Years 10-12 study and essay skills. The smart way to prepare for your HSC.

This two-day Essay Writing course focuses on the essay form and related critical thinking, language and punctuation skills for students in Years 10 - 12. The course is relevant to a range of subjects that require the writing of essays for assignments and exams.

We will study how to structure essays, organise ideas and information, and write in appropriate language for assignments and exam essays. There will be an analysis of the essay form and the need for an organised, logical argument with evidence and analytic discussion of the evidence. This will include a focus on appropriate language, rhetoric and punctuation as well as study of the nature of a formal voice, appropriate educated vocabulary for different courses, and the range from a formal to a more conversational voice. Sophisticated punctuation is introduced as a mode of complex thinking. The sections on the body of the essay focus on critical thinking and argument as a combination of a sequence of ideas, evidence and extended analytic comment about evidence.

This will be followed by an overview of the traditional structure of introduction, body and conclusion. The course then provides an introduction to critical thinking and argument in relation to Bloom’s taxonomy and syllabus outcomes and questions and marking guidelines for examinations in New South Wales.

There will be detailed teacher presentation and student discussion and practice writing the introduction, body and conclusion of an essay on a topic of their own choice. Your writing wil