how to write a 9th grade essay

Mr Salles Teaches English

Just How Easy is a Grade 9 Essay?

Getting a grade 9 is not intellectually difficult. (There are dozens of grade 9 ideas in my guide , and multiple essays).

Every year, dozens of students who were getting grades 4, 5 and 6 in their mocks write to me to say they got a grade 9 in the real exam.

We might think that it is only grade 7 and 8 students who would get to a 9. We imagine it is like running – in order to run a 4 minute mile, we must first learn to run a 4 minute and 15 second mile, and before that a 4 minute and 30 second mile.

We can’t just go from running a 5 minute mile to a 4 minute mile. It is just humanly impossible. Running is like that.

Essay writing is not like running.

Grade 9 students do these 6 things:

Memorise a few of the writer’s ideas

Memorise some context of the time (but only to write about the writer’s ideas)

Memorise a few key quotes, and what you want to write about them, linking these to the writer’s ideas

Memorise what you want to write about the beginning and ending of the text, as these will be relevant to every essay.

Write a thesis statement which shows what you are going to argue in the essay.

Write a conclusion.

Now, a lot of grade 9 students do a lot more than this, but this minimum standard will get you to grade 9. And, if you ‘fail’, you will still get grade 8.

Is There A Reason Not to Do This, Or Just an Excuse?

Ok, so pick an average student in your class. If they had a page or two of A4, with all those things typed up neatly for them, could they remember it? (It doesn’t have to be word for word – even quotes get full marks if they quoted incorrectly in the exam).

They could, right? You could.

The person in your class who couldn’t do that is the lazy one. It might be that they just don’t believe they can do it, that they lack confidence, that they are anxious about the exam. But these are excuses, not reasons. They are true, but only so far as the student believes they are true.

The easiest way to change that belief is to identify the knowledge, and then quiz yourself on it. You’ll find that you quickly learn it. Once you see that, you will suddenly get confidence, you will suddenly feel less anxious.

You will start to believe.

The ONE THING all 30/30 Students Do

There is one other thing. It might be the most important. Write as fast as you can. Most grade 9 answers are over 900 words long.

Why? Genius students learn to use the right words to say as much as possible. They can smash out a 700 word answer that covers everything.

But guess what, most grade 9 students are not genius students! They just learn the right stuff, and splurge it out on the page as quickly as they can.

This is why I am going to show you an essay which, in the exam, was 912 words long.

Once I have rewritten it, with exactly the same methods, quotes, references, ideas etc, but without the waffle, it is 645 words long.

This student is not a genius. They are not a particularly good writer. Yet they scored not just a grade 9, but 30 out of 30, 100%.

What You Will Learn From Reading the Essay

Ok, let’s find out how they did it so you can do the same. It is about Romeo and Juliet. If you haven’t studied that play, you will still see exactly how to write a full mark essay. It will totally make sense to you.

If you choose not to read it because you haven’t studied the play, that is an excuse. It is not a reason!

Examiner Comments

The essay begins with a strong thesis statement Because it shows that the interpretation of the lover’s love depends on understanding the context at the time Which means this is a conceptualised start And the thesis also provides a plan for the rest of the essay Which sets out to prove the argument made in the first sentence The explanation of the imagery of light is analytical Because it is linked to Shakespeare’s ideas The student uses many references from different parts of the text And they are used to construct an argument about Shakespeare’s ideas The essay combines the themes of love and violence very well And this makes the essay convincing

See – most of the skills the examiner is looking for are about how to write an essay and the comments would be the same on any full mark answer to any text.

My mission is to get thousands of students top grades. Will you help? This post is public so feel free to share it.

This was the extract (you don’t have to read it to understand the essay)

SCENE II. Capulet’s Garden.

Enter  Romeo .

ROMEO. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

Juliet  appears above at a window.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my lady, O it is my love! O, that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek.

JULIET. Ay me.

ROMEO. She speaks. O speak again bright angel, for thou art As glorious to this night, being o’er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air.

