading log at the library."  This is where "they" doesn't work. It's not a matter of agreement, it's a matter of defining who we are talking about in the first place. We are talking about one person here, not a group of people. 

Enter the latest gender-neutral pronoun "ze." It would be nice to solve this problem that easily. Ze is not the first gender-neutral pronoun that has been proposed, but it has gained some traction. The problem is, I don't see it being accepted anytime soon in common usage. The reasons are not because it is not practical (it is on every level), but because this type of fundamental change in language is difficult.

There are words like "blog," "crowd fund," and "tweet" that didn't exist a few years ago but were easily accepted and widely used now, but those are different because they stand for new concepts that needed words. Changing our use of common pronouns is an entirely different matter. It would have to be conscious, careful, and widely understood and accepted. In other words, a deliberate cultural effort.

In addition, the learning curve is high. When ze (subject) is used as an object, it is "hir" (pronounced here), as a possessive pronoun, it is "hirs" (pronounced heres), and as a reflexive, it is "hirself" (pronounced hereself). The use of these unfamiliar pronouns is not intuitive or currently understood by most. (As I type these words, auto-correct is doing its best to "fix" them.)

A change like this is not going to come easy, even in academia. When I offered it as an alternative to my first-year college freshman class at a very liberal college, not a single student adopted the practice, even though some were careful to give me their preferred pronoun on first roll call.

I believe a gender-neutral pronoun will someday be adopted by English speakers, and should be for practical reasons, but I would guess it will be decades from now. In the meantime, "they" is the best we can do.

It's Time to Standardize the Singular "They"

I am a fan of the English language and all the messy rules that go with it. I resist change. In formal writing, I do not begin my sentences with coordinating conjunctions. I do not press "send" until I have proofread my text messages. Yes, I am one of THOSE people. I am, however, on the bandwagon to standardize the singular use of the plural pronoun "they."

Using "they" as a singular pronoun is, by far, the most common mistake in student writing, but perhaps it should not be considered a mistake at all, rather a better option than the clunky and binary "he or she."

Lately in class, I find myself telling my students that they can use "they" as a singular if they do it purposefully and consistently. I add "purposefully and consistently" because I am wired to teach correct usage, and "they" as a singular is still not widely accepted, especially in formal, academic writing. I want them to be aware of this and understand that they are deviating from what might be acceptable in other classes. (I also want them to be aware of how they are using language in general and not just writing what sounds fine in conversation.)

Besides the obvious binary gender issue, which is important to many of my students, there is one big reason why "they" should be an acceptable singular: efficiency of language.

Consider this sentence:

Kelly or Brennan will organize the committee, but ? or ? will need help with the finances.

The names Kelly or Brennan are gender-neutral, but require a singular pronoun, according to the rules (if it were "Kelly and Brennan," then the plural "they" would be the correct pronoun), so what if the writer doesn't know whether "he" or "she" is appropriate? Consider the sentence, written according to the rules, even if the writer does know the genders:

Kelly or Brennan will organize the committee, but she or he will need help with the finances.

Clunky. It would be easy to make a case for the plural "they" here instead of the "she or he," or guessing the gendered pronouns (or the untenable "...but he/she or he/she...).

The stickler on my shoulder says, "There could be a misunderstanding! Someone might think Kelly and Brennan are working together!"  Granted, the first part of the sentence is clear that one or the other will organize the committee, and the second half states that both of them will need help, but to me, the flow of the sentence with "they" trumps any confusion.

Also consider the most common situation where "they" would make sense:

If a student wishes to enroll after the deadline, he or she will need to take his or her petition to the academic counseling office.

There are a lot of extra words in that sentence and the flow is not good. Previously, if I saw this sentence in an essay written like this, "If a student wishes to enroll after the deadline, they will need to take their petitions to the academic counseling office," I would suggest changing "a student" to "students" rather than changing the pronoun "they" to "he or she" and "his or her." This is a cop-out, because it's simply a workaround to a greater problem. Now, I just let it be, because, frankly, the pronoun "they" works better.

It will be an uncomfortable shift for those of us who make our livings sussing out the small errors of the written language, but I suspect for almost everyone else, they will be surprised (if they give it any thought at all)  that using "they" as a singular was ever incorrect.

