SKILLS
Essay writing guides
Guides to the fundamentals of essay writing and to all of our key essay writing skills
This section of the site contains a series of guides to our key essay writing skills, from the simplest to the most complex. They are designed to be read in order, but can also be read individually. They have the school year group next to the title to help you know which guides you need to be familiar with (e.g. Y8+ means you only need this from Year 8 onwards at SHSG). Click here to read a brief summary of all the essay writing skills to help you know which guides to read.
How to use an appropriate style for an essay (Y7+)
How to make an argument using the PEA structure (Y7+)
SKILL 1: How to write paragraph points (Y7+)
SKILL 2: How to choose good evidence (Y7+)
SKILL 3: How to figure out the context of your quotations (Y7+)
SKILL 3: How to embed quotations in context-setting sentences (Y7+)
Three key essay writing concepts you need to understand
SKILL 4: How to explain your evidence (Y7+)
How to develop your argument with more evidence and analysis (Y7+)
SKILL 5: How to analyse language, form and structure methods (Y8+)
SKILL 5: What methods to analyse and where to do it (Y8+)
SKILL 5: How to analyse methods in a precise but concise way (Y9+)
SKILL 6: How to write about big ideas (Y8+)
SKILL 6: How to develop your discussion of big ideas with context (Y9+)
SKILL 7: How to create a conceptualised response around a thesis (Y9+)