This was the question

How does Shakespeare present Romeo’s love in this extract and the play as a whole?

Shakespeare portrays Romeo’s love for Juliet as all-consuming, unpredictable, brief and ultimately destructive, consuming all who are exposed to it in violence and death.

Yes, this is a good thesis statement. It contains lots of interpretations of Romeo’s love. But, it would have been even better if the student said why Shakespeare portrays Romeo’s love this way. Example: Is it a celebration of love and a criticism of the patriarchal, violent society which meant it couldn’t flourish? Or is it a cautionary tale to parents, portraying the naïve and sexually obsessed risk taking of their teenage children, urging them to pay more attention to threat they pose to family stability? Now, how long would it take you to memorise both of those questions? 10 minutes? That’s a thesis statement beyond grade 9, which you could take into any exam question. It just isn’t that hard. This is also a model of how you can write and memorise a thesis statement to any of your texts – find two different interpretations of the writer’s main ideas.

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The extract repeatedly references light in order to suggest Romeo’s love is blinding. He feels “Juliet is the sun”, and the semantic field develops with “fairest stars” and “twinkle”, constant references to light. This implies that Romeo is blinded to the consequences of his love, believing that love will help him overcome all obstacles.

Ok, starting with the extract is more difficult if you want full marks, because you need to develop a convincing argument. Here it is that Romeo’s love is blind, naive and destructive. I always recommend going through the play chronologically instead, as it is much easier to build an argument. For example, we can examine the “saint seducing gold” which Romeo’s love for Rosaline was simply a way to buy her sexual favours. This would exactly match this student’s argument, wouldn’t it? Also, you would barely have to do any thinking – you start at the beginning and what you want to argue is just obvious. It will also fit any and every essay about Romeo. Starting with the extract makes it harder to write that argument. It makes the exam harder for you to do. But, if you want to start with the extract, and make it harder – this is how to do it. Normally. Why did this student find it a good method, even though they are not a genius? They got lucky. They were able to use the extract as the beginning, and the later references to the text could then move in chronological order, apart from one brief mention of Rosaline.

He also uses imagery of light to describe Juliet’s angelic characteristics as a heavenly body. This angelic imagery is picked up by Luhrmann in his film of the play, portraying Juliet in this scene with angelic wings. Shakespeare uses this angelic purity now so that her final death is jarring. Placing his love for Juliet on this pedestal feels romantic. But it also makes that love out of reach. His love is an unreachable ideal.

Notice that the examiner makes no comment about the Luhrmann reference. This is because it just as likely to lead to a student writing something which gets no marks. For example, if the sentence: “This angelic imagery is picked up by Luhrmann in his film of the play, portraying Juliet in this scene with angelic wings” was not in the paragraph, it would earn exactly the same marks. But, imagine how tempting it would have been to carry on writing about the film! So, avoid this. The analysis of the imagery, and its symbolism in the text itself is what earned the marks.

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When he compares Juliet to “the fairest stars” we can see that he is blind to reality. We know stars are simply balls of gas, without human emotion. We pity Romeo from the prologue onwards, as we know his love is out of reach, and his love for Juliet blinds him to this fact.

The interpretations of a contemporary audience are treated as context for AO3. But you have to acknowledge that this perspective is different. For example, “A modern audience might feel that Romeo’s romantic view of the stars is self-delusion, because we all know they are emotionless balls of gasses. However, a contemporary audience would see this reference as Romeo’s blindness to the power of his fate, which he can’t escape .” See the difference? Personally (because you can only write so much in exam conditions) I feel you get much more marks for the second sentence than the first. Much easier to explain the views of the contemporary audience. Also, that’s who Shakespeare was writing for, so that has to be the more interesting perspective.

We can see many of Romeo’s emotions change in an instant during the play, so we suspect his love of Juliet will follow the same pattern. Consequently, we remember that in Act 1 he doesn’t just compare Juliet to the “sun”, he used the same imagery to describe Rosaline. Describing Juliet as “the all-seeing sun” is no longer a purely romantic act, it exposes the superficiality of his love. We assume his love is shallow, as it is so quick to transfer to Juliet from Rosaline.

