Introduction and Rationale
Mark Twain Elementary School is a Chicago Public School located on the southwest side of the city. The student population served by the school is roughly 83% low income and ranges from grades pre-K to 8th grade. The population is also roughly 84% Latino and 12% White. Students that are diverse learners account for roughly 10% of the student population, and roughly 16% of the students in the school receive additional supports as part of Twain’s bilingual program.1 This three-week unit is designed for about 130 sixth grade general education students to be taught towards the end of the school year after several cycles of essay writing and wide reading across a variety of genres appropriate for sixth grade students. Many of these students are not proficient writers as they enter sixth grade and struggle to compose writing that reflects the language of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
This unit will complement the work that is expected of students in other units throughout the school year. This unit will come after a unit I wrote titled Playing with Poetry which has students write a variety of original poems, deeply exploring writer’s craft. My students and I will consider how prose writers make similar craft decisions after introducing students to the genre characteristics of profile and personal experience essays. Students will read two of each type of essay, discussing the craft choices that authors make along the way. Finally, mirroring seminar as closely as possible, students will have the choice to write a profile or personal experience essay.
For each unit I write, my school requires a series of essential questions and enduring understandings to frame each unit of study for my students. This creates a sense of shared inquiry and a focused approach when starting new instructional units. The essential questions and enduring understandings for this unit are provided. Both the essential questions and enduring understandings would be posted in my classroom and be continually revisited as the unit is taught.
Essential Questions
- What are the genre characteristics of a profile and personal experience essay?
- What should we look for in the writing of professional authors of profiles and personal experience essays to influence our own writing?
Enduring Understandings
- Both profiles and personal experience essays are types of creative nonfiction writing. A profile is shortened form of a biography that uses interview, anecdote, observation, description and analysis to make a public point about an individual. A personal experience essay is autobiographical in nature; the reader should have a good idea about the inner thoughts and feelings of the person based on the personal/conversational tone that the writer takes.
- In the writing of others, we should be alert to the author’s craft. This means that writers think of the choices they can make to get their writing to look or sound a certain way. Some craft choices that writers can make in literary nonfiction relate to word choice, imagery, description, essay structure, use of anecdotes, and constructing a public point in a seamless manner.
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