The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs: English Language Arts - "Writing: Write Right! Analytic Writing Made Easy"

by Connie Casserly

Grades 6-12

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Connie

Writing: Write Right! Analytic Writing Made Easy cover

Writing has always been a major focus of my middle and high school lessons - second only to teaching my students how develop their higher level thinking skills. Because of this, I created a number of handouts that summarize my writing teaching points for this product, Writing: Write Right! Analytic Writing Made Easy.

Students are required to bring this packet to class as they will refer to them with pretty much any type of writing- from Daily Openers (Warm-ups) to full-length essays to research papers. For Middle and High School students still developing proper essay skills, this product will help them to understand the parts of an essay so they can create focused and supported pieces.

Many former students have contacted me from college to tell me that the knowledge they gained from this packet has come in handy in their freshman English classes. They often ask me to send them another copy of the packet.

This Write Right! Analytic Writing Made Easy offers teachers handouts that discuss the basic aspects of writing analytically:

Analytic Writing Made Easy- A 2-page outline, this summarizes the parts of an essay and offers definitions and examples for the crucial and most difficult part of writing an essay- Thesis Statements. It also warns of what to avoid when developing an essay.
Essay Development Handout- This reveals types of Hooks, Elaboration, Transition devices and Conclusions
Prewriting - Essay Outline- This is the precursor to my Free product, Language Arts Comprehension Check: Ten Sentence Format http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Language-Arts-Comprehension-CheckTen-Sentence-Format-16081. This Essay Outline is longer because the Body section shows how to expand details and add paragraphs to develop a full-length essay.
Essay Format- This handout explains the criteria for typing the paper. It also includes a section on how to correct an essay. With the latter, students show even more ownership of their writing as they earn extra credit. They may choose five weaknesses to revise-grammatical or contextual- but must follow the given format. They earn 1 point for each 3-part correction.
Symbols for Grading Analytical Compositions- I created these to use along with the standard guidelines as they address the majority of student writing errors in my classes.
Self-Assessment Sheet- I find that when students must assess their papers, they actually read the comments and check the areas that the teacher marked instead of just looking at the grade and relegating the paper to the depths of their writing folders.
Analytic Writing Grade Sheet- This rubric highlights 10 factors (up to 10 points for each category) that combine to form the essay's grade- 4 for Content and 6 for Form.