Ok, here I go again with my chronological order. This is a great argument. But, it leads perfectly into Romeo’s words about Juliet, comparing her to the sun, not having her before Rosaline. So it would have been more powerful placed before the analysis of the extract. And it also depends on the student remembering that Romeo compared Rosaline to the sun * . It took both luck and thought. But, I made exactly the same point with ‘saint seducing gold’ – this took zero thought. Because, like you should, I just memorised a few key quotes which I know will be relevant to many essays. For example, it fits an essay on masculinity, on love, on Romeo, on Juliet. I can link it to Capulet – after all he is selling his daughter to the highest bidder, Paris. I can link it to Lady Capulet who has been sold at 13 to be a wife by her father (because she had already given birth to Juliet at Juliet’s age). See, I can answer any essay, with no thought. I’ve already used that thought in my revision. * Now, remember when the student said that Romeo compared Rosaline to the sun? Not so. He actually said “the all seeing sun / ne’er saw her match”. In other words, the sun, which like God has been around since the dawn of time, has never seen anyone as beautiful as Rosaline. See what I mean? The student got lucky: they were wrong, and the senior examiner didn’t spot it, or didn’t care.

Romeo is self-absorbed elsewhere in the play. He rejects the Friar’s advice, claiming “thou canst not speak of that which thou dost not feel”.  Dominic Dromgoole’s staging of the play had Romeo weeping on the ground after murdering Tybalt, implying that this self-absorption is a dominant part of Romeo’s character.

Well, we’re English teachers. We all love a student who has actually gone to the theatre and thought deeply about the play. Our kind of people. But, does it get extra marks? No. The examiner doesn’t even mention it. The student could equally have said, “Romeo’s vanity and immature belief that only he can have experienced this kind of love, and that an older man who has devoted his entire life to the love of God, has no empathy for his feelings is intended to be ridiculous”. That would have been an even better argument.

The Friar also implies that Romeo’s love for Juliet is not sincere, but narcissistic. Romeo is in love with the image of himself as a lover. So the Friar observes, “young men's love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes”. We realise that Romeo’s love is fickle and so we are partly satisfied with the tragic ending which is a fitting consequence to his actions.

Now we are talking. This is exactly the sort of paragraph you can memorise in advance. You know it will be relevant to so many essays – exactly like the example earlier. Even to an essay on Lady Capulet (which, by the way, is very unlikely to come up). So, you would use it to show that Capulet never loved her, and was attracted only in her physical beauty and youth, and perhaps that, being so young, she would feel intimidated in refusing him anything.

Shakespeare also portrays Romeo’s love as the cause of death and violence. We can see this in Juliet’s final words before her suicide. Shakespeare portrays her decision as though his love has duped her, which is why we get the contradictions of “happy dagger” and “O loving hate”. These shocking oxymorons reveal that Romeo’s unreasonable love is the cause of her violent death.

I’m still excited. This is another of those memorable pre-prepared paragraphs. Can you think of any essay where writing about the ending is not relevant? I hope not – because it is 100% relevant to any conclusion. It is where we discover the writer’s final point of view. This happens 100% of the time, with any text you ever study, including the poems. And, as you are forced to write about the writer’s perspective when writing about the ending, you always get a very high mark.

Romeo also claims that Juliet prevented him from being his true, violent self, stating her “beauty hath made [him] effeminate”. This is the moment that he chooses to kill Tybalt, and so we see that he justifies his violence out of love for Juliet, and this desire for love finally leads to their tragic deaths. We no longer view their love as romantically pure, but rather toxic and built upon violence. We can see that violence and death follow the lovers, and we attribute this to Romeo’s love for Juliet.

