Personal Narrative and Informative Essay Writing

Today, Language Arts students began writing personal narratives about a time they were frightened. In the spirit of Halloween, I thought this would be a great way to work on their writing skills (one of my goals for the class). Rough drafts will be due tomorrow and final drafts will be due next week. In the meantime, we will peer edit and work in particular on when to start a new paragraph using this activity: New Paragraph Practice

Language arts students also have a grammar errors quiz on Tuesday. Don’t forget!

Grammar Error Letter (Use this to study for the quiz)

English I students should have completed and turned in their research notes for their informative essays today. If you are a student and you are behind on your research, please stay after school with me and get caught up. This informative essay train is going to keep moving and you don’t want to miss it. We will begin working on outlines tomorrow.

Stem quiz and vocabulary quiz tomorrow. Don’t forget!

Informative Essay Resources

Here are most of the resources and activities we will be using during our study and writing of informative essays.

Informative Essay Notes (Includes notes for Frayer models, Essay Scavenger Hunt activity, and more)

Paraphrasing Practice

Summarizing Practice

Quoting Practice

Wrestling Essay Example

Blue Whale Essay Example (Used for Essay Scavenger Hunt)

Flamenco Outline

Citing Web Resources

Informative Essay Rubrics (Super important- this gives all of the requirements for each step of the process!)

The tentative due dates for this project are:

          Wednesday, October 17th: Notes and four sources due

          Monday, October 20th: Outline due

          Thursday, October 23rd: Rough draft and works cited due

          Tuesday, October 28th: Final draft due

Informative Essay Time!

It’s time for everyone’s favorite project, the informative essay! This week, students will be choosing a specific topic to research online and in the school’s media center. Students will learn how to write a thesis statement on their topic, how to evaluate internet resources, and how to cite sources in a bibliography. They will then craft, edit, revise, and peer review their own essays on their topic. Topics will vary from athletes to musical groups to animals. We will also look at and discuss an example essay on my favorite topic, blue whales! This project is challenging and is often something new for students, but it’s a great way to talk about how we read different kinds of nonfiction. I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s essay and learning all about things my students are interested in!