The difference between Maths and English is simple I guess.
A Maths question only has one answer. An English question has a number of answers. Many people forget this prime point.
The thing is, some people practise and practise essays, but the problem is you may be practising them with wrong methods in place, such as your style, your structure, tone, flow from each paragraph, ability to introduce as well as conclude, not always agreeing with the question, inspiring the marker. I mean, you want to keep rehearsing good methods. Some ways I've developed this for myself are:
- Mindmaps, like someone said above --- they help you really grasp the core of a concept, makes you question and construst your own answer to the question/theme/topic etc, helps you to see the links between concepts, different texts or whatever you are exploring more thoroughly.
- Having a system that works for you --- I do a lot of independent research and it pays off. I have four highlighter colours when summarising, BLUE is the most crucial point being made, GREEN relates to themes and concepts, ORANGE highlights good phrases that compliments my writing style and that I may use and RED is just for general summarising, whatever I think is worth noting.
- Learning to show other people my work for criticism. Teachers who give me just ticks on a page is not good enough. I usually hand them the paper back and tell them that I want at least three things I want critised on my work. Improves your writing.
- Learn from the best. Re-read top band past student's responses, go on-line and read from famous historians, speeches of historical value --- basically responses that people have been inspired by or say, "wow..I never thought of it in that way before".
- Use your teachers. ALWAYS GET FEEDBACK FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO.
- Write creative responses when you feel you have some free-time. It not only strengthens your vocabulary, but improves how you articulate and tackle ideas and most important, how to get thoughts into words.
- Learn to master vocabulary. Don't put in a fancy word like structuralism, because it is expected...it is not expected because remember English has indefinite answers. Your answer does not have to have such words as long as it ANSWERS THE QUESTION! Note too, don't put theorists in your essay unless them reinforce what you are trying to say. Don't shove them in there cause you think you'll get another mark. BE SELECTIVE! So, use words that really paint a picture --- this is really achieved by the choice of verbs. Instead of saying like, "meaning is shaped by one's experience and upbringing", you might want to say, "The human being constructs his own society, one where meaning is moulded by his or her experiences".
- Play around with sentences, and in your conclusion never say "In conclusion, or I conclude that, or to summarise etc".
- Don't be afraid to change your style.
- Predict exam questions - they might only say it will be in the form of writing a letter --- well that already gives you big hints so take advantage of them. It may be on your Area Of Study, asking you to write a letter to the Board of Studies about changing the current syllabus etc.
- Do all your homework
- Get notes from all your other english classes in your year. Different teacher's opinions can help you understand what the assessment task may ask you to do, predict the question or simply supplement your own notes and opinion.
- Read a lot. Lots of sources are always a good idea.
- Memorise essays. I usually can predict questions (sometimes I'm just lucky), so there's no need to re-arrange or reshape what i've learned into the actual question being asked. However, in saying that do not memorise without adapting it to the question if you are wrong in prediction. ANSWER THE QUESTION --- most important point!
- Enjoy English.
Hope that wasn't too boring to read!
