Inside Out: chapter 13 crafting essays

Inside Out Strategies for Teaching Writing

Chapter 13: Crafting Essays

I still dread the infamous essay paper after 32 years of teaching and a masters degree. As the chapter states, it's no wonder that our students slump into their seats upon hearing about the next essay assignment. The way we learned to write expository text is outdated resulting in a piece that is disconnected and boring. Enter the contemporary essay fresh and alive in new innovative ways that show the enthusiasm of the author and connects with its audience.

There are three areas of expository writing that need clarification; the topic, voice , and form. Too often teachers would assign topics that students could not connect with. Students need to be allowed to explore and find an area that interest them. In the past, we were suppose to write in the third-person, again not having a positive impact on the audience. The form of the writing would be to restricting; students would focus on form and lose sense of the content and message. This chapter asserts that teachers need to apply the same traits of writing that we use in narratives and poetry.

There many different forms that can be applied to essay writing. I will touch on a few of the strategies and forms mentioned in the chapter. In this age, we have the virtual tour to take us through places and experiences we would not otherwise know at the click of a button. Therefore the virtual experience is a great way for students to imagine themselves entering an unknown world. We would provide the stimuli to get them hooked. With photography, art, news sources, fiction, poetry artifacts and more students can see things in a different perspective, through a different lenses from what they are accustom to. We would help them create little vignettes or scenarios for them to walk through and learn from.

Storyboards are also visual ways to help students organize, see long term, map out a process. Metaphors, analogs, and stories allow students to connect based from where they came from to where they are going. We can see from the view point of their culture, ethnicity, and life experiences. Speculative pieces follow the inquiry method and encourage students to ask questions and seek out answers.

There are critiques and reviews, editorials, historical pieces, and anthropological studies, investigative reports and so many more styles to get students to turn on to their learning so that they would be willing to write about it. Always encourage our students to use their own language in a way that makes the subject real to them and so it touches their readers in a meaningful positive way.