Essay Writing Master Class: How to structure high school essays
Every essay your teen writes needs to have good structure, regardless of age, subject, and whether it's for an assignment or an exam.
Structure is the life blood of every essay. Without it, the essay dies.
Thankfully, even though essay structure is arguably the most important part of a good essay, it's also the easiest.
All your teen needs to do is follow the essay structure described below for every essay they write, and they will be well on their way to writing an excellent essay every time.
As the ‘Master Class’ title suggests, this is a deep dive. We’re going to go through the TWO PARTS of essay structure in detail. It’s similar to the post linked above but even more detailed. Don’t feel obligated to take it all in at once. This should be an article you keep close and come back to as needed. Okay, here we go…
Essay structure can be broken down into two parts:
Overall Structure
Paragraph Structure
Let's take a look at each one separately.
First, Overall Structure:
Every essay your teen writes needs:
Introduction
Paragraphs (one for each main point of the essay)
Conclusion
There are no exceptions. It doesn't matter what the subject is. An essay is basically a story, and every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Let's look at each element individually using real examples.
The examples in this section are taken from one of my real high school essays (pictured above!). It was a New Zealand history essay, but don’t worry you don’t need to know anything about this, it’s just helpful to use examples from a real essay to explain how essay structure works. The essay question was:
What factors led to a significant decision being made in nineteenth-century New Zealand?
and the decision I wrote about was that made by many Māori Chiefs to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) in 1840. (More on this here if you're interested.) I wrote this essay in my last year of high school, so don't worry if it seems above the level your teen is currently at as the points about structure are relevant to any age group.
Introduction
The job of the introduction is to identify the main topic/focus of the essay and to introduce what each main point (or each argument) of the essay is going to be about. The introduction of a high school essay might only need to be a few sentences, especially in an exam. Here’s the example intro from my essay:
The decision by many Māori chiefs to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 was a very historical decision because it formalised the relationship between Māori and Pakeha. The Treaty had many consequences which overall involved the marginalisation of Maori.
Yup, just two short sentences. I wrote this essay in an exam so was under the pump time-wise. Looking at it now I should have also mentioned what each of the consequences that I go on to discuss in the essay were, to signpost what each paragraph was going to be about (each paragraph = different consequence). But I still got a top grade for this essay so it goes to show that an essay doesn't need to be perfect to get a good grade, particularly in an exam.
Paragraphs
The paragraphs of an essay are where you make the main points of an essay. Importantly, every main point or argument of an essay needs its own paragraph, and the paragraphs should be written in an order that is logical.
In my example essay my paragraphs covered the following points:
The historical context of the decision made by many Māori chiefs to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi (one paragraph for this)
Each factor that contributed to this decision (one factor per paragraph)
An evaluation of the consequences of this decision (one consequence per paragraph)
Let's have a look at a couple of example paragraphs:
Many factors contributed to Māori Chiefs signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi, one of which was Māori concern for British lawlessness in New Zealand. Actions of lawlessness and problems related to alcohol, including Pakeha's increasing lack of respect for Māori, led to some Māori, Busby, and missionaries asking for the protection of Britain to look after its own people.
Furthermore, many Māori Chiefs signed the Treaty for the opportunities they thought it would bring. Māori who had engaged in trade with Pakeha were keen to continue the arrival of benefits they received from trade such as tool materials and food, like pigs and potatoes. Simmons notes that Māori intermediaries liked what they saw overseas, outside New Zealand, and wanted to bring such opportunities to New Zealand. Edward Wakefield, however, recorded that he knew of two Māori Chiefs, Te Aratia and Turoa, who signed the Treaty out of a misunderstanding.
You can see how these two paragraphs each address a different point. They also directly address one part (the decision contributors part) of the specific essay question.
Conclusion
The job of an essay conclusion is to summarise the main points / ideas / arguments in the essay and link them back to the overall topic / purpose / focus of the essay. Similarly to the introduction of a high school essay, the conclusion does not need to be long — a few sentences should do, but it is important. Here's the conclusion from our example essay:
Overall, the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi by many Māori chiefs was a very significant decision because, as a result of different factors, it drew Britain into New Zealand completely. Due to the different versions of the Treaty, it had many consequences involving issues of land and law, and the overall marginalisation of Māori.
