Writing-Essays Unit Plans

This 30-page EDITABLE curriculum has everything you'll need to help students write write phenomenal college application essays! This is the PREMIERE bundle for any English teacher, college counselor, or tutor working to help students master the Common App essay!

The materials in this bundle were designed by a Ph.D. who has taught English at top-ranked high schools and colleges for over 20 years. He has worked closely with former college admissions officers from Harvard, Brown, and NYU. This 30-page unit features all the wisdom he's gathered over a decades-long career in secondary and higher education. The unit is packed to the brim with writing tips and formatting advice that will help your students craft truly remarkable college essays!

Here are some highlights from the 30-page curriculum:

• How to Get Started (Handout #1): Tips for how to get started on one's college essay and overcome writer's block. (1 page)

• Strategies for Crafting Vivid & Lively Prose (Handout #2): While the question of what students choose to write about will be important, the question of how they write will be equally important since a writer's style can reveal a lot about their personality. This handout features advice on how students can write essays using vibrant and virtuosic prose that will enamor any admissions officer. (2 pages)

• The Opening Line: Attention-Grabbing Hooks (Handout #3): The opening paragraph is the single most important part of a college essay. How will your students capture the interest of admissions officers? How will they make a memorable first impression? This handout offers several suggestions for how to focus an opening paragraph, followed by concrete examples of opening paragraphs by top essayists like Annie Dillard, Frank McCourt, Louise Erdrich, Naomi Shihab Nye, and others. (4 pages)

• How to Format a College Essay (Handout #4): This handout offers advice for the structural organization of college essay, with tips on what should be included in each paragraph. The strategy offered here will enable students to showcase their skills at descriptive writing, narrative writing, informational writing, and reflective writing — all in less than 650 words! (1 page)

• Sample Essays: Show your students eight successful college essays written by students who were recently admitted to top-ranked colleges and universities. These were the favorite essays that wowed admissions committees at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, Hamilton College, New York University, and Tufts University. (18 pages)

• Writing Assignment: This carefully scaffolded writing assignment will help students to get practice at writing narrative essays in response to actual prompts on the Common App from 2023-2024. (1 page)

• Writing Rubric: Use this rubric to evaluate the narrative essays that your students write in response to to the prompts from the Common App of 2023-2024. (1 page)

This resource packet will come to you in two separate formats: Word doc and PDF. Because the Word doc is editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to suit your teaching style and/or the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the materials in PDF format, which is easy to navigate and quick to print!

Because I believe that teachers should be able to see what they're getting before they make a purchase, the preview for this resource provides access more than a dozen actual pages from the resource. Click on the green preview button to see exactly what you’ll get....

Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Don't forget to click “follow” for email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Feel free to check out these other resources on writing:

How to Write an Analytical Essay

How to Write an Poem Analysis Essay (AP Lit FRQ 1)

How to Frame Quotations or Embed Evidence

Figurative Language Stations

Narrative Writing made simple! This Narrative Writing Unit provides all of the lessons, graphic organizers, and activities needed to guide students through the entire writing process. Ideal for upper elementary and middles school classrooms, this resource provides a structured approach to crafting engaging narratives, ensuring that students develop their writing skills effectively.

Resource Overview:

Identifying Narrative Elements:

• Mentor Texts for analyzing key narrative elements.
• Guided activities to explore characters, setting, and conflict.

Brainstorming:

• Prompts and exercises to inspire creativity and originality.
• Strategies for drawing from observations and unique perspectives

Planning Graphic Organizers:

• Graphic organizers for planning characters, setting, and conflict.
• Plot graphic organizers to outline the sequence of events.
• Anchor charts and diagrams to help visualize plot structure.
• Detailed resources for planning plot with clear beginnings, middles, and ends.

Drafting:

• Mini-lessons on Transitions, Dialogue, and Imagery to enrich writing.
• Activities to practice and incorporate these elements into drafts.

Revising and Editing:

• Self and peer revision checklists to guide the improvement process.
• Editing checklists for polishing grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Publishing:

• Finalization steps for preparing narratives for publication and presentation.
• A rubric for assessing narrative quality and completeness.

Additional Features:

• Flexible pacing guidelines to fit into your writing block.
• Opportunities for differentiation based on student needs.
• Engaging materials and activities to enhance students' narrative writing skills.

This unit plan provides a detailed roadmap for teaching narrative writing, making it easier to help students produce well-structured and compelling stories.

