Your teen needs to step up to the mark because school is getting harder.
High school education continues to move away from tests with one word answers and towards students having to come up with paragraph or even full essay answers. And there’s a good reason for this.
The internet has become so widespread and so accessible, that having a library of singular facts stored in your head is no longer helpful. The average cell phone can now access Google or Wikipedia anywhere. Type in your question and boom, there’s your answer.
Essays require more than just a memorization of facts. They require students to have an understanding of what they’re talking about. They also require students to know how to express themselves clearly and concisely in writing.
Being able to communicate well is an absolute must in the real world. It’s also necessary in all subject courses at university, and definitely in any professional capacity.
Essay writing is definitely a learnable skill, but not necessarily a straight forward one for a lot of students.
Because we want your teen to master essay writing as much as they can during their time at high school, here are 5 tips that will significantly increase your teen’s essay marks.
1. Every essay must have a proper structure
An essay must be broken into paragraphs to make it readable. It’s horrible reading a full page of solid text. Breaking down an essay into different sections is what allows it to flow in a logical manner.
At high school all essays should follow a simple formula. Your teen needs to learn this formula off by heart!
Introduction: Tell ’em what you’re gonna tell ‘em. Introduce the topic and briefly outline the points you’re going to make in your essay in the order you’re going to write about them. If the essay is meant to argue a point, your teen should make it clear in the introduction what their argument/point of view is.
Body Paragraphs: Tell ‘em. At high school an essay will usually have 3-5 paragraphs. Each paragraph contains its own main point that contributes to the overall theme or argument of the essay. (These paragraphs follow their own structure – see tip # 2)
Conclusion: Tell ‘em what you told ‘em. Sum up what the essay was about.
2. Each body paragraph must have a proper structure
Not only does the essay as a whole need structure, each paragraph needs to meet certain requirements.
S = Statement: This is the main point of the paragraph. What part of the film is being discussed and what did it mean to the film? What was important about an historical event and how did it affect later events? Basically, what’s the point you’re about to discuss in this paragraph.
E = Explanation: Explain what you said in your statement. Tell the reader why your statement is true. Why did the setting reflect how the main character was feeling? In what way did the weather affect the outcome of the battle? This part should make up the bulk of the paragraph.
X = eXample Give an example! A quote, an example, a fact. Something concrete that gives evidence to your statement.
I = Importance Why is the point you’ve made in this paragraph important? What does it mean to the story, or the film, or the event? Tell the reader why it matters. This one might not always be applicable, but if you can then go for it.
3. Every essay needs an essay plan
You wouldn’t go on a road trip without a map and essays are just the same.
Before your teen starts writing an essay they should make a quick plan of what they’re going to write about.
An essay plan does not have to be a big thing. Not at all. It only takes a few minutes but will save your teen SO much time overall.
Essay plans instantly give an essay structure, they prevent you from forgetting to include any important points, and they prevent you from losing your way as you write.
An essay plan can be quickly scribbled in a margin, or the first page of an exam book that isn’t marked.
Here is an example of the way I would do an essay plan before I started writing. (It’s for the film The Matrix…)
Each of the three ‘fingers’ coming off each paragraph make up ‘SEXI’. I haven’t done the ‘I’ part, but within each paragraph I would try and emphasize why this point was important to the setting of the film.
Every time your teen writes an essay, whether it’s just for practice or in an exam, they need to jot down the points that are going to fill their ‘SEXI’ for each paragraph. The detail that they list here means they don’t have to worry about forgetting anything important while they’re writing.
4. Revise and Edit
This depends on what situation the essay is being written in.
If it’s being written for homework and your teen doesn’t have the time pressure of an exam, it can be a good idea to go and do something else for a while once they’ve finished writing. You know when you come back to look at something you’ve written and you see all the little mistakes you didn’t notice before? This is why.
Your teen should check that the paragraphs are written in a logical order. Simply put – does the essay make sense? Does each paragraph follows SEXI? Get them to read their essay aloud (or in their head) so they can see how it flows (or doesn’t as it may be).
If the essay is being written in an exam your teen won’t have the luxury of time. So the number one rule here is: stay until the end! While it may seem like eternity to a high school student, exams aren’t actually that long. And a few minutes of proof reading can often make the difference between one grade and another. It’s worth staying right to the end.
5. Practice makes perfect
Writing essays can be practiced! Many students go through a whole year at school and only do one or two practice essays (that they were forced to do). They may know the subject backwards, but if they don’t know how to write a good essay then they’re screwed.
Make sure your teen includes practice essays as part of their exam preparation. Getting a hold of past exams and using them to practice is a great idea. If you can then have a read of their work yourself that’s fantastic. They might need an adult eye to pick up something that’s not quite right.
Even better, get your teen to ask their teacher to mark it. Most teachers would love an interested student to ask them to mark a practice essay!