How to Get Students to Ask for Help

When this student turned in this paper, the first thing I noticed was the scribbled out word "Confused." Since it was scribbled out, I thought, oh good, he figured it out. Then I graded it. You'll notice a slash through every answer.

Why didn't he ask me for help? I was available during class. I was available during office hours. I am available by email. I'd like to think I am friendly and accessible. There are plenty of tutors and resources.

The easy answer was that he started it right before it was due and didn't have time to get help. The harder idea to consider is that there was some reason he felt he couldn't ask.

I read a study that said cultural background and gender factors are considerations. Sometimes members of minority groups feel isolated and are less likely to ask for help. Males are not as likely as females to admit they need help.

Both of these factors might apply to this student and interfere with engagement with his teachers. This is his second time through this class, and when I asked him why he failed the first time, he said, "I didn't like the teacher." I hear this answer frequently, and it tells me nothing, so I pressed him. "I didn't understand what she wanted. Everything just came back with a C on it no matter how hard I tried," he said. "I guess I just checked out."

Now we were getting somewhere. I reassured him that I would give detailed feedback and we could talk whenever he needed further clarification, but then he turned in this. Now I was ready to check out because it was easier to put the burden on him, but then nobody would learn or progress. I decided to try different strategies.

For this assignment, I asked him to stay after class, and we went over the concepts together. I gave him the opportunity to re-do the assignment so he would see immediate results with getting help, and couldn't disengage from me or the material.

I brought in tutors from the writing center to meet the students in person and describe how they could help. I was hoping this student, in particular, would feel a connection with one of the tutors.

We did more group work as a precursor to homework assignments. I was hoping he would ask his peers questions or pick up on their understanding.

I arranged for, and offered, peer tutoring with a student I thought he might like.

Instead of comments on his work, I wrote "See me, please" at the top of his paper. When he came forward, I talked with him about the work so he had an opportunity to engage and connect with me.

I started talking about getting extra help to the whole class as part of the writing process and made it clear that I expected them to seek help in some form. I wanted to remove the perception that only bad students had to get help.

I noticed a shift in this student, and some of the others, by the end of the quarter. Although he still didn't ask me for help in person, he did send several emails with questions, and even an extra draft of an essay to review. He passed the class, just barely, but I consider him a success story because I feel confident that he made progress in asking for help, which will serve him well going forward.

A Better Way to Correct Essays

I offer significant points for turning in rough drafts because revision is the most important part of the writing process. I have had much success in getting the students to do this part of the assignment, but one issue lies in how effective my feedback is regarding punctuation and grammar errors, and whether students can, or are motivated to, successfully translate my comments into improved writing and learning.

What not to do: proofread and edit. Not only is this time consuming, it is ineffective. Case in point: On one student's essay, I did comprehensive line editing, pointing out every grammar and punctuation error and providing the correction. Not only was the paper almost unreadable when I was finished, cluttered with the highlights and dialogue boxes, but it had no effect on learning. The paper had the simple errors corrected on the final draft which seemed like a success at first. Then I got to the end of the essay, where the writer had made a great point in the last sentence. I responded, "Indeed!"  Guess what the new last sentence of revised essay was? Indeed.

Insert wah-wah-wah fail music here. Transcribing is not learning. It is difficult for me to turn off my compulsion to correct all errors, but what I do now is use a code for each type of error, say a comma splice, and I do not correct it. The student matches the error code to a provided key, and logs a revision. I might give an example of a correction, but more often, I list the page number in their reference books that explains the concept if I think the student might not know how to correct the error.

They don't always get the corrections right, but they learn far more than mindlessly transcribing my corrections. First, they have to look up what the errors are, and figure out how to correct it on their own. They earn points for correctly revising one example of each type of error they make. Although I see fewer perfectly corrected papers, I see fewer recurrences of problem areas in subsequent drafts, and that's really what it's all about.

To see examples of my codes and logs, or if you want to buy mine instead of making your own, click here.

Point of View in Academic Writing - the Ubiquitous "You"

When reviewing student drafts of academic essays, I find myself constantly marking the use of second person. With no direction, I find most students use second person. With direction, I find most students still slip into second person.

