Moving High School Juniors Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay Through Teacher-Modeling

Abstract

The goal of this study was to assess the differences in high school juniors’ overall essay writing scores when given a method of instruction (coping model, mastery model, and neither). After reading two articles that discussed opposing views on the same topic, participants in each group wrote an essay in response to a prompt stemming from the articles. Participants did the same for two subsequent essays as well as a post-test. Participants in the coping model group received explicit instruction on brainstorming, outlining, and essay writing as the teacher demonstrated think-alouds and wrote her thoughts on an overhead projector. Participants in the mastery model group received mastery examples of brainstorms, outlines, and essays. Participants in the control group received neither the coping nor the mastery model. However, their questions were answered without any examples being given. The post-test scores were analyzed using a one-way ANCOVA, which resulted in no statistical significance.