Writing essays falls at the core
of many of our subjects and for our high achieving students they are often able
to write page after page of things that are written fluently, are on topic and
relevant to the overall subject at hand but are equally just as often vague and
not cohesive at establishing a point of view or an argument. They struggle to identify the reason for
their writing.
Writing an essay is a lot like a
jigsaw puzzle: you start with the bigger picture and start to build from
nothing towards it. The other reason
that I chose this analogy is because there is truly no right or wrong way to
approach it – you may be a ‘corners then edges person’ who likes to pin the
idea down and then fill in the middle, or you may be someone who drifts from clump
to clump as they find pieces that fit together and then pull them altogether
later. Whichever, the point is that eventually
it works. Yet our students still find it
difficult to build confidence into their essays without a clear and precise
framework that gives them the ‘right answer’ every time and therein lays the
problem. Writing isn’t a ‘right every
time process’, it’s one of fluidity, of mistakes and corrections, of drawing
the reader in with ideas and challenges to pre-conceptions.
Planning essays is essential and
it is often a determining factor for students who continuously sit comfortably
on grade boundaries as to which grade they will actually achieve. The current move to a ‘Drafting and Editing’
process as school policy should support students in the long run but, perhaps,
we still need to provide a consistent and coherent structure for students to
apply across subjects rather than continuing with departmental variations.
Planning can fall into different
stages and I encourage students to begin with a basic, immediate mind-mapping
of ideas and initial responses before moving on to planning a ‘deeper thought’ map
of quotes, topic sentences and paragraph overviews.
Planning:
What comes first: the chicken or
the egg? Or, in this case, the planning
or the use of modelled answers? One
technique that I have used this year is backwards planning through the use of a
modelled answer and thereby looking at both at the same time. This allowed students to consider the impact
of assessment objectives on their writing as well as explore the possibilities
of order and structuring an argument.
Planning is obviously an
essential step and the trap that many students fall into is that when planning
the ideas that they will write about they often fail to consider the order in
which to present those ideas and how to link them to strengthen their writing
and raise the construction of their argument – this is often the result of bad
mind-mapping or an incomplete use of a spider diagram. One way that I have worked with students to
combat this is in the editing stages when they can cut their first draft into
the component paragraphs and move them around more freely to explore the
possibilities of order.
Options for planning are varied
and I have always encouraged students to explore a wide variety of methods to
allow them to develop their own way forward.
These might include mind-maps, simple tables of comparisons, spider
diagrams, planning trees, PEACE grids, Post-Its and string, numbered lists or
any number of other activities that encourage them to draw their thoughts
together in a logical and cohesive way.
Scaffolding and Modelled Answers
 |
| A rigid writing frame can support weaker students consider language if it acts as a spring board to another piece or writing |
Writing frames are more often
used to support weaker students, but by having students develop their own
writing frames through discussion and group work can not only more fully
prepare the weaker students by allowing them to be familiar with the frame
prior to writing but can stretch and challenge the more able students as they
develop a framework that can be used by all and consolidate their ideas.
Modelled Answers
Many of us will rely on pre-prepared
modelled answers in our lessons, whether provided by exam boards or written by
ourselves, and they allow students to apply assessment objectives and identify
areas of success or weakness in their own writing as well as potentially
‘magpie’ ideas that they can use as springboards for their own writing.
 |
| Frames used to develop and plan for speeches |
Additionally, in the last year I
have begun to write modelled answers as my students are attempting to write
theirs. This allows them to see the
process first hand, to show them that we all make mistakes first time around as
well as allowing them to question my ideas and choices made. Something that I hadn’t expected was the
depth of the conversation that this triggered with one class and the interest
shown by another in creating more specific word banks generated by my
answer.
Introductions, Topic
Sentences and Conclusions
The introduction should offer a
form of conclusion from the start to identify to the reader what they are about
to read and what the train of the argument will be. The simplest way for this is for students to
use the command and key words within their opening statement to form a
conclusion. One tip I learnt myself at
university and often discuss with older students is to write their first
sentence and to immediately write
the second without stopping and what they will most probably find is that the
latter is a clearer distillation of their ideas and argument.
In English, we often encourage
students to avoid a conclusion as they are usually unnecessary but they can
also be the ideal point for students to offer a personal opinion, evaluation or
reflection.
Final Thoughts
In most schools, essays are
obviously and more generally seen as the ‘remit’ of the English department but
Didau suggests that the various departments take ownership for specific forms
of extended writing that they need their students to respond in: Science and Technology for example could
stand as the ‘Houses of Inquiry’ or mastering concise instructions, Maths for
selecting key details from comprehension questions and so on. Could each
department become an expert in their form of writing, showing a wider and more
unified whole school literacy that would eventually lead to greater resilience,
independence and depth of application in our students? Are we in a situation where we can
collaborate to develop whole school writing frames beyond the restrictions of
subjects to provide students with?
Possible teaching activities:
- Paired planning and essay writing
- Upgrading a weak essay to a higher answer
- Timed focuses – e.g. 4mins to write a killer introduction, marking for academic language, etc.
- Drafting, re-drafting and not accepting until A*
- Planning via ‘Consequences’
- Backwards planning – here is a finished essay, write me the plan
- Taking all topic sentences out and putting them together to create a précis – does this work?
- Write the essay on the white board as the students do
Bibliography:
Ashman, S. & Crème P. (2002) How to Write Essays – A
Guide for Students, University of North London Press
Cottrel, S. (2011) Critical Thinking Skills, Palgrave Macmillan
Diadau, D. (2014) The Secret of Literacy: Making the
implicit, explicit, Crown House Publishing
Greetham, B.(2013) How to Write Better Essays, Palgrave
Macmillan
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