Writing Band 6 Essays - The Real Secret (1 Viewer)

[hyparzero]

SOME WRITING BAND 6 ESSAY TIPS

I'll admit this, I suck at English, and I still do. But recently, our school finally broadened our understanding with an Essay Writing Workshop thing - which I found pretty useful for mainstream essay writing across most subjects.

Markers sit through tons of garbage essays that they just flick through. Even though most do not admit it, they subconsciously become difficult markers after sitting through papers and papers of Band 3,4 answers.

It was revealed that markers, often skim through bad essays quickly and easily. However, they recognise a good essay when it becomes inevitable to re-read the essay a few times to grasp the full output of the essay.

So how do we achieve such an essay?

First of all practise, go back find a previous essay you have written (from scratch - no copying seriously) and comeback and use some techniques mentioned in this post.

Here is a basic rundown of the most effective essay structure:

Introduction:
-----------------
[Context]
[Thesis]
[Preview]

Your preview describes what you are going to talk about in your essay.

Main Body:
------------
[Point / Topic / Argument / Evidence / Effect ]
[Point / Topic / Argument / Evidence / Effect ]
[Point / Topic / Argument / Evidence / Effect ]
[Point / Topic / Argument / Evidence / Effect ]

Use quotes in argument and evidence - wherever appropriate.

Then finally...
------------------
[Make closing Arguments/Points]
[Finish with impacting statement]

Make sure your final statement of your essay, is short - highly impacting in the view that it summarises and concludes your thesis - without the need to ramble.

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With the structure of the essay aside, lets talk about the essay flair and student knowledge.

Here I am going to show two examples written by two students on the same topic:

Essay Intro 1:
==========
One's personal views and attitudes expressed towards Cleopatra is a direct consequence of the beliefs of ancient Egypt - and the social values at the time. Cleopatra is unrelentless, and is determined to seduce Anthony in order to manipulate Rome to her own selfish desires. This is evident in the many ancient poetic texts written at later times.

But, this view cannot be justified to represent Cleopatra's true nature because the characterisations put forward can simply be seen as dependent on society's attitudes through the eras and may contain heavy bias as a result.

Not too bad, but heres what the second essay looks like:

Essay Intro 2:
==========
The inherited images that westerners have unrelentlessly painted about the legendary Cleopatra is seemingly derived from the ancient interpretations of her character. From these, it is shown that Cleopatra is little more that a foreign femme fatale, willing to unscrupulously use her feminine wiles to corrupt the incorrigble Anthony, and strike fear into Roman hearts.

This view is largly propounded by Plutarch, Dio and Virgil and Horace, Augustus' poets. However, this superficial view is not balanced, and does little to offer an explanation into the complexities of Cleopatra's character, and provides a wonderful illustrationn of the layers of bias in historical interpretations.

(Both students have the basic grasp on Cleopatra and her character, however, the second student is able to express it much more artistically and with flair - something markers seems to worship.)

===========================================================

I talked about Essay structure, please look at the following example to give you an idea of the structure of a nice introduction.

[CONTEXT]The inherited images that westerners have unrelentlessly painted about the legendary Cleopatra is seemingly derived from the ancient interpretations of her character.

[THESIS]From these, it is shown that Cleopatra is little more that a foreign femme fatale, willing to unscrupulously use her feminine wiles to corrupt the incorrigble Anthony, and strike fear into Roman hearts. This view is largly propounded by Plutarch, Dio and Virgil and Horace, Augustus' powets. However, this superficial view is not balanced,

[PREVIEW]and does little to offer an explanation into the complexities of Cleopatra's character, and provides a wonderful illustrationn of the layers of bias in historical interpretations.


There are more much to essay writing than meets the eye - such as sentence structures, use of complex naming groups and normalisations to increase flair - using conjunctions and modality - all of which were used in the second essay.

I'll return and make some more posts in the future, but in the mean time, I hope I helped a bit.

Cheers,

 

[Tikkki]

hey man that was some real good stuff you put up...all the points u raised were so true...im gonna ace english now, hopefully

 

[silvermoon]

you've made some very good points - however, please remember that poor spelling and grammar and inappropriate word usage are like red flags to a bull for a marker.

