When your teacher asks you to write an essay, what is a normal response? “Aww man,” right? Essay writing seems to be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be if taught correctly. Each teacher should have students write daily no matter what subject is taught. Why? The more writing practice a student has, the easier it is for him to write more organized and think quicker.
One way to do this is to have students do a journal writing almost every day for a minimum of 150 words. To a student, this sounds like a lot of words, but when done daily and when the teacher chooses an interesting topic, writing becomes fast and easy. There is no need to grade grammar or spelling; just let the students write. Given this, essay writing becomes easier to write and easier to teach.
Journal Topics
I mentioned journal writing above and one of the most difficult things for students to do is think of a topic to write about. It is even increasingly difficult for teachers to think of journal topics. Remember, as a teacher, you want to try and think of journal topics that nearly every student wants to write about.
Here are a few example journal topics:
1. Where would you like to go that you have never been and why?
2. If someone did harm to you or a loved one, what would you do for revenge?
3. Name 10 things you would like to take on an island real or imaginary and describe why.
Remember, journal writings are for fun and writing practice. Occasionally, have students choose their own topic. Of course, journal writings make essay writing easier.
Writing an Essay
Now that you know some ways of writing practice, we can discuss writing an essay. We need to remember that there are three different types of essay writing. When writing an essay, you appeal to the audience by way of persuasion, informing, or entertaining. It depends on your personality on your writing preference, but I personally believe persuasive writing is easiest because our society is loaded with advertisements and opinions on what we should or should not do. Now, once again, we need to choose a topic. I always make it easy on myself. If a topic is not chosen for me and I am writing an essay for a test, I always choose either why you should not smoke or why you should not drink and drive,
Now, I will mention that while writing an essay, many teachers tell you to write the first sentence as the topic. I strongly disagree. In the first paragraph, give some factual information and then make the last sentence the topic sentence. Why? It is extremely easy to make a transition into the next paragraph and will make your essay flow smoothly.
Writing Essays
One of the main reason students despise writing essays is that the chosen topic is often too boring. These topics usually come after a story that a student was required to read. Writing essays, journals, or any other type of writing is simple if it sparks interest. Educators need to act on the interests of the students and not just be aware of the obvious.
