Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids to work together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important – Bill Gates

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Teachers are the most important tool when it comes to education and educating young minds. Every genius has had humble beginnings wherein he was taught by a teacher.

Teaching is not an easy job. It often requires dealing with unruly children who just won’t listen. Since the pandemic, most schools started their lectures online, and teachers and students alike were forced to interact with each other with the use of technology.

Teachers have had to adapt and change their ways of teaching as the world shut down. They’ve had to learn new techniques and modify them to leverage your teaching. Just like when a person prepares to become a teacher with all the similar efforts, any teacher has to adopt these new changes and techniques as well.

Teaching things online can be more difficult than teaching your students physically in the classroom. You have to find new ways to grab your students’ attention and oftentimes this isn’t easy, especially when it comes to the subjects which students already find boring! 

Take essay writing, for example. How often have your students looked at you bored or in a disinterested manner only because you gave them a writing assignment? Writing can be fun and is a great form of expression. In this article, we’re going to talk about our top 8 essay writing skills, which you can share with your students and make essay writing a fun and easy task.

Top 8 essay writing tips

1). Plan your essay

Essays tell a story. Every piece that’s writing should have a natural flow to their piece, and this extends beyond the basics of introduction, body, and conclusion. When advising students on how to write essays, recommend listing all the points which you would like to make. Every point should have its own individual paragraph. Once you’ve listed the points, sort them out in a logical manner, a manner that makes the most sense. As the essay progresses, a story narrative gets developed, which is interesting to the readers. Also, logically, every paragraph should be a buildup towards the final paragraph.

2). Using clear topic sentences

There’s a clear goal to essay writing when it comes to schools which is to gain marks. Teach your students an effective way of getting maximum results when writing an essay. The first sentence to a paragraph sets a tone. The crux of your article should be explained when the marker reads the first sentence of a paragraph. Ideally, explain your paragraph first and then explain it by building on it by adding examples and explanations which back up your key points and show your knowledge.

3). Be source heavy

This will depend on the kind of essay which you are asking your students to write. If it’s on a topic which your students need to do research on, then focus on the importance of good research. It’s important to base your essay around facts so that your article is reliable. Reading up on your information is also important when it comes to learning or gaining more knowledge. The more you read up on facts, the more you’ll learn.

4). Write the body first, the introduction second, and the conclusion last

Writing an introduction is hard. You’ll have to compile the basic crux of your essay in the introduction part of your essay even before you have the entire essay, which is why we recommend that you focus on the body of the essay first and write an introduction when you have the basic flow of your essay written down. As long as the entire essay makes sense at the end, it doesn’t really matter the way you write it and how you begin. Writing the essay body first is just our suggestion as we believe it to be the most helpful way when it comes to writing essays.

5). Remember the tone and the voice of your essay

Are you expecting your students to write the essay in an active voice or a passive voice? Focusing on the language that you are using is equally important. An essay should be informative and should also connect with your audiences. No matter how great your article is technically, if it doesn’t resonate with your audiences and connects with them, then the marks your students will receive won’t probably be very high.

6). Make use of technology

When teachers are teaching online, it’s best to make use of online tools which make your life easier. When it comes to writing essays, websites such as essay punch can help guide your students when you can’t. They say that practice makes perfect, and on Essay punch, students can spend time practicing their skills and overcome their writers’ block, if any. Teachers are human too, and they can’t reach each and every student no matter how much they want to, and even if they do, this process can be tedious and taxing, which is why teachers must make the use of technology whenever they can to make their lives easier.

7). Create drafts

No writer writes an essay on the first go and doesn’t edit them. Editing is the process of making an essay better. Once a final copy is submitted, no matter how much they may want it back, it’s not possible, so insist on writing rough drafts for your essay first, making edits on that draft, and only when they’re fully confident should the essay be submitted. Oftentimes it may so happen that after writing an essay, the writer may want to delete the whole thing because it doesn’t make sense anymore. Tell your students that it’s okay. The more you write, the better your content will be and even great writers have once scrapped everything they’ve worked on and started fresh to gain better results.

8). Eliminate unnecessary words

Sometimes, writers make the mistake of over-explaining their point. Understanding where short explanations are enough is the key to not boring an examiner. Sometimes smaller words have bigger impacts and moreover, when it comes to essay writing in schools, remember that teachers have to go through several essays at a time of the same subject, making it a boring task and having to read lengthy paragraphs for a basic concept can be frustrating which is why it’s important to tell your students to make their essay as short, informative and creative as possible.

These are just some essay writing tips that we think teachers should know about.

In Conclusion

Ultimately any form of writing is an expression, and even though the topic you give your students might be the same, it can be surprising the way every student writes an essay differently and with a different point of view for you to read. Some of these rules may or may not work when it comes to writing a fictional story, as in fictional stories, the writer relies on his mind’s imagination and then pens down these thoughts in the form of an essay for you to read.