Teaching Tips: My pre-writing recipe for a successful student essay

I teach an undergraduate General Education course in the History department which requires the students to write two papers. Because the students in the class come from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds and have academic experience that runs the gamut from being fully homeschooled to attending a prestigious prep school, I cannot take for granted that all understand the basic expectations for writing an academic history paper. Therefore, I created this “recipe” for my students that involves multiple writing and editing steps to ensure that they know what I expect and that they have a solid idea of how to garner a solid grade on their paper. I set a time expectation for each step because I’ve learned that some students will take too many hours on each step of crafting their paper and others will not take any time at all to revise or consider whether their paper aligns with the assignment.

It’s my experience that implementing this recipe thwarts plagiarism or cheating because students are less desperate and have participated in the steps for a successful paper for 2–3 weeks before the paper is due. To ensure that they are making progress, I have the students do some of these steps in class, especially the outline and the Grammarly report. I also have them discuss their project in our class working groups, so they can bounce their ideas off of their peers.

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The ingredients for this recipe:

• Strong Thesis Statement
• Evidence from the readings to support each main idea
• In-text citations for each idea or quotation taken from the readings
• 2–3 Drafts
• Works Cited Page
• Rubric Review
• Grammar Check

Instructions (note: elements in bold are explained in greater detail below with links to samples on GoogleForms):

1. Read the entire project prompt and consider how you will answer it. Let your ideas marinate for 10–15 minutes
2. Review course readings, in-class activities, and weekly writings to see which will be relevant for the way you want to answer the prompt. Work on this for about 30 minutes.
3. Diagram or outline your main ideas and how you will support them with evidence from the readings, adding relevant page numbers and details. You can expect that it will take 30–60 minutes for your ideas to take shape.
4. Assemble the pieces from the previous step and write your first draft. The time for this step can vary widely, but ought to take about 60–90 minutes.
5. Underline your thesis and the topic sentence in each paragraph. Reflect on whether your thesis and topics clearly answer these questions: Who? When? Where? What? How? Revise, if needed, for 15–30 minutes.
6. Confirm that each idea and quotation from the readings have an in-text citation and that all of your sources are listed in your “Works Cited” page. Revise, if needed, for 15–20 minutes.
7. Read your paper aloud to an audience. Your audience can be a friend, a pet, a plant, or even a potato. Does your audience understand your ideas or are you struggling with clarity in some sections? Revise where needed. This may take 15–20 minutes.
8. Review the assignment rubric and give yourself a score on each element of the rubric. Is this the score you want? If not, revise accordingly for 15–20 minutes.
9. Use Grammarly (or a similar tool) to review your paper. Revise where indicated for 15–20 minutes.
10. Fill out the Paper Progress Check In.* 2–3 minutes
11. Give your paper a clever title. 5–10 minutes.
12. Confirm that your paper font is Times New Roman, 12pt, double-spaced with 1" margins. 30 seconds.
13. Remove your name from the top of the page (or header) so your professor can grade anonymously. 30 seconds.
14. Fill out the Project Checklist** and affirm that you completed each step, which should take no longer than 3 minutes.
15. Turn in your paper digitally on Canvas.

Voila! You can now enjoy the sweet taste of successfully completing your midterm project.

Paper Progress Check In is a GoogleForm that I have the students fill out about a week before their paper is due. If there are any course corrections needed at this point, I reach out to them via email.

Project Checklist is another GoogleForm that asks them to affirm that they’ve included each element of the assignment before turning it in.

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