 

[A l]

A good introduction is needed in order to catch the marker's attention. Most of the 'high range' responses I have seen take up more than one writing booklet which is indicative of how much detail you should present your response.
Band 6 responses are heavily based on:
- Extensive, detailed knowledge, insightful understanding and sophisticated evaluation of the ways meanings are shaped and changed by context
- Highly developed skills in interpretation, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of texts and textual detail
- Imaginatively, interpretively and critically composing texts with sustained precision, flair, originality and sophistication for a variety of audiences, purposes and contexts

Keep in mind that some questions may specify the repsonse to be written in a certain text type for a certain audience. This (arguably) effectively separates the rote learners from the those who truly understand the course and have the skills to be flexible in their demonstration of knowledge and understanding. Therefore, you may have to twist around some parts of the structures and language features that had been mentioned.

 

[glitterfairy]

Keep in mind that some questions may specify the repsonse to be written in a certain text type for a certain audience. This (arguably) effectively separates the rote learners from the those who truly understand the course and have the skills to be flexible in their demonstration of knowledge and understanding. Therefore, you may have to twist around some parts of the structures and language features that had been mentioned.

In addition to this, "real" band 6 writers should not have to depend on a structure.

I've critiqued a number of english essays in my time and for those who are struggling a bit, YES it's a good idea to follow some sort of formula to make sure you have all the good stuff down, but don't assume it'll guarentee you top marks.

I'm going to show my nazi side here - hope original poster doesn't mind, I'm just doing it to state a point :S


The inherited images that westerners have unrelentlessly "unrelentlessly" is unneccessary and appears to be a deliberate attempt to "fancy" up a plain statementpainted about the legendary Cleopatra is seemingly "derived" is a waste of time, get to the pointderived from the ancient interpretations which examples? state themof her character. From these, which examples? One mark deducted for making statements without proofing them with examplesit is shown that Cleopatra is little more that a foreign femme fatale, willing to unscrupulously use her feminine wiles example?to corrupt the incorrigble waste of words.Anthony, and strike fear into Roman hearts.provide EXAMPLES!

This view is largly propounded by Plutarch, Dio and Virgil and Horace, Augustus' poets. However, this superficial view is not balancedhow so? I need an example, and does little to offer an explanation into the complexities of Cleopatra's character, and "however" or "but" would be far more contextually appropriate than "and"provides a wonderful illustrationn of the layers of bias in historical interpretations.

(Both students have the basic grasp on Cleopatra and her character, however, the second student is able to express it much more artistically and with flair - something markers seems to worship.)
Artistry and flair is one thing, however please be advised that markers/tutors like myself are able to see "fancying-up" when it's on the page. Adjectives are NOT your way to get marks. We won't be fooled, and if you overdo it you may actually lose marks.

 

[lala2]

I agree with glitterfairy on that "real" band 6 writers should not need to regurgitate essays. Having said that, I know many band 6'ers who did memorise essays and got band 6's for English. However, they were mainly people who would have gotten band 6's in all of their other subjects. I personally did not memorise essays--I just had a few points, with enough examples and quotes which I thought were strong enoguh to back up my points, and got 89, which is my third best subject.

Maybe I'm just saying that because that's the approach I took, but it freed my brain from memorising more stuff (bio and chem were killing me), and I felt that I actually knew what I was writing about. Besides, I'm an absolutist kind of person--if I had memorised an essay, and it didn't fit the question, I would've panicked and written down the essay anyway, not being able to mould it well enough, so I decided I'd might as well just start straight off.

 

[glitterfairy]

I had a discussion with another BOSer about regurgitated essays once. We ended up agreeing that it was possible to get a band 6, however with only a low possibility of getting a HIGH band six

Personally I'm a huge advocate of knowing your content well, and having a good enough grasp of essay structure/style to be able to write things on the spot, but it should be said that to get to THIS level (ie high band 6 essays) it takes quite a bit of practice and time spent learning the content enough to UNDERSTAND it.

Results are definately worth it, though Makes transition to uni-level essays easier (don't even try following HSC essay "structures" in uni. It's suicide!!)

 

[A l]

Nonetheless, ideas should be organised in a presentable way whether it be the conventional structure or some individual style....

 

[glitterfairy]

Agreed. If I didn't mention that in my original post, I do apologise - I did mean it