Paragraph Writing, Week 11 Expressing Your Opinion, Pt. 2

Overview In the second week of this activity, students will complete the drafts they began last week, construct a rubric for assessment of their essays, and practice writing complex sentences using coordinating conjunctions.

First Hour Review the assignment from last week; find out how many students completed their essays and how many need a few minutes to finish them. Allow 10 minutes for this. As students get ready, circulate and read through some of the drafts to get a sense of what needs to be done. Have students trade papers and read each others’ work for 15 minutes. Stop and ask what the best essays contained, what average essays contained, what needed improvement; record these observations on the board to create a grading rubric. Distribute (or show on a projector) the handout, Ways to Express an Opinion. Review these structures with students.

Second Hour Have students begin to revise their drafts, incorporating the structures in the Ways to Express an Opinion handout. Circulate in the class. When you see a strong paper, stop and read aloud to the class, discussing its positive points. If students finish their revisions by the end of class, select a few and read aloud; otherwise, allow students to keep working. This assignment can be due at the end of class or the beginning of the next week.