Episode 432: Are You Making This Mistake with Your Student Writing Samples?

In today's Teaching Middle School ELA podcast episode, Your next writing unit might not be “too hard” or “too time-consuming” at all. The real problem could be the way we use model essays and the way we test our writing prompts before students ever touch the page.

We start with a candid question many middle school ELA teachers are afraid to answer: do you dread teaching writing? If you’ve ever felt your stomach drop when a writing unit shows up in the plan book, you’re not alone. Between 47-minute class periods, huge stacks of essays, and students who struggle to write a clear paragraph, it can feel like you’re working twice as hard for the same results.

If you want to go deeper, join our FREE 3 - Day writing workshop from July 21st to the 23rd at https://www.ebteacher.com/writing-workshop. Listen now, then subscribe, share with an ELA teacher friend, and leave a review so more teachers can take back their time.

Transcript

Welcome And How We Help

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there, ELA teachers. Caitlin here, CEO and co-founder of EB Academics. I'm so excited you're choosing to tune into the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Our mission here is simple: to help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks, and genuine support so that they can become the best version of themselves, both inside and outside of the classroom. And we do this every single day inside the EB Teachers ELA portal. This is a special place we've developed uniquely for ELA teachers to access every single piece of our engaging, fun, and rigorous curriculum so that they have everything they need to batch plan their lessons using our EB Teacher digital planner that's built right into the app. Over the years, we've watched as thousands of teachers from around the world have found success in and out of the classroom after using EB Academics programs. And we're determined to help thousands more. If you're interested in learning more, simply click the link in the podcast description. And in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast every single week.

Why Writing Feels Miserable

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Well, hello, teachers, and welcome back to the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. And I want to start today with a little confession time. And I think some of the best conversations start with honesty. So be real honest when I ask this question. Do you dread teaching writing? And hopefully, if you're an EB teacher and you use our EB writing program, the answer is no. I love teaching writing. But if not, I want you to pay attention. If you dread teaching writing, and I don't mean like in a passing, ugh, that's kind of a lot of work kind of way, I mean like genuinely dread it. I've talked to teachers in the past who told me that their stomachs would like tighten when they look that they see when they look at their plan book and see that they have like a writing unit coming up. Right. Or they like get sweaty thinking about all of the essays that they have to grade. And even after all of that grading, all of that time, their essays aren't even getting any better, right? And so if you're nodding and you're like, yes, I like really hate teaching writing so much. I just love reading, right? I love literature. That's why I wanted to be an English teacher, which I know so many teachers say. So if you're nodding, I want you to know two things. First of all, you're not alone, not even a little bit. I talked about this on the other episode earlier this week, that we surveyed nearly 500 middle school ELA teachers about their writing struggles. And what came back was a whole lot of, yep, that's me. I hate teaching writing. Teachers being overwhelmed by grading 150 essays, teachers trying to squeeze quality writing instruction into a 47-minute class period, teachers watching sixth graders struggle to write a complete sentence, let alone a proper paragraph, right? Writing has become one of the most dreaded parts of the day for so many ELA teachers. And I really think it's because no one really ever taught us how to teach it. And we we learned what good writing looks like as readers, but the mechanics of systematically teaching a middle schooler to construct an argument, to use evidence effectively, to write a conclusion that doesn't end with, thank you for reading my paper, right? That's a whole different skill. And most of us were just sort of like dropped into the classroom and expected to figure it out, or like given a curriculum who has a writing component to it that just gives you questions, but no framework.

The Live Model Essay Trap

SPEAKER_00 3:28

And so today I want to talk about one strategy that when you shift how you approach it, it will genuinely change what writing instruction looks like and feels like in your classroom. And the reason this one is so important is because it's something almost every teacher already does, but I think it's just done in a way that's unintentionally working against them. So I'm talking about writing samples, teacher writing samples specifically. And now before you think, yes, I already do this, I don't need to listen to this episode, stay with me. Because the question isn't whether you're using writing samples, the question is how. And that's a very specific, very common mistake that turns one of the more powerful tools that we have into one of the bigger time drains of our writing units. And I want to make sure that you are not making this mistake. So here's the scenario that I want you to check yourself on, and it's okay, there's no judgment. How many of you, when it's time to show students a model essay, you sit down in front of the class and you write an introduction in real time. You stand at the board or you pull up a blank document and you write it sentence by sentence out loud. Maybe you do this with a body paragraph, right? You stop and you think through it and you go, hmm, I should use a transition word here before my next idea. Or what would be good evidence for this paragraph? I think there was a quote in chapter six I could use, right? You're narrating your thinking, you're walking them through every decision as you make it. And in fact, I remember my eighth grade teacher doing this very vividly and being like, I am going to die sitting here watching her do this. And your intention with the strategy is genuinely good, right? We want to show our students our process. You want to model what a strong essay looks like being built from scratch. That is, of course, a good teaching instinct. But here's what's actually happening on the other side. Your students have checked out, like they are not paying attention, even after that first sentence. You've maybe got like four kids who are actually watching, and the rest are just waiting for you to finish so that something else can happen. And then an entire class period goes by, 47 precious minutes that we don't have to get back. And what students have is a finished essay on the board that they like literally were not paying attention and watching you write. There was little to no active engagement from them in the process of understanding why what you just did works. And I say this is zero judgment because I did this too. So no judgment at all. When I was first in the classroom, I definitely did this. And if you have been doing this, it makes complete sense that you would, right? It feels like the right thing to do. But at the end of the day, it's costing you time that you don't have and it's producing results that don't match how much effort you're putting in and doing this. So the shift is very simple, it's not complicated, and it is going to feel immediately better the moment that you try