I hope that this has also been prepared in advance. It would make better sense before the ‘happy dagger’, as this would make the argument chronological. You could write a beyond grade 9 reason why Juliet, infected by a patriarchal society, takes on Romeo’s violence as proof of love. And this leads to her mistaken belief that only the ultimate act of violence, erasing herself, will be proof of her love in a patriarchal world that values violence so highly. My point is, it is easy to develop above grade 9 or grade 9 ideas in pre-prepared paragraphs. Memorise them – the gist and vocabulary – you don’t need to be word for word – and getting the grade is almost inevitable. Once again, it fits any essay title – even one on Lady Capulet. We can argue that she refuses to support Juliet because of the threat of male violence, when she tells Capulet “you are too hot”. Or, link it to how she embraces the thought of assassinating Romeo with poison, the ‘unaccustomed dram’ she plans to kill him with.

To conclude, Shakespeare’s portrayal of love acting hand in hand with violence is relevant even now, where we live with rising cases of abuse in the home. The abuser often believes they love their victim, yet we can see that the price of love is its ability to change to sudden violence.

We can see how Romeo’s love has blinded both lovers, because its tragic and fickle consequences arrive so quickly that the lovers do not see them coming.

A good conclusion doesn’t just repeat what the essay has already shown, it also looks outwards, to other questions, or other interpretations. Here, the student thinks about how the play is still relevant today. AQA senior examiners love this, because they believe that any text is not just relevant to the time it was written. They believe that it is relevant because it describes the human condition, the part of us that is timeless, and always true, no matter when we were born. That is one way of looking at the purpose of literature. Personally, I like to question this – is the abuse a result of the human condition (and therefore always going to be prominent) or is it a patriarchal problem, and therefore open to change if we change society? To suggest that the problems of violence Juliet faced in her society, compared to what women face in Europe in the modern age is, to me, a ridiculous argument. Luckily for all of us, that doesn’t matter. The conclusion has done its job, linking to a further a question, which here is the parallel with modern society. It gets full marks.

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Why Your 9th Grader Should Practice Essay Writing Now

Whether or not your high schooler enjoys writing, it’s a skill she’ll need to master. As you probably know, writing is something your student will be doing throughout high school—and the rest of her life. So, how can you help her practice and master the art of essay writing now—and why does she need to start early? Read on to find out.

Writing is an essential skill your student will need throughout high school and college.

In college, your student will be doing a lot of writing. While she may not be writing at a college level now, it’s not too early to start developing the skills she will need then, since her instructor will expect her to have mastered at least the basics.

Read How to Prepare for College-Level Writing in High School for advice.

But writing isn’t just something your student will need to do in college. She’ll also need to do it in high school. She should start getting into the habit of working on crafting formal essays now so she won’t have to learn as many new skills later.

It will gear your teen up for the SAT.

The SAT has a Writing and Language section. Plus, if your child chooses to complete the SAT Essay (or ACT Writing) , she’ll need to learn how to compose a structured essay and make a solid argument for the test.

Gaining practice with essay writing prepares your high schooler for standardized test writing since she’ll have experience developing ideas and brainstorming quickly.

It will get your high schooler’s ideas flowing for the college essay.

How your student says it is more important than what she says. Practicing now will allow her to learn how to develop ideas, use rhetorical devices, and learn language nuances. Check out How to Write an Impressive College Essay: A Step-by-Step Guide for tips on crafting a stellar essay.

Your student will also learn how to “speak” to her audience , avoid cliches, and write according to her audience’s needs.

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Our free chancing engine takes into account your history, background, test scores, and extracurricular activities to show you your real chances of admission—and how to improve them.

It will build and provide an outlet for creativity.

Writing is an important tool for self-expression. It’s probably not news to you that teens have angst, and it can be helpful to let out their feelings on paper. Your student doesn’t need to limit her writing to formal essays, either; journaling, creative writing, and blogging can also serve as outlets. Read 10 Easy Ways to Help Your Teen Become a Better Writer for more ideas.

If your high schooler is passionate about writing as an art, check out Creative Writing Opportunities for High School Students to find out about activities and programs to help her hone her talent.

