If you are looking for a beginning-of-the-year lesson for your high school English classroom, I’ve got just the idea for you! At the start of this school year, I had my honors sophomores read a short story and respond to a writing prompt (without discussing the story or having any formal writing instruction for the year) to attain a baseline writing assessment.
In addition to establishing a baseline for my students’ abilities, I also plan on holding onto their work until the end of the school year. Toward the end of the year, I’ll pass back their work so the students can see just how much their writing has grown in our classroom.
Before, during, and after this activity, I reassured my students that this was a baseline. I told them that I was scoring their writing, but that it wouldn’t appear in the gradebook. I reaffirmed to them that we would revisit and review the story, go over some writing strategies, and have an opportunity to revise the paragraphs. I wanted to help my students avoid excessive worry and stress about their first writing assignment of the new school year.
My First Academic Activity in High School English: A Baseline Writing Assessment
To start with, I had my students read Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” I printed the story on a single page of paper (double-sided) and found an audio version of the story for my students to listen to as they followed along with the text. Before reading, we also went over when the story was published because knowing when a story was written helps gain a better understanding of it.
I instructed my students to have a piece of lined paper out as they read, and I paused the story twice for students to jot down any thoughts they had. The only guidance I gave them was to write down characters, significant events, and thoughts and feelings. However, when I paused the story for a second time, I also asked them to write down any changes or shifts they noticed.
Once we were done with the story, I could tell that some students understood the ironic ending and some didn’t. I assured the students that we would discuss the story later, but for now, I wanted them to respond to the prompt without discussing the story. Since these are honors sophomore students who are on track for AP Lang and AP Lit, this helped show them what they will encounter in the future.
Once we were done, I presented students with this writing prompt: How does Kate Chopin’s use of irony in the ending of “The Story of an Hour” contribute to the development of a central theme in the story? Use specific evidence from the text to support your analysis.
I provided my students with about 30 minutes of class time to write their response using only the guidance on the slide. Many students finished their responses, while a few did not.
I collected their work regardless, and I scored their paragraphs on a modified version of the AP Lit FRQ2 rubric.
The In-Class Revision Process: Improving the Baseline Writing
After scoring all of their paragraphs, I planned a day to return the work, review the story, explain the rubric, and go over some fundamental writing instruction.
First, I reviewed the story with the class, and I had students share their examples of irony they found in the story. (During a previous day, I had the students work together in small groups to develop a working theme for the story.)
Then, I reviewed the rubric with students. I also explained how a 3/6 isn’t a bad score. Overall, I had several 3/6 scores, but most were a 1/6 or 2/6. Again, I used this as an opportunity to reassure my students that this is the beginning of the year and we are establishing a baseline.
Then, I went over two essential elements: how to write a thesis statement and how to embed evidence. These were mini-lessons with just verbal instruction and sentence frames, but they provided a good starting point for students to begin improving their writing. I also provided them with several sentence frames to choose from for the thesis statement and embedding evidence.
Thesis Statement Sentence Frames:
- Kate Chopin’s use of ____ at the end of “The Story of an Hour” reveals the theme ______.
- Through the _______ ending, Chopin emphasizes how _________, which supports the theme of __________.
- ________ serves as ironic commentary that reinforces the theme of __________________.
- Chopin uses _______ in the final line to _____________, suggesting that __________________.
- By ending the story with ___________, Chopin develops the theme that ________________.
Embedding Evidence and Analysis Sentence Frames:
- This idea is shown when ______________, revealing _________________.
- Chopin emphasizes this theme through the line, “_____,” which shows _____________.
- The irony is clear (in/when) ___________________, contrasting _________________.
- Chopin’s use of the phrase “___” highlights _______________________.
After collecting the paragraphs, I quickly reviewed the students’ starting point and their revised writing. Immediately, I noticed a massive difference in their writing. Primarily, almost every student had a solid thesis statement in their revised paragraph. Furthermore, I also noticed that students had a better understanding of the story, and many students used two pieces of evidence from the story compared to just one.
If you are reading this blog post thinking, “Wow! This is just the kind of writing instruction I need for my class,” I invite you to check out this affiliate link to my book, “Building Strong Writers.” In my English teacher PD book, I break down even more writing strategies to help you help your students become strong, confident writers.
Moving Forward with Meaningful Writing Instruction
In moving forward this school year, I plan to build off of this activity to help my students grow into strong writers. For the upcoming writing assignments, I will do the following to make sure students are ready to respond academically to a prompt:
- Review the story
- Conduct group brainstorming and discussion in class
- Break down the prompt with students
- Ensure students know what elements are needed for their thesis statement
- Provide students with thesis statement sentence frames
- Provide students with evidence and analysis sentence frames
As we progress through the year, I will slowly remove some of the scaffolds. In particular, I plan to remove all of the thesis statement sentence frames by the end of the first quarter. However, this is for an honors-level class. For a general ed class, I would keep the thesis statement sentence frames for the entire first semester.
I will also go into more in-depth writing lessons that will benefit my students and help them grow as writers. In particular, I will teach them the four lessons in my Writing Spotlight Lesson Series.
- Writing About Quotes
- Writing in the Present Tense
- Writing in the Literary Present
- Using Ellipses and Brackets
Each of these lessons provides students with focused writing instruction to improve a particular aspect of writing. Once students complete the entire lesson series and synthesize the knowledge gained from all four lessons, their literary analysis writing improves tremendously.
For additional writing instruction, in particular, for on-level and below-level students, be sure to check out this blog post about teaching students essay writing.
Interested in reading more? Check out these additional blog posts for more ideas!
One Comment
This is such a helpful post! I’m currently studying to become an English teacher, and I find it so helpful to see clear, realistic examples of what teachers are doing at the start of the year. I also appreciate how you broke down the mini-lessons and the sentence frames. It’s really helpful to see how you scaffold the writing process without overwhelming students.