5 Alternatives to Writing an Essay

Have you ever had that moment when you think, “I just can’t grade another essay”? If you haven’t, you’re probably not an English teacher or maybe you’re still new (WELCOME!). For me, there are a couple of times of year that this hits: right before a big holiday break and late in the spring when we have been working so hard that it hurts. So here are 5 alternatives to writing an essay that you can assign the next time you feel like you just can’t grade another essay.

Essay Alternatives for the Win!

Alternatives to the traditional essay are great for both students and teachers:

Students can still demonstrate their critical thinking skills while working through these skills in a different and more creative mode.
Any students who find writing challenging have the opportunity to thrive with these alternatives to writing an essay because they can show what they know without having to struggle through the composition.
It gives teachers the ability to assess other modes like speaking and listening.
Many of the options we have for alternatives to writing an essay also bring in Twenty-first Century skills like technology. In fact, all of the the options below have both analog and fully digital ways of completing them.
And it’s a win for teachers because they can often be assessed quickly with a rubric.

5 Alternatives to Writing an Essay

One: Pecha Kucha Assignment

Pecha Kucha is presentation style that has been borrowed from the business world. It is a six-minute forty-second presentation that consists of 20 slides (images only) with 20 seconds of speaking for each slide. They are sometimes called 20×20 Presentations.

These are the best presentations your students will ever make. They must plan and practice and they can’t simply read their slides because the only things on the slides are images. Slides advance automatically after 20 seconds which insure that the presenter will have to carefully speak to match the speed of the of the slides and their movement.

I love to introduce a Pecha Kucha presentation with this YouTube video which is a Pecha Kucha about Pecha Kucha. If you feel like 20×20 is too long, you can always scaffold with a 10×10 presentation or even a 10×20.

Two: Poetry Presentation Assignment

This Poetry Presentation Assignment is an adaptation of a haiku project that I learned about when I attended the National Writing Project at the University of Rochester in 2007. This was originally designed as a PowerPoint Assignment, however, it can easily be done as a Google Slides Project.

Students select a poem. I usually have them choose a poem from poets.org or even from a curated list. Then they create a presentation for the slide using images and transitions. One line of poetry per slide.

The process of creating the presentation allows them to show their understanding of the poem. The final step is to write a reflection explaining the choices they made. Those choices can and should include the images they selected, the transition they used and any sound and how it connects to the text of the poem.

Students have so much fun with this project and it’s a great poetry analysis assignment.

You can pair this with these other ideas for teaching poetry or with a poetry slam.

Three: Hexagonal Thinking

I first learned about Hexagonal Thinking from Betsy Potash of The Spark Creativity Podcast. The idea is that you have topics on hexagons. These topics can be character names, themes, settings, quote, historical events and more. Then students arrange them to match the sides taking advantage of the six-sides of the hexagon. Students can then write shorter reflections on some of the choices they made.

Hexagonal thinking is perfect for both mid unit and culminating assessments. It is also great for brainstorming and thinking through relationships and bigger ideas.

For more on how to use Hexagonal Thinking, check out Betsy’s post explaining it in m ore depth.

Or grab a free Hexagonal Thinking Kit from Betsy at Now Spark Creativity.

Four: The Top Nine

This is one that I learned from Amanda and Marie on the Brave New Teaching Podcast episode 78). This plays on the Instagram end of the year posts that people often do: posting a square picture with a 3 x 3 grid of images that represent their Top Nine of X.

You could use this for a personal reflection or a culminating project. Students could do their top nine favorite quotes, their top nine favorite poems, or students could create a top nine for one the characters in the text.

You can grab a free template for the Top Nin e from the ladies at Brave New Teaching.

Five: Visual Essays (or Digital Storytelling)

Both visual essays and digital storytelling have lots of presentation options from something fully analog like a poster to videos, podcasts and slide presentations.

The final product will depend on what you ask students to include. In one visual essay project that I have used with The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, students are required to include a thesis to an AP® Literature style open question prompt, along with quotations as evidence. However, the rest of the visual essay is left up to the students. Students have turned in beautiful posters with photographs they took, a giant egg decorated and filled with items and slips of paper and video presentations.

Digital Storytelling is similar in that you can tailor the assignment to what you want in the final project. The stories can be personal or they can be related to a text. You can give students templates or you can leave it entirely tor their free expression.

Assessing Alternatives to Writing an Essay

As you are thinking about how to assess alternatives to writing an essay, it is important to be clear in what you want to know that the students know. This is a great opportunity to use standards based grading. Align your assignment to very specific learning objectives and then your rubric ties to those objectives.

If you want to assess what the students know about characterization, then be sure to include that in the assignment and the assessment.

To ease scoring, be sure to limit the number of objectives you focus on. Stick to five or fewer especially if you want to score the assignments while the students are presenting.

Try Alternatives to Writing an Essay

So the next time you are feeling overwhelmed by all the writing tasks that you need to assess, the answer just might be an essay alternative. They allow students to be creative, show what they know and give you a break. So, give one of these alternatives to the essay a try. And if you do, be sure to let me know in the comments below.