I mentioned group essays in recent posts about cutting time on grading and supporting struggling writers and it led to some questions about what that looks like. Here are the answers! I wanted to share how I implement collaborative essay writing in my classroom when I am crunched for time. If you're looking for a quick and engaging way to practice writing with your students, preferably a way that doesn’t overload that stack of grading you keep carrying home, speed group essays could hit the spot. More traditional essays have their place, and more intensive group essays can be a happy middle, but this quick and dirty approach offers meaningful practice too. This is ideal for writing practice that needs be completed in just a few class sessions before a break, for review, to build confidence, or during a particularly high stakes time of year. Ahem..
Here's is your step by step guide to help students write a strong collaborative essay in a few days:
Setting Up the Room to Launch Collaborative Essays
Step 1: Write Thesis Statements or Topics Around the Room
Set up the room with chart paper and markers, and write thesis statements or topics around the room for students to choose from. For example, if you are doing an argument essay, you might put up issues such as school uniforms or the voting age. You may already have ideas, if not, free resources online abound. Here are some high-interest thesis statements to get you started.
Step 2: Brainstorming
Have students rotate around the room gallery-style, spending about 2-3 minutes at each topic to add post-it notes or write directly on the chart paper with information they think should be included in an essay on that topic. Encourage students to focus on quick ideas rather than complete sentences.
Group Work
Step 3: Choosing a Topic
Have students stand next to the topic or issue they are most interested in. If you're doing an argument piece and they have pro and con options, then they stand to the left or right of the chart respectively. Remind students to pick a topic they like, but it's ok if they gravitate towards their friends as long as they work well together- you know your student dynamics best.
Step 4: Conducting Research
Give students about 20 minutes to conduct research for text evidence on their topics and collect useful statistics. This part is optional, depending on the topics you offered, but it can be a good opportunity to review research skills and to give students some quiet think time in between the energy of brainstorming and group work. Students should collect the evidence independently or in herogenous partnerships at their desks or quietly in the library and record the information they find to bring back to their groups. This can also be homework.
This is a good place to break for the next day.
Step 5: Creating an Outline
Students create an outline using everything they've found and that is on their poster. This is a great opportunity for students to practice grouping ideas into logical buckets. Encourage them to use graphic organizers to help with this process. For example, you can provide a graphic organizer that has sections for the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. You can also suggest that students color-code their ideas using stars or other symbols to indicate which ones go together on the chart paper before filling out the graphic organizer. If you can have them use an outline that aligns to a checklist or rubric you will provide later, even better. Explore essay rubrics, checklists and graphic organizers in my TPT store.
Step 6: Revising the Thesis Statement
Students revise their thesis as a group to see if it needs to be adjusted based on their outline. This is a great opportunity for students to practice collaboration and communication skills. It also provides an important reminder that everyone has to revise during the writing process. These are thesis statements you wrote that they are now making their own.
The next part of independent writing can start class the next day, or you can assign as homework. You will want to make sure students assign the work now though.
Bringing it Together to Write the Essay
Step 7: Write Body Paragraphs
During this stage, students work independently or with a partner to write the individual body paragraphs of their essay. They can use the outline they created in the previous step as a guide for organizing their thoughts and evidence, but all body paragraphs are being written concurrently by different students. Teachers can circulate around the room, providing guidance and support as needed, or they can work with a small group of students who may be struggling with the process. This stage is an opportunity for students to practice their individual writing skills while still working collaboratively with their peers.
Step 8: Peer Editing
Once the body paragraphs are written, students peer edit each other's work and put it all together. This is a great opportunity for students to practice editing skills and to learn from each other's writing. If you are trying to keep things moving, you may pick three grammar issues that have come up a lot for them to focus on.
Step 9: Write the Conclusion
After the body paragraphs are written, students come back together as a group to write the conclusion. Working together, they can ensure that their conclusion ties together all of their individual ideas in a cohesive way. This stage is a great opportunity for students to practice their collaborative writing skills and learn from their peers' strengths and weaknesses. Teachers can also use this stage to reinforce the importance of revising and editing, as the group may need to go back and revise parts of their essay to ensure that it flows smoothly and effectively. In the interest of time, you may allow students to make a note on their document digitally or with a post it where they would revise things with more time.
Students are done! If you want to grade the essays you have a far smaller stack than normal, or you can also give grades based on completion and collaboration. I do recommend finding one highlight from each essay to share with the class to expand the learning from one another.
Overall, speed group essays are a quick and engaging way to give students practice with collaborative writing and research skills. They can also be a great way to break up the monotony of traditional essay writing and keep students interested and motivated. Don't be afraid to get creative with the topics or to provide additional support in the form of background research, sentence frames or other scaffolds. In my experience, students have a lot of fun with this activity and develop greater confidence as writers almost unilaterally. Remember, collaboration is as much a 21st century skill as writing. These few days in your classroom will spark growth for both.
Very interesting and creative plan!!