For the past eight years, I’ve taught composition classes where students turn in final portfolios rather than taking a final exam. That changes this year: at West Point, cadets are required to compose a final three-hour timed writing during exam week, called a Term End Examination essay, or TEE. (The Army loves its acronyms.) The composition TEE is an odd and interesting thing, because the department writing program’s rhetoric is ostensibly so invested in the writing-as-process revision-based model, and then we go and put a one-shot do-or-die capstone on it. Furthermore, the cadet TEEs are randomly and anonymously group-graded by three faculty members each.
As faculty, we’ve done grade norming, and it’s good to know that we’re all pretty much within a half grade point of one another when it comes to student essays: standards are clear and consistent. But being a portfolio person, I felt some unease looking forward to the TEE, so I assigned an early practice-run timed in-class graded writing exercise today. Interesting results, and a much wider range of apparent writerly skill than I’m used to seeing with drafts and revisions — which means I’m going to need to offer my students some timed test-taking essay-writing strategies.
Which is where you come in, dear reader: I’d like to ask you for your help. What are the most successful strategies and pieces of advice you’ve been able to offer your students for writing under time constraints? Certainly, the process approach is an invaluable and welcome luxury — but what best advice might I offer my cadets when that approach is not an option?
The format is fairly consistent: given three hours and a specific audience, read a ten-page article and draft an argument that in some way responds to that article, usually proposing some course of action. And in such a format, I’m horribly inexpert, and hoping for guidance: in such situations, what do you offer students that helps them to succeed?
That’s a daunting task to process a ten-pager and respond in the same time frame. Is there a length requirement? Will they get a break? If not, then I would (even if it was a 50-minute class) strongly suggest that they take a break, consciously stop and turn the papers over, and take at least a two to five minutes break to clear the mind at some point.
I think the most important aspect of preparing and performing for in-class essay writing is to simply be prepared mentally. Perhaps, being cadets and all, this advice would be superfluous, but many of my students need to be told the basics: eat breakfast, get a good night’s sleep, have some quiet time before the exam, distance yourself from any stressful in the immediate time before it, etc.
I’ll be watching this space and hoping to glean some pointers from your readers, as well. I have not assigned in-class essays that required processing reading material and responding to it.
What I was always told — and what has always worked for me — is to do an outline. Sketch out the whole of the essay first. I tend to do that anyway, so I was drawn to that strategy. One teacher in high school even said that if we have 50 minutes to write an essay, spend 40 minutes on the outline and 10 on the writing.
If they don’t like that, I’d say at least jot down some phrases that come to mind as they read the article and that represent ideas they might want to explore; do some brainstorming. Keep the process model; just compress it.
I should have been more clear — they have three hours to read the prompt and write their essay in response, so I’ll certainly make it clear that they need to spend a good portion of their time planning.
Yes, the outline. I don’t know why I didn’t think to mention that except that it seems so basic.
PS is there a length requirement for the paper?
Outlining is sensible, as is taking a break ( 3 hours? 10 pages? What kind of article? )Do the students get to know ahead of time the general (oh, I am funny tonight) topic area of the article? If they don’t, I’d also spend time talking about speed reading, highlighting, reading for the main idea, and writing all over the article (please tell me that they can write on the article). Does the prompt consist of only one question or can they choose?
I’m curious about why they aren’t doing portfolios and why so much depends on one test.
Mike, I’ve accidentally lost your email address–would you send me an email so that I can email you back with some incredibly important information that I dare not share on line?
Ditto the advice already given, though I also tell students that an in-class essay exam is the one place I’ll tolerate a 5-p essay from them. In fact, it’s about the only time I think the 5-p essay has some utility.
While I would strongly recommend outlining as well, getting a good outline in a brief amount of time is key in this situation. You’ll want to cover brainstorming ideas. Personally, in such situations, I’ve always generated a list of possible ideas, grouped related ideas together, dropped some items out, added some items in, and then used that to make my outline. Other techniques like cluster/idea/mind maps could be useful as well. You might check out mind maps at Wikipedia or look at The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan.
Also, one tip that was helpful to me as a writer for in-class essays was that if you are the type of writer to come to form the thesis last, leave space at the top and write the introduction last. Like many students, I would often begin a paper with a thought in mind, but as the paper evolved, my thesis changed, and the conclusion wound up including the ultimate points.
PS I guess I should add that this was never criticized until I was in graduate school. Maybe that’s not applicable here.
Wow — thanks for all the advice. Talking to instructors who’ve worked through the TEE with cadets in the past (who are fewer in number than you might think, since the military faculty members are only here for a three-year tour before rotating back into other Army posts), a number have said that they offer the five-paragraph structure as a possible organizing strategy. We’ve got sample essays cadets produced in years past, as well, and some of the five-paragraph ones are good, although — as Shelly has previously pointed out — the structure becomes a hindrance beyond a certain length.
I agree the outlining is important, and I like the strategy John describes. I’ve used mind maps/clustering exercises with classes in the past, but stopped when one class rolled their eyes in exasperation and told me how juvenile and high-schoolish an activity they thought it was — which was more likely a problem with their attitude than with the practice itself.
But Shelly, that last suggestion is totally important, and one I often do as a revision exercise (i.e., take that last thought you arrived at, make it your thesis statement, and re-plan your essay), but that I hadn’t thought of applying to a timed writing — yes, I’ll definitely offer them that strategy.