There are many reasons why second person is the go-to point of view for first drafts. It is the most informal and conversational. Students tend to write like they talk, so second person is natural. They also read a lot of second person online; advice articles, how-to, and informal blogs tend to use second person.

Second person, however, is the point of view that should be almost never used in academic writing. Besides the informality, which is inappropriate in a research paper and other academic essays, the main reason second person is not preferable is because it excludes or alienates part of the audience.

I use a few humorous examples to show this, and that is when it usually clicks with students. For example, I first ask the students, "Who is the audience for this paper?" The typical answer is me, the teacher, but we also discuss that it is anyone who is interested in the topic. Then I read the following passage from a student paper about preventing teen pregnancy:

"You should discuss your sexual activity with your parents or another adult because studies show that if you do this, your chances of pregnancy go down significantly."

I ask the students if I should discuss my sexual activity with my parents or another adult. I also ask a male student if this advice will help reduce his chance of pregnancy. Of course they immediately understand my point, and we don't need to elaborate on how second person excludes part of your audience.

We also review how the tone of this passage is more like a self-help article than academic research. Then I show a simple rewrite:

"Teen girls who discuss their sexual activity with their parents or another adult have a significantly reduced rate of pregnancy" (Smith 21).

There will always be the ubiquitous "you" in student papers, but a simple example requiring students to think about their audience will help them revise correctly.

If you are looking for resources to teach point of view, here is the Power Point and rewriting exercises I use with my classes: 

Free Back to School Resources for High School ELA

This amazing book of resources is full of tips, free, and paid products to help you start the year off right. I am honored to have a page in this book, put together by Tracee Orman. Download the ebook from her store here.

Writing Prompts for Research Papers

 

I like to let my students choose their research paper topics, unlike some of my colleagues who assign topics. I believe if students are interested in their topics, they will be more fully engaged and get more out of the whole process. With a topic they care about, they are less likely to view the assignment as hoop jumping, and invest more energy and time into it. 

That said, it has never worked well just to say, "Choose whatever you want to write about." Most students are like deer in the headlights - they have no idea where to go or where to start. I used to write a list of previous topics that worked well on the whiteboard, but that was ineffective.

What did finally work was when I gave some topic ideas, and then posed some questions to think about, along with ideas for research.

For example, most students were not excited about the topic of genetically modified foods, until I posed a few questions for thought: "Should genetically modified foods be labeled?"  "What should the government's role be in oversight, testing, and labeling?"  "Why would voters shoot down a proposition in California requiring labeling?"  Once we talked about these, then I asked for questions about the topic to research: "What measures have other countries taken against genetically modified foods?"  "What do studies show about safety?" By the end of the discussion, I had a few enthusiastic takers.

I got the idea to make a set of cards with topic ideas, questions to consider, and research ideas. This way, students can flip through them and see what speaks to them. The best thing is that most use the cards as a starting point, and end up with a unique spin on the topic.

 

I recommend doing this in your own classroom if you want students to choose their own topics, or you can limit the topics to a few of the cards you have made. Either way, it gets everyone off to a great start.

If you don't want to make your own, I've compiled 40 ideas that students have used successfully and put them on half-sheet cards. I've also added a full-color Power Point so you can use the ideas one at a time for discussion or response papers. Click here to see the product.

Figurative Language Matching Card Game

I finished the Concentration-style game for figurative language examples and terms that I mentioned in my last post. I took off the color coding from the trading cards, made everything into 2 1/2" squares and added term cards. I like the way it turned out, and I'm already thinking I'm going to use this as a quiz rather than a traditional multiple choice quiz for the terms. My students who get test anxiety are going to love this!

Trading Cards in the Classroom

 
 My students have mentioned that the posters and Power Point I use with visual clues and examples are a great way to help them remember figurative language terms. When I noticed them making flash cards to study, I thought, why not shrink the graphics to flash card size to help out my students? When I made the cards, I sized them to fit inside a trading card protector, and realized that what I had created were trading cards. Of course they can be used as flash cards, but I have found many other uses for trading cards in the classroom.

