Here’s some ELA math for you: If it takes you 5 minutes to grade a single essay would you rather grade 90 essays in 450 minutes or 30 essays in 150 minutes? What could you do with an extra 300 minutes in your life? That’s five extra hours to read a book, go to the park, or simply live your life. If you are wondering how you can cut 60 essays from your stack without blacking out your student roster, here is the answer: group essays.
I’ve assigned group essays regularly in my English teacher career and harbor zero guilt about it. Here’s why: group essays provide my students more practice, better feedback, smarter revision, and extra guidance—all the while allowing me to spend more time teaching and less time grading.
Are you sold on the group essay idea yet? If so, read on for a step-by-step guide as well as a Q&A session and specific examples at the end!
But before you jump in, please note that I give directions for regular learning but also provide tech substitution ideas for social distancing. In regular school years, I love the movement aspect outlined below, but during Covid I tweaked my method using Jamboard templates.
Ok, let’s dive in to slash your grading stack with this group essay hack!
How to Group Students for Collaborative Essays:
Step 1: Do all the pregame lesson plans required to prep students for writing. This includes assigning thought-provoking articles, posing critical thinking questions, hosting group discussion opportunities, and providing brainstorming time.
Step 2: Set up a four-corner activity in which each corner has essential or controversial questions taped to the wall. Allow students to voice their evidence and thoughts for all four prompts. Use Jamboard to substitute a physical four corner activity. Read about how I use Jamboard here: Creative Jamboard Templates for the ELA Classroom
Step 3: After all issues have been covered, have students move to the corner that they feel most passionate about- the corner they can elaborate most on and want to write about. If you are doing controversial issues, you must sort the corners with sides or use a single wall with opposing sides.
The main goal is that you want students who have the same viewpoint to be in the same group! In my opinion, it is a detriment to authentic writing to have students write to a point they don’t agree with or connect with. It’s also important that students do not realize the entire point of this strategy. Some will choose a side based on who they want to work with if they know your full intention.
Step 4: By selecting the students from the same corner, sort students into groups of two, three, or four with three being the magic number if you typically assign a five-paragraph essay (more on this below!). Research says there’s a place for both homogeneous or heterogeneous grouping so decide your biggest goal and work from there. If your main goal is to help struggling writers, the research indicates heterogeneous groups may assist most. Alternatively, to encourage medium ability writers to learn at high levels, homogeneous grouping better serves that goal. However, I will give essential tips for differentiation below, so if this grouping strategy doesn’t fit perfectly, don’t worry!
How to Get Students Started on Group Essays:
Step: 5 Have student groups sit together and give each one a notecard. Tell students to silently write their thesis statement to address the prompt/corner they selected. If your writers are not at the level of writing their thesis statements independently, you can use this time to incorporate a mini-writing lesson with mentor thesis statements. Tell students to leave their names off the note card. Again, if you are using tech rather than notecards, Jamboard group slides are a perfect substitute. You can read exactly how to set these up in my Jamboard template idea post.
Step 6: Allow ample time for students to think about and write their thesis statements but consider using a timer to keep students on track. They have already been given think time, discussion time, and brainstorming time, so writing a thesis statement should be a quick process.
Step 7: Once students have finished writing their thesis statements, have them display their notecards at their group table. Again, reiterate to not write their name on the notecard. All that should be visible are their single thesis statements.
Step 8: Now, tell students they are going to be thesis judges. Prep them by reminding them the qualities of a good thesis statement. If you did a mini lesson beforehand, this can be a review. The goal is to make sure students know how to judge the quality of a thesis statement.
Then, have all students stand up and rotate clockwise around group tables. Once there, they will read each thesis statement and place a tally mark on the best one (this should be individual votes, not a group consensus). Students rotate to all the tables and cast a vote for their favorite out of each group. While this is happening, the teacher rotates to each thesis and gives feedback when necessary. For example, if a student poses a question instead of making a claim, the teacher can address this by writing a note on the back.
If using tech rather than notecards, students can cast their votes using digital stickers or you can utilize polling tools such as the Zoom feature or Kahoot. Simply make a generic Kahoot that says, “Group 1 Thesis, Group 2 Thesis, etc.,” then give numbers 1,2, 3, 4 as voting options and project the thesis statements in numerical order for students to vote upon.
Note: It’s very likely some students won’t get any votes. This is unfortunate, but as the teacher rotates, they can give feedback on what they did right and how to improve for next time so that the student feels a sense of hope rather than disappointment (you could also sneak in your own vote depending on how much of a softie you are- like me!)
