MODELING EFFECTIVE WRITING

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Modeling students’ effective writing is a good strategy of teaching. Students in our case usually write for their teacher only, and receive feedback on their own product from the teacher. If they are not particularly curious about successful papers in their class, the less skilful writers have no idea about what an acceptable or passing paper looks like. They do not have the opportunity to compare their own work with the work of their classmates. Modeling successful writing provides them with such targets.

 

Modeling successful writing

1. Choose a few model essays for each task, photocopy them or use an overhead projector.
2. Always ask for students’ consent or tell them that you will be using their essays as a model.
3. When choosing model essays, try to sample different students so that the students will see that you do not select only certain styles or favor certain students.
4. Discuss the model in class, focusing on the strengths rather than weaknesses. A positive sample always works better than a negative sample.
5. Discuss how the model meets the required criteria for essays.
6. If there are some weaknesses in the essay, draw attention to them, clarifying how the essay could be improved.

 

One way I tried last year with my advanced class was I selected two or three model essays for every type of essay we covered in the first term. I asked their writers if they wanted to get published, and after I got the consent of the student writers, I posted their essays on the group web page. Either I did the typing, or I asked the writers to type their own essays and upload the essay on the group page. Thus, we had many folders on the group page, e.g. for descriptive essays, causative or compare and contrast essays, always available to the students whenever they wanted to consult these models. It also created a competitive atmosphere in class. Since most of my students wanted to make the group page, they also kept track of who was elected to go in the group page how many times.

 

Written by Zeliha Gulcat, August 2004