It will prepare your student for the real world.

Writing is necessary for nearly every career . Even if your student isn’t planning on going into a humanities field, she’ll still need strong writing skills for tasks like emails, reports, and general daily communication.

If your student does want to pursue a career in the humanities, she will need writing even more. (Be sure to check out 15 Surprising Career Opportunities for Potential Humanities Majors for career-path ideas.)

Why Writing Matters

Writing is one of the most important skills your child will need throughout her life—from high school into her career. That’s why it’s imperative for her to start mastering it now. Encourage your student to write both inside and outside of school. There are plenty of outlets beyond formal essay writing to help her hone her craft. Who knows? She may even find that it’s her calling.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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• Literary essay

Creating A Brilliant 9th Grade Literary Essay: A Step-By-Step Guide

Are you a 9th grade student ready to tackle a literary essay? This may be the first but certainly won’t be the last paper you will have to write. It’s a great help to have a guide to follow so you can perform the writing steps one by one in order. It helps the work to go by quickly and before you know it, you will have written a brilliant essay? Are you ready to get started?

The literary paper should be insightful and contain critical interpretations rather than just be a summary of characters, plot or environment. It is an opportunity for you to explore your own understanding of the work you are writing about and present it to your reader in a structured way.

• Have a brainstorming session. Think and write down as many of your ideas as you can. It’s helpful to talk to other people at this stage as well, and bounce your ideas off them and see what ideas they can give you.
• Evaluate your ideas. See which ones you think will be useful for making a great topic. Eliminate the ideas that don’t look like they will make a significant contribution. Once you’ve chosen a main topic, see which ideas can be used for supporting statements.
• Conduct any research you will need. Let your original notes guide you but if you find the perfect pathway to follow to support your topic, go for it even if it deviates from your original plan.
• Now you can make a flow chart or outline. This is a way of connecting all the dots. The ideas and evidence and information you’ve gathered can all be organized into a pattern. Each main idea becomes its own paragraph. This helps you to write the essay in a focused way.
• The introduction should tell the reader what your literary paper is all about. It should also capture the reader’s attention and direct it toward the body of the paper.
• Each paragraph in the body of the paper will support the main thought you are trying to get across. There should be a minimum of three supporting paragraphs.
• The conclusion is the final and perhaps most memorable part of the paper. It should be a summary of the points you made and not contain any new information you haven’t already presented.

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Completing a great paper simply involves understanding that writing involves a simple formula that anyone can do. Follow easy step-by-step guides and make a great paper by your own efforts!

Helpful Links

Essay Writing: A complete guide for students and teachers

P LANNING, PARAGRAPHING AND POLISHING: FINE-TUNING THE PERFECT ESSAY

Essay writing is an essential skill for every student. Whether writing a particular academic essay (such as persuasive, narrative, descriptive, or expository) or a timed exam essay, the key to getting good at writing is to write. Creating opportunities for our students to engage in extended writing activities will go a long way to helping them improve their skills as scribes.

But, putting the hours in alone will not be enough to attain the highest levels in essay writing. Practice must be meaningful. Once students have a broad overview of how to structure the various types of essays, they are ready to narrow in on the minor details that will enable them to fine-tune their work as a lean vehicle of their thoughts and ideas.

In this article, we will drill down to some aspects that will assist students in taking their essay writing skills up a notch. Many ideas and activities can be integrated into broader lesson plans based on essay writing. Often, though, they will work effectively in isolation – just as athletes isolate physical movements to drill that are relevant to their sport. When these movements become second nature, they can be repeated naturally in the context of the game or in our case, the writing of the essay.

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• All explanations are reinforced with  concrete examples.
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• Clear objectives  easy to match to the demands of your curriculum

Planning an essay

The Boys Scouts’ motto is famously ‘Be Prepared’. It’s a solid motto that can be applied to most aspects of life; essay writing is no different. Given the purpose of an essay is generally to present a logical and reasoned argument, investing time in organising arguments, ideas, and structure would seem to be time well spent.

