Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay

Applying these concepts in their own writing

Ultimately, students absorb the guidelines of good writing when they apply them to their own personal essays.  To increase the real-world connection, students can draft responses to personal-statement prompts.  The Common Application prompts offer an accessible entry point into all kinds of topics.  These are the 2019-2020 prompts:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
4. Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma - anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

After comprehending and examing a personal essay’s structure as indicated above, students should pause to reflect on the writing and reflect on what they valued.  The reflection can include one or more of the elements we discussed above:

Public point

Logos: In what capacity does the writer address the reader?

Ethos: What style does the writer use?

Pathos: What attitude does the writer take toward the material?

Cohesion

Repetition

Metaphor

Tone or Voice

In a notebook, each student can document what he or she admired about the essay according to these elements.  This way, students begin developing micro-drafts of ideas and structure that mirror the writing of professional essays. This should be handwritten to increase the engagement with the text.

The first part of the notebook entry can include some copying a portion of the professional writer’s essay at the paragraph or sentence level. This forces students to pay attention to the minutiae: the punctuation, the rhythm, the word choice, the eloquence.  Then, inspired by a thought-provoking prompt (such as the Common App prompts above), students can attempt to mirror the professional writer’s style in their own writing about their own experience. If the student attempts to copy writing at the sentence level, he or she must write more than one sentence. The final part of the entry should be a brief description of what they are attempting to mirror.

To help build confidence and trust, a peer review of the writing by another student can consist of a few simple parts:

1. A short summary of what the reviewer sees
2. A compliment or two about the writing
3. A question or two the reader has about the content or the style

Not every attempt will be successful.  But not every attempt will fail either.  Writing experiences like this will lead students to become comfortable writers capable of making thoughtful observations about professional writing and competent writers who develop an authentic style that develops through the influence of reading the work of accomplished writers.

My hope is that this toolkit of sorts for high-school writing teachers helps engage students with complex texts beyond the literal level.  The ideologies and practices compiled here will, hopefully, help students identify the structure of a text at the paragraph and sentence level, practice it, and mirror it in their own original writing.

Furthermore, my hope is that this toolkit encourages teachers to select socially conscious, thought-provoking essays to challenge high-school students to engage in conversations about contemporary issues that teachers sometimes refrain from because of professional insecurity or administrative skepticism.  All of this is guided by a belief in the idea that students must be socially conscious, highly skilled writers addressing meaningful issues in order to amplify their voices and challenge social systems that limit young people’s opportunities.