What follows is a guide written for students that, I hope, will help them write more effective essays.
Why is this guide useful?
- Even an essay that gains a lowly grade will often be the result of a substantial amount of time and effort from the student; and the chances are that he or she felt all along that their writing was ‘going wrong’ somehow – but press on they must, on to what must at times seem like the bitter end.
- How frustrating and perhaps even belittling this process can be for the student – and how much, too, it likely reduces that student’s chances of enjoying this genuinely inspiring and wonderful subject. This essay writing guide results from many years of teaching essays in a way that I have found seems to make writing them far more enjoyable.
- The ideas initially came from experience of the way American teachers teach essay writing skills.
- The method enables students to start their essays in a way that suggests an individual response, creates authority and impact, and also allows the remaining body paragraphs to flow on logically.
- This helps the student to write essays that are clearly structured and much more interesting both to write and to read. Crucially, it takes away the energy-zapping frustration of wondering what to write about next.
The guide can be used ‘as is’ as a printed hand-out.
What does this guide contain?
- It contains exemplification based on well-known texts that is intended to help students understand the technique by seeing it work in practice. Better still, the guide can be easily adapted to incorporate any suitable…
