It’s the moment every parent dreads: when your child sits there, glum-faced, considering a blank piece of paper facing them. They have a rapidly-approaching deadline for their essay, and nothing, but nothing you do as a parent seems to help them get any nearer to completion. What can you do to help? The clear answer is: quite a lot.
Producing a successful essay can be one of the very arduous areas of the schooling process, and yet, the necessity to write an essay is everywhere: from English literature, to economics, to physics, geography, classical studies, music, and history. To succeed, at senior school and in tertiary study you must master essay writing.
Getting students over this barrier was one of many reasons I put pen to paper four years ago and produced a book called Write That Essay! At that stage, I was a senior academic at Auckland University and a university examiner. For pretty much 20 years, in both course work and examinations, I’d counselled everyone from 17-year-old ‘newbies’ to 40-year-old career changers using their essay writing. Often, the difference between a student who might achieve a B-Grade and the A-Grade student was some well-placed advice and direction.
I then visited over 50 New Zealand High Schools and spoke with over 8000 kiwi kids about essay writing. These students reported the identical challenges as I’d previously encountered, and more. The result has been two books and a DVD that have helped kids achieve some of the potential that sits inside all of us.
In this informative article I am going to cope with some things you are able to do as a parent to help your child succeed at essay writing. Because writing great essays is well within every child’s grasp.
Techniques for essay writing success:
It’s a disagreement
Remember an essay is a disagreement best essay writing service the duty in an essay isn’t to create a story or to recount a plot. The teacher knows this information. In an essay your child’s job is to present a compelling argument-using specific evidence-for the purpose they want to make.
Write a plan: you’ll be pleased that you did
Get your child to create a quick list-plan of the topics that their essay needs to cover. Even a quick plan is better than no plan at all, and will quickly supply the writer a feeling that completing an essay on that topic is well of their grasp.
If your child is an aesthetic learner, move away from the desk and visit a neutral space. Grab a sizable sheet of blank A3 paper and some coloured pens, and brainstorm a mind map or sketch plan of what the essay should contain. Using pictures, lines, circles, and arrows will all help the visual learner grasp the duty available and help them see what they’ve to do.
Getting Started
Difficult many kids (and adults) face writing essays is getting started. The individual sits there looking forward to inspiration going to them like a lightening bolt and it never happens. What can you as a parent do to help?
Encourage them with thinking that great essays are never written the very first time over. Get them to view essay writing as a three-part process. The first draft is just to get out the ideas and words in rough form. In the 2nd and third effort, they will add with their essay where you will find blanks, clarify ideas, and give it a final polish. Realising an essay isn’t allowed to be perfect the very first time you write it, really helps some people.
Having enough to express
If your child continues to be stuck, discover if they’ve read up enough on the topic. Some inertia with writing can be as a result of lack of knowledge. They will find writing so easier if they spend a later date or two reading more on the topic and gleaning some additional ideas.
Try utilizing a neutral sentence
Suggest starting the essay with a neutral sentence: a sentence that merely states an appealing fact on the topic being written about. Here’s one: ‘Mozart was among the most important Austrian composers of the eighteenth century.’ First sentences in essays don’t have to be stellar – you simply need to start!