So as to not lose the momentum with Travels With Charley, which we began reading in the previous lesson, I open class today with a review of the homework my students completed, which asked them to identify the voice, tone, and mood of the introduction to the text. The bulk of the period today is devoted to continued argument essay development, but I want to keep one eye and ear on Steinbeck's work for continuity and subsequent student engagement sake.
Thus, we spend the first fifteen minutes or so allowing students to share with the whole group their determinations, supporting their analysis with specific evidence from the text.
Having completed the peer response workshop for their argument essay rough drafts, I next instruct my students to copy down a brief series of revision tips in their classroom spiral notebooks. Most, if not all, of the suggestions in the powerpoint are reminders, but they will surely seem new to some of my students who tend to require several repeat instructional installments.
As my students write down the tips in their notebooks, I elaborate as necessary and address any questions or concerns that may arise.
After the lesson on revision tips, I distribute a copy of the rubric that I will be using to grade their argument essays to each student. We spend the next few minutes reviewing the criteria on the rubric and I address any concerns or questions that my students may have.
I am sticking to the rubric format that I introduced with my students' one-page memoirs, as I find the simplicity beneficial to both me as a grader and to my students as writers-in-training. By itemizing the criteria in ten separate categories, as opposed to clustering criteria into fewer categories, I believe my students receive more accurate feedback on specific areas of concern.