Step 9: When students make it back to their original table, they can look at their feedback and count the tally marks to determine the winner. If using tech, be sure to keep track of each winning poll. The teacher can serve as a tie-breaker if necessary.
Step 10: It’s not until this step that you announce your master plan. Tell students to place the winning thesis statement in the center of the group because it will serve as the single thesis statement for the group essay they are about to write.
How to Assign Roles for the Group Writing Process:
Just like traditional essay assignments, students will use a single thesis to guide the entire essay. However, instead of writing three or more body paragraphs, they will only be writing ONE.
This single paragraph must prove the thesis using evidence and explanation. Remember groups of three are optimal for three-body paragraph essays, but if you have a group of two, they will write a two-body paragraph essay. A group of four, four-body paragraph essay, etc.
Just like a traditional essay, this single paragraph should not be redundant. Therefore, students must communicate with their writing partners to ensure each point proves the thesis while not being repetitive in points, evidence, or content.
Each student in the group will have a single paragraph to write independently, but all students in the group will collaborate on the rest of the introduction paragraph, transitions, and the conclusion. This means all students in the group brainstorm the best hook for the introduction, add essential introduction information, and incorporate the top-voted thesis statement. Students must later work together on the conclusion to sum up the independently written points and tie everything up. Students must show this collaboration evidence by using either sticky notes (if handwriting) or the comment function on Word or Doc to display their ideas and insight. In other words, students need to keep a record of their brainstorming to show their contributions whether they get used in the final or not.
More collaboration will come during the revision process.
The Revision Process for Group Essays:
As I’ve said before, I was once a critic of peer review strategies, but now I won’t grade an essay unless it has been through my six-step revision process and group essays are no different!
For a group essay, I have students take the entire essay through revision stations as if it were their own. This way, students will get feedback from peers who are unbiased and will be able to bring the responses back to their essay group and collaborate to revise.
You can read in detail about how this saves a great amount grading time here: 5 Essay Grading Tips for Grading Essays Faster and More Efficiently: Save time grading essays online or in print
How to Grade Group Essays:
Ok so here’s the controversial part. It’s highly likely a few of your grade-obsessed students will ask you how they’ll be graded the moment they hear the word “group.” It’s a shame because this assignment is way more about growing than it is about grading. Nevertheless, grades are still a sticking point for most, so here’s what I do. You may form a different plan and that’s fine! Just make sure you do have a plan so that grade centric students will feel more at ease about the actual learning process instead of the final (and what they will possibly perceive as unfair) outcome.
Mindset: I approach grading group essays as I approach grading regular essays meaning that my goal as an English teacher is to give every writer a 100 on their final because they’ve mastered their writing standards. I want the work we do IN CLASS and the feedback I give IN CLASS and the lessons I teach IN CLASS to result in a stylistic, insightful, organized, and edited final. By the time the actual finished product gets to me, it should truly be the best it can be. You can read more on how I make this happen here: How I teach and grade writing
That said, the realist in me knows that students won’t always apply feedback or try their best. It happens. However, from my experience with collaborative essays, it happens way less often when the group grade depends on it.
Some of the most passionate and thoughtful writing conversations I hear all year are during group essay work because I tell them during the revision process that each group member will receive the same grade on their final. Striving writers don’t want to let their group down, so they tend to put forth a lot of effort and apply constructive feedback. Talented writers are more apt to be giving of their writing advice. And lastly, as groups are working, it is easy for me as the teacher to provide support for students who need it the most. This ensures not only a higher grade, but also crucial one-on-one writing instruction.
Now, if there is one group member who absolutely doesn’t pull their weight, I’ll know this by observing their progress and score them separately.
My goal is growth over grades, but if I can’t motivate a student to write anything, then of course I won’t punish a group for this.
When to use group essays:
Group essays can be used at any time, but here are some places where they are especially beneficial.
In the middle of a long unit: Typically, the writing piece comes at the end of a unit, but if the unit is weeks long then that means students may go too long without formal writing practice. Plus, there’s usually a perfect writing prompt scenario in the middle of a text that goes unexplored. For example, when I teach Dolly Parton’s America Podcast, there are several episodes in the middle that lend well to argumentative writing such as the controversial issue of using artists’ work at political rallies. In this instance, I can use a group essay opportunity to have students express their viewpoints while also practicing writing rhetoric. Instead of grading 90 essays on the topic, I would have a manageable 30 and my feedback could be applied to the final, individual rhetorical writing assignment that follows. If you like to end units with a project rather than an essay, then group essays make the perfect midway tool to do both!
As a mini-lesson tool– Let’s say you’ve just finished grading a big stack of essays and your students just really didn’t get a certain skill. Though the reflective voice in your head tells you that you need to reteach the concept, you just don’t have the heart to do it. The last thing you want to do is stare down that stack again or read one more word about that topic.
