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March 29, 2024, 09:27:14 am

Author Topic: Having trouble coming up with an essay on the spot  (Read 1498 times)  Share 

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miyukiaura

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Having trouble coming up with an essay on the spot
« on: February 27, 2021, 02:34:15 pm »
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Hey guys,
I have a text response SAC coming up and I'm struggling to plan and write an essay within 1 hour on the spot, especially if it's an unseen prompt. I can do fine if I actually plan it thoroughly but when it comes to doing it in test conditions it's a challenge. How can I reduce the time I spend planning at the start and come up with points/evidence in a SAC situation?
Thanks for the help :)
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Owlbird83

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Re: Having trouble coming up with an essay on the spot
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2021, 02:56:05 pm »
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Hi miyukiaura,

I think this could be a bit controversial because a lot of people say not to pre-plan essays because essay topics are all 'unique', but I think so long as you are flexible and modify them to fit the prompt it's a way of surviving. In found it helpful for me, who couldn't think up things on the spot.

It's easier to show than explain:
eg. what I did

Basically write down all the possible themes that essay topics could revolve around, then plan 3 ideas of possible themes/topic sentences for body paragraphs. I colour-coded paragraphs that were similar that I could kind of squish into multiple themes of essays. Again, you still have be flexible enough to make sure you are answering the essay topic, but if you've written enough practice essays on a range of topics you can kind of take paragraphs (or parts of them) and fit them into similar essays. Also you can add quotes/evidence you want to discuss in the table too.

Hope this helps!
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miyukiaura

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Re: Having trouble coming up with an essay on the spot
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2021, 03:21:55 pm »
+2
Thank you Owlbird83, this really helps!
How do you go about planning essays? And what if there are >3 points/paragraphs?
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Owlbird83

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Re: Having trouble coming up with an essay on the spot
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2021, 09:35:13 am »
+2
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).
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TSEtuition

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Re: Having trouble coming up with an essay on the spot
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2021, 09:56:35 am »
+2
Hey guys,
I have a text response SAC coming up and I'm struggling to plan and write an essay within 1 hour on the spot, especially if it's an unseen prompt. I can do fine if I actually plan it thoroughly but when it comes to doing it in test conditions it's a challenge. How can I reduce the time I spend planning at the start and come up with points/evidence in a SAC situation?
Thanks for the help :)


Hi miyukiaura,

I think Owlbird83 has some really good points here! Our recommendations to students is to actually plan for as many prompts as you possibly can (across a wide range of themes) so that you're not taken by surprise by the prompt on the day. In a perfect world with unlimited time of course you should write a million practice essays, but in reality we find that students often don't have that kind of time or energy. I've got a video about how we teach planning here: https://youtu.be/q3OgXVU19mw

The key is to a good plan is making sure all your body paragraphs (however many you're writing - personally I think 3 is the perfect number given the time constraints) is made of a big idea, and that all your big ideas (ie body paragraphs) come together to form a contention. When our students learn to plan, it usually takes about 45mins to form a complete plan, and then towards exam time, we can usually get that down to about 15mins. So you can see that in 90mins of revision, you can actually write about 5-ish plans. If you do 3 sessions of 90min revision in a week, that's about 15-ish plans you're writing. Hopefully, if you have a few weeks of this, you'll be prepared for any prompt they throw at you in the exam.

Hope that helps! :)
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