Yeah, good luck with that...

I just realized I didn't really answer the question on my last blog post, so I'll try to stick to the topic this time...

Because a couple of my students confessed to not knowing how to start on the last essay, I spent part of one class trying to teach form, helping them construct their essays from the ground up. We talked about some of the essential elements of their essays--the big things that I was looking for, like their thesis, transitions, main points--and where those things would fit in that particular essay. I even passed around packs of mini-sticky notes (thanks, Dr. Rogers) and asked them to write their thesis, main ideas, and conclusion on them and work with a partner to arrange them in a satisfactory way.

Main problem: most of my students weren't prepared to do this (they were either sleeping or comatose during the previous class when I asked them to bring their thesis and four or five main ideas to the next class). Still, I was hopeful--I was sure that organization would be so much better this time around. No such luck. In fact, I had so many essays that had really nice, correctly placed thesis statements, but then proceeded (for the next four pages) to summarize in detail the text they were supposed to be analyzing for persuasive language, that I was nearly in tears. I'm still hoping that something stuck, though--and that it just took some time to sink in. I'm counting on that, along with two weeks of fabulous workshopping, to make these final essays fabulous. (Positive thinking, right?)

So can form be taught? Like Emily, I've always just done it without thinking about it, so maybe I'm the wrong person to try to teach it. And so far, my success in teaching it has been minimal. I think, like grammar, form is something that needs to be taught in the context of the essays they're writing, and maybe I need to put together a really great day of workshopping to focus on it. Wish me luck.