Students using our Middle School ELA Grade Level Collections will be exploring essay form, enhancing vocabulary, and being introduced to advanced rhetoric in addition to the CORE units. Students at this level have developed confidence in the expanded form of idea-making, are crafting clever Hook openings with unique voicing, and are moving into the territory of unencumbered idea making!

Students regularly engage in the process of writing, idea to draft to the re-read/edit loop that leads to a beautiful polished final work.

When students move to the high school level, each week, in addition to journaling observations character development, themes, symbols, and motifs, they are encouraged to craft a synopsis and a personal reflection to help them timk deeply about the story at hand in preparation for the crafting of a literary essay.

Crafting the synopsis and reflection within a constrained word count, challenges the writer to make each word matter!

Each culminating essay follows the same form introduced in middle school, so that the writer is now prepared to craft original observations and ideas tied to complex literature constrained to the particular literary form.

Click through to watch a recording of the August Professional Development sessions with Mrs. B & Ms. Clare:

How to Encourage Middle School and High Student Writing!

~Kimberly

Coalesce is a beautiful word. It means: to grow together; to unite into a whole. This word combines the prefix “co” (which means “together”) with the Latin verb alescere (meaning “to grow”).

There you have it.

Grow together. Combine. Unite. Fuse.

When students reach high school, it’s time to put all they have learned about reading and writing and thinking to task. It is time to coalesce.

That’s what high school language arts is all about.

Tip #10

Use a pencil!

First things first. We recommend all journaling and rough drafts be composed by hand with a pencil. Yes, even in high school. Especially in high school! The pencil is s technology that is much better suited to the art of writing because it is less passive than keyboarding and therefore creates a stronger connection to the processes we use when creating an idea. At this level, students should, of course, be typing final, polished drafts of their essay, but the pencil is primary!

Tip #11

Publish ideas.

Writing is not meant to be brought into shape simply as an exercise on paper, given a mark, then crumpled and tossed to a trash bin! Writing is an idea whose purpose is to be shared. When a high school student composes an essay and moves it to a polished state, its purpose is to be read. Think of publishing, at the individual level, as a beautiful final draft of an original idea. Share this idea with friends, with family. Share the idea via snail mail or electronically. Look for opportunity to get your idea in print! The goal is to find readers.

Tip #12

Jump into your idea!

YOU are ready! High school is the time to take the plunge. So confidently dive into a novel and come out the other side with an original idea to share with the world…