A podcast on argumentative essay - Entry #10

Argumentative writing: Step by step
Jennifer Gonzales, English language arts teacher, explains us how she teaches argumentative essay writing step by step. This is my summary with the information discussed in her PODCAST.

Step 1: Watch how it is done. 
In this step, students should read good examples of essays in the genre they want to write, such as argumentative or persuasive writing. It’s important to read different real world writing which is appealing to students’ interest and to compare different pieces of writings in order to notice the way they are written. It’s also important not to demand that students should follow a certain formula.

Step 2: Verbal Argument, freestyle.
Students should start making verbal arguments, a really good way of doing it, would be to use ice breakers in which students are told a statement and they should decide whether they agree or disagree on it. After that, they are supposed to defend their position and in that way they realise that the strategies of arguing are something they are used to doing all the time, but in an informal and verbal way.

Step 3: Informal Argument, not so freestyle.
Once they’ve already had the opportunity of persuading somebody about their position, it would be a good activity to tell them a certain topic and give them some articles for them to read in order to have background information for their arguments. After that, the situation of an argument is recreated but this time, they would have some evidence to contextualise their position. Once the debate is finished, they are supposed to write down a written argument, in which they should state their main point, and three reasons to back that up in order to practice a thesis statement.

Step 4: The assignment
The first thing to do, it to take a good look at the assignment paying attention to the instructions. It is always better, for teachers, to give a variety of topics (more or less 4 choices) so that students can choose what they are more comfortable with. At this stage, it a good possibility to give students different articles about the topics so that they do not mess things up by searching on their own.

Step 5: Building the base
Pre-writing is a very important step in this stage. First, once students have decided their three main points, teachers should work on a lesson about writing a thesis statement. Collaborative work may be helpful at this stage, because that would give them different models. (Students are not going to write exactly the same words anyway). Starting your own writing essay (as teacher) would be really helpful too, because in that way students can see that even for a decent writer it is not that easy to write an essay. Once they all have their own thesis statement, students should move at their own pace through the assignment.

Step 6: Writer’s workshop – writing the essay
Some amount of lessons should be needed to help them how to choose the best evidence for their argument, or help them recognise something which is credible or legitimate, how to quote and explain those quotes, teach them how to site sources, how to build successful background knowledge and how to use transactions effectively. Samples of argumentative essays should be presented to students so that they could see how the skills are implemented. This step should take about 2 weeks of preparation and correction of issues.

Step 7: Final assessment
Once students have finished they essay, they are supposed to submit it but only if they are sure that they have done the best they could and the paper fulfils the requirements needed. You should know that not all students finish at the same time, so if you do not have a deadline for the assignment, you should prepare another activity for those advanced students.