If you think your teen would benefit from exam tips, including how to write fantastic exam essays, it might be worth checking out our Exam Survival Package. You can read what other parents have said about it here.
Image Credit: Stuartpilbrow on Flickr
Lisa Marie Mary says
This is a great article! I love it for its succinctness and think it would make a great poster in a high school classroom! I forwarded it to all three of my kids!
rachel says
i looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooved this article!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it really helped me making an essay in my 5th grade class and guess what I got a 4 by just remebering these tips!
The Study Gurus says
Thanks so much for your feedback Lisa!
The whole idea of this article is to get students to realize there’s a formula to essay writing they can apply every time.
In a classroom is a great idea! We’ll definitely be getting in touch with teachers we know about that one.
Tash says
I have to agree with Lisa – this is a great summary of how to write an essay. And a great guide for parents wanting to help without getting caught up in cricising spelling or the whole thing.
In an exam, I also jotted down the relevant points I could think of, added a relevant example/quote/fact then sorted into order for the essay. It really was effective in clarifying what to write when you can’t cut and paste your work! And saved a lot of time as I had lots of time for writing rather than getting the ideas tumbling over each other.
sania benazza says
hello!could you please display some model essays as revision purpose for ‘A’ level???
Jacob says
Hi im taking a state test tomorrow and im having trouble with writing essays i hope this article will help.
energy star says
cool i also agree lisa
Smidge says
Really useful and clearly explained, thank you. I will forward to my thirteen year old.
Clare says
Thanks Smidge – I hope they find it useful!
gb patel says
That’s Clare for your valuable comments
salma says
i am a teen therteen year old teen and we do essys alot in school and your stuff helped me alot
THANKS!!!!!!!
Clare says
Thank you Salma! That’s fantastic, but it’s you doing the work and studying hard, so good for you! Best of luck with your study this year 🙂
Kc says
I am a 13yr old in yr8 and were doing essays in English at the moment on the book ‘Tomorrow When The War Began’.
this helped a lot with my essay writing 🙂
I am going to recommend this website to people I know who are having trouble with writing essays
THANK YOU 🙂
Clare says
Thank you KC that’s fantastic you’re finding our tips useful, but you’re the one who is putting them to use so well done you!! I loved the Tomorrow When the War Began series, I hope you’re enjoying the books too! Keep up the good work – awesome stuff! 🙂
Kc says
PS:
Love the SEXI structure 😉
aha 🙂 ;o
Kash says
Wow! really this one is very useful
lenjiaboon says
Tmr going to be my n level English examm…gonna use this steps to use for my argumentative essay. .hope it help:)
stevejonson says
A brilliant and informative article. I really appreciate your effort in writing this.
Jonathan Oliver says
Its really outstanding essay writing tips i am very helpful from your post. Thanks for the share,
Nithin says
Good article … SEXI
Simon Brown says
Writing an essay is not an easy affair for everyone. It needs creativity, mind power and innovative ideas. An experienced essay writer can provide you better and energetic essay writing. Make a pre-plan before writing essays with quality wording, extensive research with detailed subject knowledge for which your essays will be more prominent.
rachel says
I loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooved this it really helped me realize what an essay is all about and i got a 4 on writing my essay so thanks!
Clare says
Well done Rachel that’s fantastic!! Go you!!
Israel Ryan says
This really helped.
sander says
this is really helpful im gonna take the ela state test tomorrow my english teacher tells us tip but never really help us in writing
Paty Valdez says
Hi there!
You have saved me with this info! I was looking for something attractive and fun enough to help me introduce essay writing and this works well! Thank you!
Shasha says
Thank you for this article. Its very useful to me.
how to write an impressive essay says
Exactly, the 5 most important must do’s to have an brilliant essay. Memorising these stes[ps, never will have failure in essay writing.
Hldh says
omg tysm for this!
Best Essays says
The post is written in very a good manner and it entails many useful information for me.
ife says
Please send me the blog on ” How to write a great essay” ;or if you have some websites that are informative that can help my child with his writing and on how to get a good grade on writting his essays will be appreciated. Thank you
The Study Gurus says
Hi there, we hope that this article has given a few simple tips on how your son should do about writing a good essay. You can check out all of our posts on essay writing here.
Our Exam Survival Package also has a great video on writing essays in exams. Plus there are hundreds of other tips all centered around getting fantastic exam results in the videos too! Check it out here.
Erin says
This is a great resource – very informative and accessible! A small grammar gripe – you misuse practice (noun)/practise (verb) throughout and the title doesn’t need an apostrophe. Writing essays should be practised!
Erin says
Actually, the apostrophe is okay. Thank you for this outline.
Clare says
Hi Erin, thanks for your comments! Yes thank you for pointing out the practice/practise error. This article is a few years old now and I’ve since been schooled on the difference between the two, but I don’t believe they distinguish between the two in the US, so someone is always going to think that I am wrong 🙂
rachel says
i loved it!