Student Essays with Comments
The following essays were written as the culminating project for a unit on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. The students engaged in a week long writing workshop with daily progress goals set and reviewed by the teacher. Derek, Harriet, and Phillip all submitted essays on time. Candice submitted her essay about a week late. Jessica did not submit one. The essays were originally submitted on Schoology.com, and it is via this website that I originally commented on and graded the class essays. For the focus students in this project, I also provided hand-written comments and in-person feedback on their writing. My technique for doing this is to limit the feedback to a few of the biggest strengths and weaknesses so as not to overwhelm the student but rather given them manageable goals for improvement next time. I also mark a few, but not all, of the examples of these strengths and weaknesses in the text. This is to add substance to my claims while, once again, refraining from overwhelming the students with a heavily marked-up paper. Below are links to these essays, and below that is the original assignment prompt.
- Candice's Essay
- Derek's Essay
- Harriet's Essay
- Jessica's Essay
- Phillip's Essay
- Candice's Essay
- Derek's Essay
- Harriet's Essay
- Jessica's Essay
- Phillip's Essay
Two regularly occurring errors in these and other papers were the use of run-on sentences and an overabundance of summary that failed to prove student theses. Because of these frequent issues, I added further grammar and writing reviews to my existing lesson plans in preparation for the students' next writing assignment.