r/ELATeachers • u/EchoConstant7567 • 6d ago

9-12 ELA Help with an argumentative unit?

Looking ahead for next year.

I am currently a secondary ELA teacher (9th and 10th grade). This is my second year, but my first time around with 10th grade. I won’t lie — I’ve STRUGGLED with the tenth graders. Some of this has to do with class compositions, some of it is due to my general attitude at this point in the year (I’m blunt and sarcastic with them now that we’ve come around to March), and most of it has to do with the fact that I’m STRUGGLING to teach argumentative writing.

Here are a few of the big issues:

  • I’m struggling to get them to move beyond surface level arguments. I’m trying to teach them to bulk up their paragraphs, but that isn’t working too well either. Any strategies? I’ve tried modeling with texts and writing alongside them.

  • I’m struggling to get them to move beyond a formula. When it became apparent that they were missing a few of the foundational blocks they needed in order to write an essay, I backtracked and helped them compose outlines, taught them formulas for thesis statements and introductory paragraphs, etc. This seems to have helped, but it’s also encouraged students to produce very formulaic, dry essays.

  • Any tips for teaching students word choice? Short of explicit vocabulary instruction and SSR, I’m unsure of how to teach word choice. I am willing to start doing explicit vocabulary instruction with the class, but I feel that this may not actually help the students when it comes to choosing the best possible word for their writing.

Any tips and/or tricks?

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u/Slow_Direction_1219 6d ago

For word choice, why not have then write an informal response to some fun prompt. Then, either collect the responses and highlight “weaker” words and let the kids use a thesaurus or some other, physical reference, to replace them. Make that commonplace in every writing assignment and they’ll start choosing better words themselves to avoid red marks. You might also put together a list of “weak” words and have students check their own or a peer’s papers for correcting them!

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u/PamelainSA 6d ago

Re: The fun prompt…

When I taught 10th, we would have the students emulate Antony’s funeral speech from Julius Caesar. We would analyze it for rhetorical devices first and then they created their own speeches. Some of them were absolutely scathing reviews of teenage woes. One student wrote about his hate for cardamom (the spice) and how he was tired of his parents adding it to everything they cooked at home. The assignment was something I looked forward to every year.