Today’s lesson is all about helping students bring their essays to a professional finish with properly formatted MLA Works Cited pages. After a brief grammar warm-up, the class will dive into how to list and format their sources using MLA guidelines. Students will learn why acknowledging sources matters and how attention to detail can elevate their writing from good to scholarly. The lesson wraps up with time to apply these skills directly to their essay drafts, reinforcing the idea that proper citation isn’t just a requirement—it’s a mark of academic credibility.
Simple Past Tense Quiz
Start today with a quick grammar refresher! Students will complete the Simple Past Tense Quiz. This quick warm-up reinforces how to correctly write about events that have already happened — an important skill when summarizing evidence or quoting sources in essays. After the quiz, review a few examples as a class to clear up any common mistakes before moving on to today’s main focus.
MLA Works Cited Lesson and Worksheet
Today’s focus is on creating an accurate and properly formatted MLA Works Cited page. Explain that this page is the foundation of academic integrity: it gives full credit to the authors and creators whose ideas students reference in their essays.
Students will learn how to:
Format a Works Cited page with correct margins, spacing, and title placement.
Alphabetize entries by the author’s last name.
Use the hanging indent for each citation.
Identify key details such as author, title, publisher, and date of publication.
You will post the links to the MLA Works Cited Lesson and Worksheet. As a class, review a few sample entries and discuss how small formatting errors (like missing periods or incorrect indentation) can affect the professionalism of their essays.
Encourage students to apply what they’ve learned by starting their own Works Cited pages using the sources from their essays.
In the MLA Citations Note, focus on the works cited only. We will cover in-text citations tomorrow.
Continue Essay Rough Drafts
If time permits, have students continue working on their essay rough drafts. Encourage them to begin gathering their sources at the end of their document, following the MLA guidelines discussed in class. This will make the process of adding in-text citations easier in the next lesson.