One thing that I have noticed this year, more than any previous year, is that we have had to go over more basics in freshman English; we have retaught everything from how to raise your hand in class to what a thesis statement is to how to take notes. We actually had a student tell us last week that they forgot how to use a pencil.
We know these are things that were taught in middle school (or before) to our students, yet this year is one of firsts, and so when we started our first essay a few months ago, my co-teacher Galen and I realized we had to start from scratch to help our students write their first high school essay.
We had one of those classes where it ended and we just stared at each other, trying to figure out what happened. We had asked students to write a thesis statement to respond to an essay prompt about Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. We had reviewed prompt language and TTQA (turning the question around) but it wasn’t clicking for our students. We knew we had to rethink our approach.
So we stopped. We re-evaluated. And then we asked our students “What is the best pizza place on the island?” We live and work on Martha’s Vineyard and depending on where you live on the island, there is some heated debate on what the best pizza is – and this question – it worked. Suddenly students (both of whom were sitting in front of us in and behind their black Zoom screens) were engaged, answering, and giving input.
We took this question and created a unique mentor text for each section of our class that was based on their answers and reasons for what the best pizza place on island is. Next year, it will be a lesson we will use earlier in the year.
Here’s how we went about creating our class created mentor text:
Step 1: Gather options to write about and vote on a final specific topic/place.
We started with pizza places because we knew it was a highly engaging topic for our students. You could choose local ice cream shops, amusement parks, etc. We chose to gather intel during attendance and then we voted right after. Before students really understood what was going on, we had chosen the classes essay topic. They were already discussing the why because they were encouraging others to vote for their favorite place. This engagement and interest lent itself well to the process of creating a thesis statement and topic sentences.
Step 2: Write a thesis statement that answers your original question.
Our question was “What is the best pizza place on island?” Together we turned the question around and created a starter statement of “The best pizza place on island is X.” This led us to talk about how we wanted a stronger thesis that showed our readers why exactly that was the best pizza place. So we added our reasons to the end of our thesis. We were not picky about the reasons they chose as to why it was the best place, but we did make sure they could back up their reason and explain. One class gave the reason that the pizza is “fire” and so it lent itself to a great discussion of how you explain that in your body paragraph for readers to understand. Together, students worked on choosing the best phrasing and the best reasons as to why. In the end, their thesis statement read something like “The best pizza on island is x because a, b, and c.”
Step 3: Color coding your thesis statement.
This was a key step for many of our students who have learning disabilities because the color coding gave them visual distinction and repetition to see how things worked together throughout the rest of this process. We color coded our “stem” in our thesis statement one color, and then each reason (A, B, C) were colored differently. For example:
This simple step is something that can be extended to more eloquent writing as your writers increase their skills throughout the year and allow them to check they still included all elements of their thesis in their essay.
Step 4: Create topic sentences.
Our goal was to get students to write solid and clear thesis statements and topic sentences. So we took our thesis statement and used the same starter and modeled breaking the thesis into three topic sentences – again using the same phrasing as the thesis. For example:
Step 5: Moving Forward & Wrapping it up.
From here we went on to create a class outline to practice the expansion of ideas and transition from one paragraph to the next. We did not decide to go all the way and write the entire essay, but we did utilize the topic and work we had done to practice writing body paragraphs. Had this been a different year, I think we would have started with this to show how to take an essay from start to finish together.
Remember, this is a starting point – as teachers our goal is to help students to reach for stronger and more varied writing, but we needed to start with basics. While the writing in the example above may seem simple for your students, it gives them a great place to work from and gives you a great place to show how to vary sentence structure, create more eloquent thesis statements and topic sentences, and model revision skills. The goal is to create a common starting point for you to reference throughout the year as you continue to practice writing skills.
There are a number of ways that you can move forward and decide how far you and your class want to take it. You could break it down into a small group project where there are multiple pizza places being reviewed. You could add in some pizza tasting, or work to make the writing more authentic by working with a local publication to publish the student writing for others to read. This is just a start to what can be done!
By creating a silly example like this, we were able to give students a solid mentor text that they could reference back and that we could go back to in order to model a new step or remind them of something that we had already reviewed. As I stated earlier, it also allows you a space to show growth and to model differentiated writing styles.
*I would not have been succeeded in creating this lesson or post without my fabulous co-teacher Galen Brown. She had as much input into creating this silly pizza lesson with our students as I did. She stuck with me as students described pizza as “fire” and when I didn’t quite understand island references, as I am still a newbie over here. Thank you!
