From Everyday Language to Brilliant Essays

We all want our students to write better essays. As we mark another batch of formulaic efforts, the occasional original essay is a little oasis of enjoyment, a moment to treasure. Few students think creatively about the question; many recite an uninspiring summary of their lectures. Boring essays make for a grim marking season, so I know I am not the only one to have pondered how to encourage students to be more ambitious in their responses. How can we get them to think?

Everyone can write with greater authority, originality, and style. I see three main obstacles to the production of brilliant essays:

1. student anxiety
2. rigid essay formulas
3. unambitious question wording

Some students are anxious when they first encounter questions, asking for help without having a go. They may fall back upon tired old formulas from school – rules about how essays ‘must' go – typically, five-paragraph essays with an introduction, a list of ‘pros', ‘cons', ‘debate', and a conclusion. Perhaps in deference to students' anxieties, some question-setters offer questions that require only basic descriptive skills rather than higher-order analysis and evaluation, thus reinforcing the anxiety to rigidity to weak essays cycle. Here I offer some suggestions for overcoming these obstacles and helping students write brilliantly.

Start with what your students know
A great way to reduce student anxiety about approaching a new essay question is to start with the tools they use to understand everyday speech. For instance, the word ‘still' in ‘Is Tom still enrolled on this course?' implies Tom used to be enrolled, even if he isn't now. ‘Even Sophie thinks this meeting is a waste of time' implies Sophie is a jobsworth. ‘Is your course fun or tedious?' presents a false dichotomy: the course is either fun or tedious, and these options are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. ‘Why are students so lazy?' implies that students are indeed lazy. Any question asking ‘Why, How, What or When X' implies that X is indeed the case, an assumption that may not be uncomplicatedly true.

Once students are confident with the everyday language examples, we start dissecting real essay questions with the same spirit of informed scepticism:

• Is catastrophism still a useful theory of geological change?
• 'Even young people are 'critical citizens' nowadays.' Discuss
• Is it nature or nurture that determines someone's attachment to their primary caregiver?
• Why is energy unlike any other commodity?
• What rights do trees possess?
• How does clientelism damage democracy?

Even before they have started a course and know what their answer to these questions will be, students can begin breaking down questions to find hidden assumptions. It is a good idea to do this exercise at the outset because it helps set expectations, allows students to practice, and reduces the fear that comes from seeing a question for the first time.

Shake off the training wheels
Uncovering assumptions allows for a more creative, flexible response to essays by encouraging students to think afresh rather than apply an essay-writing formula. You can also help your students liberate their essay writing by making them aware of the limitations imposed by formulaic approaches. For instance, a middling-grade essay might identify both sides of the question (‘on the one hand, X; on the other hand, Y') and try to insert some balance by asserting one side, followed by the word ‘however', and then assert the other side. The effect is a seesaw, leaving the reader no idea what the author's position actually is.

Tutors can use everyday examples to help students build their case by adjudicating competing claims. Ask students to imagine that they are arguing with their friends about who is the best president of the student cheese society, Angus or Bea. To convince their friends that Angus is best they mustn't simply list Angus's excellent qualities (‘good at blind-tasting, meticulous about minutes…'). Nor should they simply put a line down the page with Angus's case on one side and Bea's on the other. Instead, they must establish their metric of success and build an authoritative argument by responding to counter-arguments explicitly. Although shaking off the safety of the ‘pro-con' listing procedure can be challenging for the weakest students, it will make essays more enjoyable to write – and read.

Give students room to breathe
To help students get there, tutors need to set questions that allow room for analysis and evaluation, not just description. Credit your students with intelligence by avoiding questions that simply ask students to list pros and cons. Don't spell absolutely everything out. Include concepts that need to be unpacked. Maybe even leave an assumption that students could question in their essays. Do yourself a favour and allow your students room to breathe – you will have a much more enjoyable time marking!
To help students get there, tutors need to set questions that allow room for analysis and evaluation, not just description. Credit your students with intelligence by avoiding questions that simply ask students to list pros and cons. Don't spell absolutely everything out. Include concepts that need to be unpacked. Maybe even leave an assumption that students could question in their essays. Do yourself a favour and allow your students room to breathe – you will have a much more enjoyable time marking!