 Concentration: For younger students, a simple matching game will breed familiarity with the terms and examples. For older students, you could create cards with examples and cards with the terms, and ask students to match the examples with terms. For the cards I made here, I'm going to create cards without the terms at the top, and matching term cards for the game.

Rewards: You could pass out the trading cards as rewards for quiz scores or answering questions in class etc... Even my older students secretly get excited about this.

Reference: If the cards are laminated and put on a ring, they could be permanent fixtures in the classroom as a study/reference tool.

Interactive notebooks: Printed out on paper instead of card stock, these could be glued into a notebook for reference with activities for that particular term.

 The possibilities are endless! If you want to create your own cards, there are numerous templates available for free online. The standard size is 2 1/2" x 3 1/2", but if you are going to use them primarily for matching games, it wouldn't hurt to go larger. There is also a fun trading card app from the International Reading Association found here.

If you want these figurative language trading cards, they are found in my store here for only $2.00. They are inexpensive because I had already made the posters (found here) so it was just a matter of shrinking them to size.

Figurative Language Posters

When teaching figurative language to students, I find a visual really helps them get the concept. I asked my artist daughter to help me make some posters that would be fun and memorable. Here they are for you to use in your classroom. This free set includes metaphor, simile, alliteration, oxymoron, and personification. Click here or on one of the images to download the posters.

If you like these and want more, I have a set for $4.50 that also includes hyperbole, allusion, onomatopoeia, metonymy, and euphemism. This set also includes the illustrations without the titles so you can use them for a quiz or review for your students. You can find the set of 20 posters here.

Common Core Organizing System

Where I teach, we have standards very similar to the common core standards. My system for keeping track of my materials was a bit haphazard, to say the least. What was especially unorganized were all my handouts and online files. I decided to get organized, and after developing this 3-ring binder system, I cut my prep time down significantly. I created a page for each standard, written out, that serves as a cover sheet in a binder. Next comes a planning sheet where I write down my lesson plans and the location of online files, powerpoints, videos etc...Then I list handouts and any reading from textbooks. Hard copies of handouts go behind the planning sheet.

 

This worked so well for me, I decided to create the same thing with 6 - 12 grade common core language arts standards. It was labor-intensive, but the results are well worth it! I've gotten great feedback so far from teachers who are implementing this system. So, if you want to get organized, save yourself the time -- I've done the work for you! Click on any of the covers below to get to the product page.

 

Student Quiz Questions

At the end of the year, I have my students write their own quiz questions, and count these as part of their final test grade. I told my some of my colleagues about this, and their reaction was, "What a good idea to save time!" Actually, it's not a time-saver at all--just the opposite in fact, but it's well worth the effort.

By having students create their own questions, and providing an answer key, I can measure their understanding of the topics much better than a traditional multiple-choice test. It's also a terrific study tool, because writing quiz questions is not easy. The most common reaction from the students? "This is haaaard" (insert whiny voice). I just smile and think, welcome to my world!

We start by writing a list of topics we covered over the quarter on the board, then come up with guidelines (how many questions, must cover at least five topics etc...) and formatting choices (multiple choice, T/F, short answer, matching etc...). You can let them work in groups or individually. After everyone has their questions and answer keys, I copy all of them and pass them out to the students for review. Their task (in groups) is to go through all the questions and mark any that they think are unclear, unfair, or should not otherwise by included on the final quiz. Again, this serves as a great study tool.

When grading the questions, it's surprising how many students answer their own questions incorrectly, and it's interesting to see which topics they avoid and which they gravitate toward. All in all, it's a valuable learning experience for both the students and the teacher.

Note-Taking: Cornell Notes Free Template

The Cornell note-taking system has been around since the 1950s, and it's still around for good reason--it works! In my Success class for incoming freshman,  I pass out this template and do a mini-lecture to let students practice. It's not for everyone, but it works for many, and can vastly improve a student's comprehension.

The idea is that the students takes notes in the "Notes" section during the lecture. Then, within twenty-four hours (I always recommend as soon as possible), they will fill out the Questions and Key Points section and the Summary section. This keeps things organized and easy to find when studying for exams.

You can certainly have students draw the form themselves, but I find it's much better to hand out three-hole punched copies of the template above. Click here or on the picture to download the free template.