Given that essays can take a wide range of forms and that we all have our own individual approaches to writing, it stands to reason that there will be no single best approach to the planning stage of essay writing. That said, there are several helpful hints and techniques we can share with our students to help them wrestle their ideas into a writable form. Let’s take a look at a few of the best of these:

BREAK THE QUESTION DOWN: UNDERSTAND YOUR ESSAY TOPIC.

Whether students are tackling an assignment that you have set for them in class or responding to an essay prompt in an exam situation, they should get into the habit of analyzing the nature of the task. To do this, they should unravel the question’s meaning or prompt. Students can practice this in class by responding to various essay titles, questions, and prompts, thereby gaining valuable experience breaking these down.

Have students work in groups to underline and dissect the keywords and phrases and discuss what exactly is being asked of them in the task. Are they being asked to discuss, describe, persuade, or explain? Understanding the exact nature of the task is crucial before going any further in the planning process, never mind the writing process .

BRAINSTORM AND MIND MAP WHAT YOU KNOW:

Once students have understood what the essay task asks them, they should consider what they know about the topic and, often, how they feel about it. When teaching essay writing, we so often emphasize that it is about expressing our opinions on things, but for our younger students what they think about something isn’t always obvious, even to themselves.

Brainstorming and mind-mapping what they know about a topic offers them an opportunity to uncover not just what they already know about a topic, but also gives them a chance to reveal to themselves what they think about the topic. This will help guide them in structuring their research and, later, the essay they will write . When writing an essay in an exam context, this may be the only ‘research’ the student can undertake before the writing, so practicing this will be even more important.

RESEARCH YOUR ESSAY

The previous step above should reveal to students the general direction their research will take. With the ubiquitousness of the internet, gone are the days of students relying on a single well-thumbed encyclopaedia from the school library as their sole authoritative source in their essay. If anything, the real problem for our students today is narrowing down their sources to a manageable number. Students should use the information from the previous step to help here. At this stage, it is important that they:

●      Ensure the research material is directly relevant to the essay task

●      Record in detail the sources of the information that they will use in their essay

●      Engage with the material personally by asking questions and challenging their own biases

●      Identify the key points that will be made in their essay

●      Group ideas, counterarguments, and opinions together

●      Identify the overarching argument they will make in their own essay.

Once these stages have been completed the student is ready to organise their points into a logical order.

WRITING YOUR ESSAY

There are a number of ways for students to organize their points in preparation for writing. They can use graphic organizers , post-it notes, or any number of available writing apps. The important thing for them to consider here is that their points should follow a logical progression. This progression of their argument will be expressed in the form of body paragraphs that will inform the structure of their finished essay.

The number of paragraphs contained in an essay will depend on a number of factors such as word limits, time limits, the complexity of the question etc. Regardless of the essay’s length, students should ensure their essay follows the Rule of Three in that every essay they write contains an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Generally speaking, essay paragraphs will focus on one main idea that is usually expressed in a topic sentence that is followed by a series of supporting sentences that bolster that main idea. The first and final sentences are of the most significance here with the first sentence of a paragraph making the point to the reader and the final sentence of the paragraph making the overall relevance to the essay’s argument crystal clear. 

Though students will most likely be familiar with the broad generic structure of essays, it is worth investing time to ensure they have a clear conception of how each part of the essay works, that is, of the exact nature of the task it performs. Let’s review:

Common Essay Structure

Introduction: Provides the reader with context for the essay. It states the broad argument that the essay will make and informs the reader of the writer’s general perspective and approach to the question.

Body Paragraphs: These are the ‘meat’ of the essay and lay out the argument stated in the introduction point by point with supporting evidence.

Conclusion: Usually, the conclusion will restate the central argument while summarising the essay’s main supporting reasons before linking everything back to the original question.

