An essay prompt and a blank page – two things that can make a 6th grader very nervous! DCD middle school English teacher, Julia Cavan understands this challenge and is employing a new pedagogy called thinkSRSD to help elevate students’ writing skills so they can confidently fill the blank page with a well-organized and well-supported critical essay.
Students are finishing up their reading of The Giver, by Lois Lowry and are embarking on a critical essay assignment. Over several class periods, they will work through a series of exercises that will serve as the building blocks for their final product. Students work collaboratively in early stages when they are brainstorming ideas and thinking about the text, but will tackle the writing part on their own. After dissecting the prompt together in a recent class period, the students engaged in a ‘Quote Scavenger Hunt’. For new essay writers, coming up with good evidence for their assertions can often be a struggle so the scavenger hunt is a helpful way to pick through the text in an organized way.
To guide this activity, Ms. Cavan created posters, each labelled with one of nine central themes that had been raised in previous class discussions and placed them at nine different stations around the room. Students worked together to find relevant quotes in the book for each theme and recorded them on sticky notes which they attached to the corresponding poster. Evidence gathering is just one of the critical building blocks that goes into creating a strong essay – there are more steps to come!
The goal with this writing approach is to provide students with a structured tool kit that provides scaffolding and guidance, ultimately empowering them to grow as independent writers. With these strategies in place, hopefully the blank page and the prompt won’t feel so daunting!
