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Essay
Process
The
Thirteen Steps to College Level
Essays:
(You
will find that you do not
need to follow each step; instead find the key steps that work best
for you.)
- Read imaginatively, pencil in hand; underline important passages
and make notes in margins.
- Listen
carefully during in-class discussions; take good
notes.
- Speak
up during in-class discussions; test out your own
ideas by asking good questions and participating actively in the
analysis.
- Write
regularly in your journal; respond to the characters
and situations, quote the text, and explore ideas in the reading; flesh
out
ideas that came to you during class discussions.
- Brainstorm
first responses to essay questions in your
journal.
- Engage
in collaborative planning discussions with fellow
students in which you test your notions and talk about ideas for a possible
thesis
statement; take good notes of the feedback from your partner.
- Draft
several versions of your thesis statement. Don't be
satisfied until you develop a provocative, engaging idea to defend in
your
paper.
- Write
a rough draft of the full text of your essay on the
word processor.
- Engage
in a peer revision session with fellow student either
in class or at the Writing Center during which you read out loud the
first
draft of your essay and listen carefully to feedback about the clarity
of your
thesis and the organization of your argument and the solidity of your
conclusion. Take notes!
- Revise
your thesis statement on the basis of notes from your
peer revision session.
- Write
a second draft of the full text of your essay.
- Proofread
the draft with careful attention to clarity of
expression, sentence variety, creative transitions between paragraphs,
adequate
quotations from the text and appropriate documentation of sources using
MLA
format.
- Finish
the final draft of your essay.
Portfolio Project
- As
you write papers during the
semester, try to pin point the key moment in your writing process, that
"A-ha!" moment when a great thesis statement comes to mind.
- Collect
documents from the various
stages of the writing process that chart the development of your thesis
statement, leading to a final draft. Underline or highlight the
important
stages of the idea's evolution. Feature the "A-ha!" moment.
Possible Portfolio Contents:
- significant
class notes
- significant
reading log entries
- significant
pre-writing materials
- notes
from collaborative planning
sessions
- significant
portions of rough drafts
- significant
notes from peer review
sessions
- final
draft
- thesis
highlighted to demonstrate
process
- links
to significant sources
- comments
by teachers, other students
and parents
- student
self-assessment of his/her
performance: "Final Reflections"
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