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You’d think that at school, a student would learn to write a decent English literature essay, wouldn’t you?

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And you’d be right … to an extent.

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Good teachers supply their students with plenty of generic paragraph building formulas, for example, these mnemonics:

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PEAS – Point, evidence, analysis and so what (i.e. why your idea is important for the reader to understand)

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PEAL – Point, evidence, analysis and link to the next paragraph, or link back to the essay question

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PETAL – Point, evidence, technique, analysis and link back to the essay question

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Further up the school, formulas are provided to help students structure certain types of essay. For example, the humble hamburger helps students to write essays that compare poems.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zwh6xsg/revision/2

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These formulas aid teaching, and learning. Teachers use them to model their own example paragraphs and essays. They are also helpful as an assessment tool, as students can check they’ve included all of the ingredients.

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BUT, there are several issues with them:
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1. They are restrictive. There are times when it is appropriate to include two quotations in a paragraph, for example, or when it would serve the student to go into a bit more detail about one poem before they talk about another. Formulas have been known to restrict the most able students and stop them from writing inventively.
2. They are generic. These are guides for writing paragraphs and essays ‘per se’. They do not teach how to write essays about a specific text. Some students are able to apply formulas to the novel or play in question, but others struggle.
3. They are not enough. These tools start students on their essay writing journey, but they don’t help them to finish it. Even if a child manages to use them to structure their ideas, a vital element is missing: feedback. Especially in the early stages of essay writing, regular, timely feedback is essential to help students to shape their essays and to know which direction to go. Typically, in large classes, feedback is brief and delayed by at least a week due to teacher workload.

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For all the above reasons, I’ve decided to create a new course: ‘Master English literature essays.’

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Schools are very good at teaching the content of texts, but as we’ve seen, are not able to offer personalised, specific help with writing text-specific essays. This is where I come in.

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Every six weeks, my course focuses on a particular GCSE set text. Examples are An Inspector Calls, Macbeth, A Christmas Carol and Romeo and Juliet.

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On the course, I teach how I would structure essays about the chosen text. When coming up with essay questions, I use questions that regularly come up in the GCSE AQA or Edexcel exam papers as my inspiration, so your child will be familiar with the typical question format and will know what to expect when they reach their GCSE exam.

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I do not provide a formula and then leave my students to figure out the rest on their own, but hold their hand every step of the way, providing timely feedback at each stage of their draft.

As a small group, we will look at how exemplar essays are constructed, and I encourage students to focus on useful phrases from essays which they can use to generate their own ideas. Activities are also provided which help students to memorize key quotations. In this way, revision of key texts and quotations is not left entirely up to the student. It is built into my course.
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By the end of the course, students will have had the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of an English text, so that can write confidently and critically about characterisation, language structure and themes. They will have committed to memory quotations that they can use flexibly in their writing, and they will have mastered a range of essay types in response to common GCSE English exam questions.
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Learning how to write essays is a vital skill that will improve your child’s GCSE English grade but will also serve them during A levels and beyond. It really is the key to GCSE English literature success.

If you’d like to help your child to write confident, critical and perceptive English essays, just sign up to my GCSE English literature newsletter, to receive regular free advice and resources in your inbox.

Sign up here: https://verity-bell-english-educator.ck.page/bb5616d542​

​P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help your child to succeed in their English GCSEs.

1. Book a free customised learning session

Thinking about working with a fully qualified, experienced teacher, who can help your child to map out a path to success in their English GCSEs?

BOOK YOUR 20 MINUTE CUSTOMISED LEARNING SESSION​HERE​​

2. Sign up for your child to work with me closely in my 6 week ‘Master English Essays’ programme. The course will start in January.

If you’d like your child to work directly with me to improve their English literature essay writing skills and to receive plenty of personalized feedback along the way, to help them to transform their predicted grades, just hit reply and send me the message ‘Master Essay essays now’. ​This is for child if they:

• Are not getting the feedback they need on their English work.
• Need step-by-step help in structuring their essays.
• Are serious and motivated to do extra work every week to get them the grades that you know they can achieve.

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