Essay Writing:A Teaching Experiment

Assignments, Handouts and Samples available on the BHCF Blackboard at

Instruction\HE Paper Topics & Assignments\Hunter\Essay Writing: A Teaching Experiment

Why?

• Effort expended on grading 1st essay not translating to significant improvement on 2nd essay

• Many causes…but which can I affect?

• Phronesis: essay writing (in the student mind) is a universal; they need experience with particulars to gain practical wisdom

What I Did

• Create a (more-or-less) systematic procedure for constructing an essay

• Divide the first essay into four chewable tablets:

Evidence Analysis Structure Thesis Statement

Desiderata

• Do not increase the number or length of in-class writing exercises

• Reduce time spent on…a) futile commentaryb) generic advice during consultations

• Increase overall quality of student papers

What Went Well• Less time spent grading essays, including office

consultations with students

• Students’ perception of their improvement as writers

• Few horrific papers; more ‘A’-worthy papers

• More effective rubric for paper evaluations (but see next slide…)

What Didn’t Go Well

• Assessment and scoring of the short assignments

• Structure Assignment too complex or poorly conceived

• Unrevised grading rubric—old organization of criteria did not map well onto new essay writing methodology

Why I Like It

• Grading the first “essay” broken up into bite-size chunks; commentary more effective and efficient

• Grading the second essay explicitly connects to earlier performance on the four components—commentary more organized and focused

• First “essay” has built-in mechanism for continuous review and revision of previous ideas