Thank you Owlbird83, this really helps!
How do you go about planning essays? And what if there are >3 points/paragraphs?
I'm glad!
I don't think I really had a clear way of planning essays, so I'm not sure if any of this is helpful.
-I made a bunch of lists with evidence/quotes/ideas for each theme
-when I was writing practice essays at the beginning I was flicking a lot through the books and rereading sections while writing them
-creating mindmaps for themes with ideas
-ask your teacher for past essays and write down ideas you like from them
-depends on the essay question, but I often did at least 1 para 'for', 1 'against'
-plan out/ write a range of essays under non-timed conditions. Personally I think it's helpful to write the majority of your practice essays in as much time as you want so when you get to the time pressure you have all these well thought out ideas to fall back on.
-In sacs/exams do minimal planning, just start writing. I kind of just wrote like a couple of words, so I knew my 3 paragraphs or the theme for each.
-Create a fancy overarching sentence that you use at the beginning of every essay you write for that text and modify slightly to the theme.
-know your 'go-to' quotes for certain topics. Probably better to know some good ones you've analysed in the past, or have something to say about than trying to memorise as many quotes as possible.
I never wrote more than 3+ paragraphs so I can't really help you there (I didn't see the point in it because I sometimes found it hard thinking of even 3 solid paragraphs).