A set of clear steps or organizational strategies will greatly help second grade students develop structure and purpose in their essays. Help students understand how to structure their assignments by translating abstract concepts, such as compare-and-contrast essays, into a concrete representation, such as a Venn diagram. One technique is to create handouts that students can write on, with shapes that represent the structure or components of an essay. For example, a handout may have a large rectangle at the top for a topic sentence, three circles for supporting sentences and another rectangle for a concluding sentence.
Second grade students are still making the leap from writing in the moment about the moment to composing essays that relate to broader ideas or past and future experiences. Because of this, you can help them by assigning writing prompts that align with what they observe, care about or experience while also pushing them to stretch their focus little by little. Some ideas include writing about what they learned in today's lesson, describing something or someone that is in the room, or explaining why they find something interesting.
Second grade writers are similar to beginning drivers. They sill have to focus consciously on a variety of tasks at many levels, from holding a pencil well to correctly structuring sentences and creating an essay that hangs together. Notice and celebrate what a student has done well to keep her motivation high and give her the will to keep practicing in her weaker areas. Give one concrete improvement step at a time while congratulating each student on genuine accomplishments in length, creativity, specificity, penmanship or effort.
Keep the fundamentals in mind even as you start to lead your students to develop higher-level skills like writing complete sentences, forming a coherent structure and supporting a main point. Watch out for malformed letters, punctuation errors and spelling mistakes. Correct errors in writing to show students how their writing should have looked. Give gentle, consistent reminders to students who continue to have trouble in a certain area. Remember to outweigh correction with sincere praise whenever you can.