While most writing instructors have their students try their hand at cobbling together an essay with a set of templates, I have always had much better luck with heuristics.
Personally ... I find heuristics to be more organic, liberating, and less paint-by-number in terms of execution.
As I mentioned in my last message, over the next few weeks I am going to make writing workshop videos in which I "paint" for students all of the FRQs on the AP Lit. and AP Lang. exams dating back to 2015.
Yeoman's work, but I start with a blank canvas and write the entire essay from start-to-finish all while wielding my heuristics.
In today's videos, I spotlight a few essays from last year's exams (both Lit. & Lang.)
If you've never taken a whack at an essay with heuristics, please give it a view.
I have found over the years that my students are much more successful writers going at things in this manner versus equipping them with a slew of frontloaded sentence stem templates (which stifles their voice and creative thought).
Please tell your students ... and please subscribe to my new channel which is called (Kristian Kuhn ... the "Bob Ross" of Composition)
Happy teaching and happy writing!
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