This 180-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need to deliver profoundly engaging lessons on William Shakespeare’s Othello. The colorful workbooks will enable you to capture and hold the attention of modern-day students. The higher-order questions will help you pivot from reading comprehension to interpretive analysis and critical thinking. Deliver the best lessons while inspiring students to fall in love with Shakespeare's Othello!!

Every page in this teacher-friendly unit is fully editable! So you'll be able to customize the materials to suit the skill levels of your students — year after year! The unit also includes an answer key filled with insights from Shakespeare scholars at universities like Harvard and Cambridge. Your students will be reading like a professor!

Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.... Shakespeare's Othello is finally being appreciated as one of his most virtuosic and masterful accomplishments. The play amounts to a fascinating study of interracial love and same-sex friendship, ethical action and eloquent speech, jealousy and self-doubt, cynical manipulation and courageous advocacy.

In addition to focusing on the themes mentioned above, this curriculum brings an anti-racist lens to the study of Othello. Although the play was written over 400 years ago, Shakespeare's Othello can help students achieve a deeper understand of how race and gender operate in today’s world. This unit provides an opportunity to discuss modern concepts such as “intersectionality,” “stereotype threat,” and “code switching.”

This unit ranks among the very best that I've ever created, and I couldn't be more excited to share it with you!!

Here’s what you’ll find in this editable 180-page unit:

• Introduction to Shakespeare’s World: The 30-page introduction includes five handouts covering topics like Shakespeare’s biography, the language of Renaissance England, the construction of the Globe Theater, how to recognize iambic pentameter, and more. Every handout is followed by a comprehension check, practice exercise, or quiz. You could spend up to a week with the introductory handouts — or skip them altogether. Answer keys included. (30 pages)

• STUDENT WORKBOOKS on Othello: The 60-page workbook features colorful and highly engaging worksheets on every scene in Othello. Each worksheet is divided into sections which invite students to engage with the text in a variety of different ways:

• The Passage Analysis section invite students to analyze one or two key passages from each scene.
• The Evidence Hunt challenges students to answer an interpretive question by finding the best textual evidence to support their answer.
• The Comparing Quotations section invites students to make connections between quotations from different scenes in the play.
• The Discussion Question section features three higher-order questions designed to foster lively discussions and interpretive debates among students.
• The Quick Writes challenge students to compose short arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights!

• Workbook Answer Key: The 60-page answer key to the workbook provides detailed answers to the passage analysis, evidence hunt, and comparing quotations sections. The answer key is informed by the best books and articles written by leading Shakespeare scholars: Marjorie Garber (Harvard), Stephen Greenblatt (Harvard), Coppélia Kahn (Brown), Eamon Grennan (Vassar), Dympna Callaghan (Syracuse), Susan Snyder (Swarthmore), Janet Adelman (Berkeley), Emma Smith (Oxford), Farah Karim-Cooper (Kings College London), Michael Neill (Auckland), and others. (60 pages)

• Figurative Language Quiz: The quiz challenges students to identify 8 types of figurative language — metaphor, simile, metonymy, paradox, oxymoron, personification, apostrophe, and hyperbole — used across 25 quotations from Othello. Also included is a glossary with definitions of the types of figurative language as well as examples of how they’re used in the early scenes of Shakespeare’s play — so you can begin reviewing the types of figurative language with students before they tackle the quiz. Answer key included. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Shakespeare’s Othello. Let students choose from one of 5 thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a topic of their own. Includes a writing schedule, outline template, and grading rubric. For teachers of AP Literature, this unit also features FRQ3 prompts focused on Othello. (8 pages) 

This unit will come to you in two separate formats: Word docs *and* PDFs. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize the materials to the skill levels of your students — year after year! If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the complete unit in PDF format — which is easy to navigate and quick to print.

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for top-quality units on canonical literary texts by diverse authors. Wishing you an amazing experience with teaching Shakespeare's Othello. If you have any questions along the way, please don't hesitate to get in touch at the email address below. I love hearing from fellow teachers who share a passion for great literature! 

Happy teaching,

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

P.S. Remember to "follow" my store to get email updates on new products by Rigorous Resources. New products will be 50% OFF for the first 24 hours!

Feel free to check out these complete units on Shakespeare's masterpieces:

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Romeo and Juliet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Julius Caesar

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Macbeth

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Othello

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Hamlet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Much Ado About Nothing

INTRO TO SHAKESPEARE: Biography, Globe Theater, Language, & Meter