But, rather than regrading 90 essays on the same topic, you could teach a mini lesson then have students practice using the group essay method. Again, the thought of 30 papers versus 90 speaks to both your teacher logic and happy soul.
Similarly, if you are chunking your writing instruction and building writing stamina, group essays are perfect for accompanying your mini-lessons.
At the end of a grading period– Despite our best intentions, our teacher timing doesn’t always work out. If you have reached the end of a grading period but have a writing prompt planned, the group essay can be your saving grace. No one should be grading essays over spring break. Don’t do it. Assign a group essay then knock those out in a day rather than carrying a stack of papers out to the beach.
Likewise, I use group essays the most at the very end of the school year. By this point, we’ve covered a lot of ground on writing instruction and I just need students to show me what they know one final time.
If students can show mastery with one paragraph, then it’s a safe bet that they can write 10 more just like it (but I’ll only have to grade one 😊).
The Best Types of Writing for Group Essays:
Group essays can work with just about any type of writing assignment, but I will give you specific examples that I’ve tried over the years.
Literary Analysis Group Essay:
Critical Lenses – Students analyze a text through critical lenses then either group with the same lens and write 3 individual perspectives or group with people of different lenses to show variety. I’ve done it both ways and both work well.
Color Symbolism – Using colors to analyze The Great Gatsby, students formed like color groups and made distinct points about its symbolism. It could also work by grouping three or more different colors, for differentiation (this grouping is much easier).
Literary Symbolism– Group students by favorite symbol choice (such as the fire in Lord of the Flies) and have each group member write to explain one insight about that symbol (the challenge would be not repeating point or evidence from the text). Or, group students by three or more different symbols, but again this format is much easier just depending on the depth you are looking for.
Literature Circles – For the first time ever, I was successful with literature circles this school year. I have a blog post coming soon, but in brief, students chose a novel in verse then worked their way through my Novel in Verse Vault. Since they were already working in groups, it was perfect opportunity to end the unit with a collaborative essay.
Persuasive Group Essay:
Group essays can work with persuasive writing, but it’s essential that grouping is done by stance and this can sometimes be tricky. If you give multiple prompts to choose from, not only will you have to group students based on which one they want to write about, but you’ll also have to consider which side they take. Oftentimes, sides will form with one single student taking that stance. You will need a plan on what you will do about single stance students.
In my Dolly Parton’s America example above, I just used one prompt: Politicians should not use artists’ songs at rallies without permission.
I had students “move” to where the argument they sided with on Jambaord. Most of the class moved to agree so I put those in groups of three based on writing levels. Luckily, I had two students who disagreed, so that was enough for a group, but I did ask those two to explain their reasoning and see if any of the “green area” people were convinced enough to move over. Remember groups of 2-4 is fine with 3 being the optimal number if you are used to assigning a five-paragraph essay.
Research Group Essay:
Research papers are a perfect group essay opportunity in my opinion because students have to do all of the thinking and organizing that they would do in a whole research paper, but they have built in partners to check their source validity and reel in their tangents.
After reading Bradbury and having technology discussions, I assigned students the task of researching the effects of screen time on children and adolescents. After doing all the steps listed above, students worked in groups to individually form a single paragraph that proved the group thesis with one scientific journal source and one source of choice. In the end, the entire paper had at least three different scientific journal choices and three cross-checked valid outside sources.
It could work with other types of research such as an “influential person” paper in which each student in the group tackled one phase of life (early life, career, legacy).
I hope these examples gave you some ideas! The possibilities are truly endless, but unlike traditional essays, your grading stack won’t be. 😉
I LOVE this idea. I think we’re going to do this for a short argumentative writing unit here before testing. How would you handle the counter argument? Would one student be responsible for the counter? Thanks for all of your amazing ideas.
Yay! So glad! If you normally do one whole paragraph maybe having one student address that would work, but I’m guessing that it’s just an acknowledgment of a counter. In that case, I would have the group brainstorm all of the counter arguments (each must contribute at least one in the conversation) then decide as a group where the most important counter claim would best fit (they should have lots of good writing conversations over this!). Good luck! I hope it goes well for you 🙂
This is a GAME CHANGER! Thank you for all of these wonderful tips and tricks. I really appreciate you breaking this down into steps. 🙂 I cannot wait to try this in the future.
Yay! So happy to hear! 🙂
I have tried group essays in the past, but this structure makes SO much sense. My AP kids love it right now because they are starting into the testing season. This allows them to think critically and still write without the pressure of a massive essay.