Writing for many students can seem intimidating and confusing. Articulating one thought after another can feel like a near-impossible task let alone knowing how to get started. Writing an essay is an ideal opportunity to showcase their knowledge of a given topic and their ability to explain their ideas to the reader. Your child can significantly improve their confidence, skills, and ultimately their grades by using a system that I have taught thousands of students over the past decade for repeated success regardless of the type of assignment or topic.

Here’s how the 4 step writing process works:

1) Brainstorming: Students often skip this step or are not thorough enough to generate their ideas, remove the ideas they do not want to write about, and confidently choose the 1 or 2 main ideas their essay will focus on. Effective brainstorming can be done in about 5-15 minutes of writing ideas down and deciding what to write about. The two methods I suggest are mind mapping, and making a list on a Google doc. 

2) Outlining: An outline is a great resource for students to be able to take their ideas and plan how they want to approach their essays. It is similar to a table of contents of a book in that it helps the student to plan out each paragraph of an essay. Any important ideas or main points can be included in the outline. This helps students stay organized and focused with their ideas throughout the essay while freeing up their brains to write as they no longer have to remember each key point they want to address.

3) Drafting an essay: This step is where students spend the bulk of their time and effort while writing an essay. The key here is to focus on sentence and paragraph structure. Each sentence should have a purpose while being free of spelling and grammar mistakes. Students can improve their confidence by understanding how to write effective introduction, body, and conclusion paragraphs.

4) Editing: Being the 4th and final step of the writing process, this is crucial for students to take this seriously as it can make the difference between a good and excellent essay, or to think of it as a difference between a grade of a “B” and an “A.” Therefore, students can be more confident with their writing by simply sifting through their essays with a fine-tooth comb to remove any mistakes and make any necessary changes to make their essays as strong as possible.

At the end of the day, writing with confidence can make all the difference for your child. Understanding and using these simple yet effective 4 steps of brainstorming, outlining, drafting an essay, and editing can significantly improve your child’s writing skills, knowledge, and overall confidence as a writer and student.