Is your teenager spending too long on essay plans?

Yes, yes they are …

I like essay plans,

Don’t get me wrong.

Maybe I don’t like them quite as much as writing full essays with your notes in front of you,

Getting feedback from your teacher,

And then improving on the feedback,

So that we actually become better at the skill of essay writing itself,

But essay plans still have a place.

The problem I have with essay plans is that students seem to spend a lot of time perfecting them,

And in my opinion,

Don’t really understand why they are doing them in the first place.

So I am going to outline the two reasons to do an essay plan as part of your revision,

And then explain how I would approach them – which will save your teenager hours in the process.

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The purpose of essay plans

If you really boil it down,

There are two reasons to write an essay plan.

1) Memorisation

By spending time picking which bits of information go into an essay,

And deciding which pieces of evidence would match up with each point,

Students believe that they are ‘memorising.’

Are they are,

Sort of.

It’s just inefficient.

2) Acclimatising to the exam

We obviously do not want to be surprised or confused when we open the real exam.

Therefore, essay plans enable a student to really get to grips with how to structure all the different types of essays,

And gets them thinking ahead as to what points they will apply to each question,

Saving them time on exam day.

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The problem with both of these points is not that they are bad things to do,

It’s that they take so long in the context of an essay plan.

A lot of students think they are revising when in reality 10 minutes of an essay plan may constitute revision,

The rest of it is akin to coloring in.

It’s fairly mindless filling in the gaps.

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So how do you get the same reward quicker?

Let’s start off with memorisation.

Most student’s memorisation consists of writing flash cards on the content of the textbook,

And then sporadically and seldomly going over them and asking mum or dad to test them.

My challenge to any student would be,

Let’s memorise connected pieces of information in an essay context.

For example,

Rather than just having disparate pieces of information on your flash cards.

E.G Hyperinflation in 1923 Germany saw one US dollar equal 4,210,500,000,000 marks

We want to have connected pieces of information that would lead to a paragraph in an essay.

E.G Germany’s economic crisis of the 1920s led to the rise of the Nazi party which therefore makes it a key long-term factor which led to the start of WW2. In 1923 one US dollar equalled 4,210,500,000,000 marks.

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In terms of acclimatising to the exam I absolutely think you should be going over essay plans,

But instead of meticulously filling them out,

You want to get to the stage where you have 10-word essay plans of just the points that you are going to make.

And then your memorisation practice is about remembering which pieces of information connect with each point.

I want students to go through all the essay plans,

But super quickly and regularly.

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It may sound easier said than done,

But what you want to aim for,

Is all of your points,

To be intrinsically connected to a piece of evidence in your brain.

Especially in subjects like English and History where you don’t typically have short answer questions,

Pieces of information on their own are pointless,

Unless they are combined with a point.

Rather than trying to come up with this connection in the exam,

Let’s do it before hand.

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I hope you all have a great week ahead,

Best wishes,

Joel