Very simple and short (remember this essay was written in an exam under time pressure), but this conclusion at least summarises the main points by stating that the decision drew Britain into New Zealand completely and had many consequences that ultimately led to the overall marginalistion of Māori.
In a perfect world this conclusion should have mentioned what those 'factors' and 'consequences' were again, but I expect the time pressure of the exam meant that this didn't happen! Remember, perfection is not required for a good grade, but good structure is.
Next up, Paragraph Structure
We have covered Overall Structure, but each paragraph needs its own internal structure as well.
If there's one mnemonic I want your teen to remember and use while they're at high school it's this: S.E.X.I. This incredibly simple but highly memorable mnemonic will ensure that every paragraph your teen writes follows an easy-to-read structure. Let's take a look at each component of S.E.X.I.
S: Statement (sometimes called a Topic Sentence)
The first sentence of each paragraph should tell the reader what the paragraph is going to be about. From the first example paragraph above in the ‘Paragraphs’ section the Statement is:
Many factors contributed to Māori chiefs signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi, one of which was Māori concern for British lawlessness in New Zealand.
This simple sentence achieves two things; it tells the reader that the paragraph is going to discuss how Māori concern for British lawlessness was one of the factors that contributed to Māori Chiefs signing the Treaty, and it addresses directly the essay question (What factors led to a significant decision being made in nineteenth-century New Zealand?). Remember, there’s no point writing a brilliant essay if it doesn’t answer the essay question asked.
E: Explanation
After the opening Statement, the rest of a paragraph is the explanation of the Statement. Your teen has to explain, or put another way, justify, whatever it is they have said in the Statement by way of explanation and argument. The example paragraphs above show how after the opening Statement, the rest of the paragraph is about explaining that point, interspersed with the last two letters of S.E.X.I (more on these in a sec). For a high school essay, the Explanation will probably be somewhere between 3-6 sentences, depending on year level and whether the essay is for an assignment or written in an exam (this will likely affect the word count of the essay, with exam essays generally being shorter).
X: Example
You can also see in the example paragraphs above that they include examples such as "food, like pigs and potatoes" and "two Māori Chiefs, Te Aratia and Turoa". Examples, whether in the form of facts, quotes, statistics or names give authority and justification to what is being said in the paragraph. Examples are really important because without them the reader has no reason to trust or agree with what you're saying. A good essay is persuasive in its arguments, and you can’t be persuasive without facts and figures and really knowing your stuff.
I: Importance
This part of an essay's paragraph structure is not as black and white to explain (so bear with me please), but it's what takes an essay from yeah this essay is pretty good — to — WOW this kid REALLY understands the topic and clearly deserves an A!
Covering off the ‘I’ of S.E.X.I. requires going beyond regurgitating what you have studied; it requires the student to demonstrate that they have a comprehensive understanding of the essay topic. This can be shown by doing things like drawing links between paragraphs and commenting on the significance of the points made.
Here's a couple of sentences from my example essay that would have contributed to my excellent grade:
Overall, the Kingitanga created distinct areas of Māori and Pakeha control. Neither Pakeha nor the government approved.
The Crown had the right of preemption to land, meaning the Crown could purchase Māori land cheaply and then sell it to settlers for a profit. This shook Māori confidence even more.
Hopefully you can see from these sentences that they go beyond the regurgitation of “this happened and then this happened”. They demonstrate a deeper understanding of the topic, and go beyond the minimum of what the essay question requires.
How this all works together
Well done, that was a lot to absorb! Let’s cap off with a look at how Overall Structure and Paragraph Structure work together:
Even though perhaps initially this is quite a lot of information to soak in, I hope that with practice your teen will get so used to writing essays with Overall Structure AND Paragraph Structure that they won’t even realise they’re doing it.
Your teen's task now is to put this simple formula for bullet proof essay structure to use for themselves EVERY TIME they write an essay. Essay writing isn't necessarily an easy skill to master, but using this formula makes structuring an essay easy. Whew — one less thing to worry about!
Thanks for reading and best of luck to your teen with their essays.
Clare
