The Dreaded Essay

Essays were something I always struggled with growing up, mostly because I was never taught how to properly write one by a teacher. I went up until ninth grade without writing a proper essay, and when my first one was assigned, it was like it was the end of the world. I had to teach myself how to write an introduction, how to support my claims with evidence, and how to write a conclusion. Long story short, that first essay was not my best work.

But over time I got better because I continually wrote them. However, that does not mean that I wouldn't have appreciated a lesson or two on how to write an essay. It also means that just because I got better, didn't mean I enjoyed writing them. In fact, I dreaded them. My prompt was given to me and it felt like I had to write within a box. There was little to no room to explore topics that I found interesting within a novel because I was told what I was supposed to write. 

In Linda Christensen's Teaching for Joy and Justice, her way of teaching her students how to write an essay as well as the essays she assigns greatly differs from my own experience. For one, she makes the writing interesting for her students so that they can write essays that they are proud of. Christensen claims, "I believe we must steep students in engaging work that connects to their lives; rehearse the essay about big ideas; teach how essays work by examining models by student and professional writers, and teach them how to write by guiding them through the essay writing process"(121).

There's a lot to unpack with that single quote. I think the first step that Christensen mentions is the most important. Get to know your students so that you can assign relevant work to them. Students will most likely produce better work when they feel passionate about what they are writing about because they will put more time and effort in getting to know the material. This idea of assigning relevant work pushes away from the common practice of assigning common prompts among all students. The last thing a student wants to feel is as if they as writing within a box. I can definitely back that from experience. Instead, like Christensen mentions later on within this chapter, allow your students to develop their own prompts based upon what they found interesting within the novel. This does not mean that as a teacher, you can't help them guide them to a final prompt decision, but leaving things open can push for more meaningful writing. In fact, this guidance is where the "essay about big ideas" comes in. Presenting a big idea from the novel and allowing students to come up with topics is how this meaningful writing will develop.

I also like Christensen's idea about teaching how an essay works as opposed to giving students a template on how an essay should be written. When you tell students how an essay should be written, they stick to that way and writing becomes boring really fast. However, when you teach how an essay works, it allows students to explore different ways in which they can present the information that they are arguing. Allowing students to take apart essays with highlighters gives the experience with writing and will influence them to become better writers.

Out of all of this, I think my favorite part of the quote is guiding students through the essay writing process. I got to see the "in-class conferences" that Christensen talks about in person when I did classroom observations two weeks ago. The teacher took each students aside and talked with them about the main parts within their essay and what they were having trouble with. She tried to help guide them and also offered advice on where they could make their essay stronger. I think doing this while students are writing is a lot more helpful than telling them where they went wrong for the first time on their draft. It allows students to correct their mistakes while they write instead of after the essay is done when the last thing they want to do is revisit something that in their mind is "finished". It also allows students to verbalize what they are writing about so that maybe they can hear where they have gaps within their argument.

If essay writing became a more involved process like we see here with Christensen, maybe students will react with something more than a groan when the assignment of an essay comes up within class.