Write The Sample In Advance

SPEAKER_00 6:24

it. And that is simply to write your essay in advance before you even give students the writing prompt. Like that is it. And I want to tell you why this works on more levels, other than just that it saves class time. Because I think when you hear the full picture, you're gonna have a little bit of a light bulb moment the way that I did. And how much is this gonna help you and your students? So when you sit down to write your sample essay before you assign the prompt to your students, something really important happens. You actually have to answer the question yourself. And sometimes you sit down and you write and you realize, oh my gosh, this question does not work, right? You can't find enough clear evidence in the text to write a strong response. You are going in circles yourself. The prompt is confusing or it's too vague, or it leads students somewhere that doesn't really have a quality answer. So if you can't write a thoughtful response to the question with solid textual evidence, how on earth are your middle schoolers going to do it? And I had this moment myself, and I'm gonna be honest, it was humbling. I realized that some of the essays I had been grading and finding deeply frustrating, the problem wasn't my students, it was my prompt. My questions were convoluted or there were like too many different pieces to it. And my questions were setting my students up to fail before they even sat down to write. And once I understood that, that like the way that I asked my question or the question that I ask matters, everything shifted for me. And I stopped really blaming the essays, although obviously there's work to do. And I started looking more critically at like what was I asking students to do? So writing your sample in advance is like that quality control check that makes sure that you're giving students a good chance at actually writing a solid essay before they're even given the prompt.

Turn The Sample Into Active Learning

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Okay, so you've written your sample essay in advance. Now what do we do with it? And this is where like real instructional magic can happen. So instead of spending class time writing the essay in front of your students, you're gonna spend that time going through the essay with them. So actively, you're interactive with it. All 34 of your students are actually engaged in what you're doing instead of just those four, right? So you pull up the sample on the projector or the document camera, and then you let your students do the work of analyzing it. If you use the EBW approach, you would have your students identify each component, write the tag, the summary, the claim, et cetera. You'd ask them to point out where the transitions are, why they work. You have them find examples of strong vocabulary choices. You can even ask questions like, why do you think I introduced the evidence this way? What would happen if I just dropped the quote in without the setup? And you can also have students have a rubric on their desk with your essay, and they can grade your essay as you guys are working through it together. So they start to see, like, oh, this means this or this means that on the rubric when they go to write. So you're not like performing the essay any longer. You are coaching students through how to understand it. And that distinction, right, between wanting, or I'm sorry, between watching a teacher perform and actually actively analyzing alongside a teacher. That is the difference between passive learning and active learning, right? That is the difference between sitting on the bench or being in the game. And I think of it like a coach, kind of like reviewing game film with the team, right? You're watching the tape together, you're pausing, you're zooming in on what worked and why. You're talking about what you do differently. That is all high-level thinking. And it fits inside of a single class period without like scrambling to get it done. You also want to give students a copy. I said this before, a copy of the sample to keep, and they can reference that as they write their own essay, right? Let them use it as a model, especially if your students are struggling or they're first getting acquainted with evidence-based writing or whatever it is that you use for um literary analysis. But you want to encourage them to like notice how you introduced your evidence. How did you transition between paragraphs? How did you craft your claim? And you want to use this especially early in the year when you're introducing a new writing genre. That model can become a lifeline for your students who are still building their confidence in their own writing.

Copying Concerns Time Payback And Workshop

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Now, the question that always comes up when I say that is, but won't they just copy it? And the honest answer is they won't if you set clear guidelines. Like you've just got to tell your students up front that they can't use the same piece of evidence that you use in your sample. So what you want to do when you write your sample is you might want to choose like slightly more obscure quotes that your students wouldn't probably like even pick up on or find. And that's just very simple adjustment that you can do. Now, here's the objection that I want to get ahead of before we close out today's episode because I know it's coming. You're gonna sit there and say it, but Caitlin, I do not have time to write a sample essay for every single writing assignment all year long. Like give me a break. And I hear you. And I want to offer you a different reframe on that. The work that you put in up front, writing that sample before the unit even begins, pays you back in dividends that are worth every minute that you invest. First, once you've written a sample for a particular text, you have it and you can use it again and again year after year. It doesn't ever go away, right? Second, and more importantly, when students have a quality model to reference and you've spent time in class really digging into it together, the essays that you get back are better, which means that the Sunday grading pile is not as daunting. The feedback that you're giving gets easier to give, and you're gonna spend less time trying to figure out what the heck your students are actually trying to say. And that strategy is such a win up front. It is also a win during the lesson. It's a win when the essays land in your turn-in tray, right? That is the kind of investment that is worth making. So as we wrap up today's episode, if you want to go deeper and you want to see more of this in action and how we teach our teachers at eB to teach writing, I would love to invite you to join me for my free writing workshop that is happening July 21st to the 23rd. If you just go to ebteacher.com forward slash writing dash workshop, you can grab your free spot, giving away a MacBook error. And I am just like so excited for all of the things that we get to cover. It is my one of my favorite workshops by far that we do every year. All right, you guys, I will see you next week on the podcast and have a great rest of your week, everyone. Bye.