Description
? Ah, the art of argument! You may think your teen is already pretty talented in this area. This may be true! But are their arguments valid and reasonable? Do they know how to acknowledge the other side of an issue, a counterclaim, and refute it? How well are their arguments presented in writing? Most high school and college writing is argument writing, and this class prepares them for college writing, including dual enrollment. Literary analysis and research papers require argument writing, and all the required writing prompts on the AP English and AP Language exams are argument writing. Students will be prepared for the rigor of upper high school and college writing after taking this course. In fact, some of our students have reported using our writing guide, which has clear and useful graphic organizers, to write their essays in their college courses.
This is a multi-week, intensive writing class. Students will learn to write coherent, organized, and effective argumentative essays, which is a difficult–but critical–skill.
? CLASS SYLLABUS:
???? ?–Students learn to differentiate between various genres of writing. They will annotate example essays to see how they are structured and organized. Direct instruction includes aspects of expository, persuasive, and argument writing as well as the effective strategies of argument.
???? ?–Building critical thinking and writing skills, students learn how to evaluate both sides of an issue and consider opposing points of view. Direct instruction includes how to counter an opposing claim.
???? ?-?–Students begin writing their own argumentative essays while going through the writing process. An emphasis is placed on pre-writing so that drafting is easy. They learn how to conduct online research by evaluating the credibility of a website. They also learn to delineate issues, claims, reasons, evidence, and analysis. We walk them through the process of developing an argument and supporting it logically. They write their body paragraphs. Last, they learn how to modify and choose vocabulary for effect.
???? ?–Fine-tuning their body paragraphs, students revise body paragraphs and learn to elaborate by using multiple strategies. They also tackle the introduction and conclusion. The instructor will teach various techniques to strengthen students’ essays with powerful word choices and unique and stylistic sentence structures. They will learn how to format an essay to follow the MLA style guide, including a Works Cited page. Students also learn the importance of the revision and editing process using editing technology.
? ??? ??? ?? ???? – #TheLemons-AidWay ?
??????? ?????????? & ??????????????–We use “workshop time” so students will write while the teacher “visits” them on their Google Document. The immediacy of the feedback/revision cycle with the instructor helps writers improve rapidly. Additionally, once we started using this method, we saw nearly a 100% completion rate in student essays!
???????? ????????–Students desperately need this method of instruction, but it is tragically missing in schools across the country! Instead of leaving students to magically figure out how to write an essay, we teach explicitly, a method backed by decades of scientific evidence for its effectiveness. It’s how Mrs. Lemons teaches her undergraduate and graduate teacher candidates in college to teach! We do it this way because it’s how kids learn. Explicit instruction is “a structured, systematic, and effective methodology for teaching academic skills. It is called explicit because it is an unambiguous and direct approach to teaching that includes both instructional design and delivery procedures. Explicit instruction is characterized by a series of supports or scaffolds, whereby students are guided through the learning process with clear statements about the purpose and rationale for learning the new skill, clear explanations and demonstrations of the instructional target, and supported practice with feedback until independent mastery has been achieved.”
-???????? ???????????: ????????? ??? ????????? ???????? by Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes.
Anita Archer trained Mrs. Lemons in workshops, and it changed her teaching. All Lemons-Aid courses follow this philosophy in the form of I DO, WE DO, YOU DO. We move students forward toward mastery of skills.
????????–Students can expect to have homework after each live class. They will work 15-45 minutes, depending on the assignment and how quickly they work. Students receive authentic and constructive feedback from the instructor that helps students correct their mistakes and fine-tune their skills. We integrate grammar in all aspects of instruction, and we hold students to a high standard of academic writing. We achieve this through daily mini-lessons and practice with sentence writing and using various sentence starters.
??????? ??????????–Students need graphic organizers to help them see the structure of a paragraph or essay and the writing process. This is how they learn to develop coherent ideas. They don’t figure out how to do this magically; the graphic organizers and the intentional, explicit teaching help them learn the skills!
??????? ???????–Each class includes explicit, direct instruction with teacher modeling. Students are guided toward mastery of multiple writing skills and understandings so that they grasp the concepts and become independent. Students are held to a high standard of academic writing, including the use of grammar and the construction of sophisticated sentences.
??????? ????????–The back-and-forth work between a student and teacher significantly benefits a student if done well. We follow best practices in designing class time, assignments, and routines. According to Pennington Publishing, effective writing feedback (or grading) is:
• Specific, not general
• Immediate, not postponed
• Routine with a revision / feedback cycle
• Explanatory
• The right amount
• Targeted to the most critical issues
• Varied (written, audio, and video comments)
• Holding students accountable
