Essay Writing Master Class: How to structure high school essays
A very deep dive into essay structure.
Hi there,
If you’re after the nitty gritty on how to go about writing a high school essay you have come to the right place.
It is imperative that every essay your teen writes for an assignment or in an exam has good structure, regardless of age or subject.
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 in one sense 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. It’s similar to the post linked above which I wrote some years ago, but even more detailed. This is not a read once and forget article. The intention is that your teen comes back to this article as many times as they need until it clicks. 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.
1. 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 that I wrote in an exam (pictured above!). It was a New Zealand history essay, but you don’t need to know anything about the content, 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?
The decision I wrote about was that made by some Māori Chiefs to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi (New Zealand’s 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 when you are under time pressure.
Here is the Introduction from my real 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 Māori.
Yup, just two short sentences. I wrote this essay in an exam so was under the pump time-wise. I think I had to write three quite long essays in three hours.
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 your essay.
CRUCIAL POINT: 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 real example essay my paragraphs covered the following:
The historical context of the decision made by some Māori chiefs to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi (one paragraph for this)
Each factor that contributed to this decision (one factor per paragraph, and answering the main question the exam question postulated)
An evaluation of the consequences of this decision (one consequence per paragraph, and thereby explaining why the decision was significant, as per the essay question)
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 their own point, each a different factor that contributed to the decision. Students often miss out on marks in their essays because the points they are trying to make are not
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.
Similar to the introduction of a high school essay, the conclusion does not need to be long — a few sentences should do, but it is still important. Here's the conclusion from my real example essay:
Overall, the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi by some 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 still does the job. It 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!
One of the key takeways from this post is that perfection is not required for a good grade, but good structure is.
2. Paragraph Structure
We have covered Overall Structure, but the journey is not yet over, as each paragraph needs its own internal structure as well.
Often when teens are writing they can go off piste, and so despite seeming to write a lot their writing can lack direction and if there is a point they are trying to make it is difficult for the examiner to make out, and subsequently the grade suffers.
To prevent this from happening ever again, there is one mnemonic I want your teen to never forget: S.E.X.I. This mnemonic will ensure that every paragraph your teen writes follows an easy-to-read structure.
Let's now 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. You can think of it like a sign post. 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?).
There is 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 may affect the word count of the essay, with exam essays generally being shorter).
X: Example
Examples are a really important part of writing a high-grade essay. Whether in the form of facts, quotes, statistics or names, examples give authority and justification to what is being said in the paragraph.
Without them, you are asserting propositions as fact without any support, and the reader has no reason to trust or agree with what you're saying.
In the example paragraphs above I included examples such as "food, like pigs and potatoes" and "two Māori Chiefs, Te Aratia and Turoa". 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. 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 are a couple of sentences from my real 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 initially this may be a lot of information for your teen to soak in, 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.
Thanks for reading and best of luck to your teen with their essays. If you have any questions about essay writing or thoughts you would like to share from your teen’s own experiences it would be great to hear from you in the comments section.
Clare