To end this unit, I assigned students to write a 5 paragraph final essay on the following prompt: What challenges do Esperanza and the other women in the novel experience, and how do these challenges impact their identity?
My goal for this entire unit was to introduce students to various forms of writing. Throughout the unit students engaged in a variety of informal, formal, short and long writing assignments that would prepare them to complete a 5 paragraph final essay. Since the majority of our classroom discussions centered the female characters in the novel, I decided to focus this essay on a topic the entire class had already discussed and learned much about. Choosing to focus on the women allowed students to use their background knowledge as well as textual evidence when writing their essays. Furthermore, previous assignments focused on the challenges women faced in the novel allowed students to scaffold the work necessary to complete this essay.
Though I strongly believed that every student in my class was capable of completing this final assignment, I had to differentiate the work for many students especially my lower level ELLs and students on IEPs/504s. Some students were asked to write a shorter essay, and others were given outlines and sentence starters. Furthermore, I completed parts of the assignments with students giving them an example to look at and explaining my own writing process.