ESSAY WRITING PARAGRAPH WRITING TIPS

●      Each paragraph should focus on a single main idea

●      Paragraphs should follow a logical sequence; students should group similar ideas together to avoid incoherence

●      Paragraphs should be denoted consistently; students should choose either to indent or skip a line

●      Transition words and phrases such as alternatively , consequently , in contrast should be used to give flow and provide a bridge between paragraphs.

HOW TO EDIT AN ESSAY

Students shouldn’t expect their essays to emerge from the writing process perfectly formed. Except in exam situations and the like, thorough editing is an essential aspect in the writing process. 

Often, students struggle with this aspect of the process the most. After spending hours of effort on planning, research, and writing the first draft, students can be reluctant to go back over the same terrain they have so recently travelled. It is important at this point to give them some helpful guidelines to help them to know what to look out for. The following tips will provide just such help: 

One Piece at a Time: There is a lot to look out for in the editing process and often students overlook aspects as they try to juggle too many balls during the process. One effective strategy to combat this is for students to perform a number of rounds of editing with each focusing on a different aspect. For example, the first round could focus on content, the second round on looking out for word repetition (use a thesaurus to help here), with the third attending to spelling and grammar.

Sum It Up: When reviewing the paragraphs they have written, a good starting point is for students to read each paragraph and attempt to sum up its main point in a single line. If this is not possible, their readers will most likely have difficulty following their train of thought too and the paragraph needs to be overhauled.

Let It Breathe: When possible, encourage students to allow some time for their essay to ‘breathe’ before returning to it for editing purposes. This may require some skilful time management on the part of the student, for example, a student rush-writing the night before the deadline does not lend itself to effective editing. Fresh eyes are one of the sharpest tools in the writer’s toolbox.

Read It Aloud: This time-tested editing method is a great way for students to identify mistakes and typos in their work. We tend to read things more slowly when reading aloud giving us the time to spot errors. Also, when we read silently our minds can often fill in the gaps or gloss over the mistakes that will become apparent when we read out loud.

Phone a Friend: Peer editing is another great way to identify errors that our brains may miss when reading our own work. Encourage students to partner up for a little ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’.

Use Tech Tools: We need to ensure our students have the mental tools to edit their own work and for this they will need a good grasp of English grammar and punctuation. However, there are also a wealth of tech tools such as spellcheck and grammar checks that can offer a great once-over option to catch anything students may have missed in earlier editing rounds.

Putting the Jewels on Display: While some struggle to edit, others struggle to let go. There comes a point when it is time for students to release their work to the reader. They must learn to relinquish control after the creation is complete. This will be much easier to achieve if the student feels that they have done everything in their control to ensure their essay is representative of the best of their abilities and if they have followed the advice here, they should be confident they have done so.

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How To Write A Ninth Grade Essay

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• Author Sandra W.

Writing A 9 th  Grade Essay

Writing skills is one of the most tested things in both elementary and secondary curricula in many States. Ninth graders are one of the graders that get such task of writing an essay that is comprehensive enough. Often they are required to write on something of their interest which should relate to history, literature, or biological science. From either of this category they are required to develop a topic that they will write about. This task is not a big challenge for many 9 th  graders so long as they follow the necessary steps in essay writing.

Steps that will guide you when writing 9 th  grade essay

• Identify a topic that is relevant with the type of your essay. Use recognizable tone as well as theme that you can identify with.
• Gather enough information for your essay from website, books and in the library. Where necessary consult secondary sources like newspaper reports, encyclopedia information for more clarification. Primary sources can be used as well for example; interviews to write your essay.
• Do not start to write without drafting an outline of your essay which should contain just main points that will be covered. Do not be very much concerned on the level of accuracy at this point. For example, writing an essay analyzing reasons why U.S. got involved in Second World War may include the following.
• In the introduction discus how World War I ended and the impact of the war.
•  Body section looking how the climate was in the U.S.at that time.
• Using another body paragraph outlining the mood and how the situation was at that time.
• Finally why the United States found it unavoidable to get involved in the war.
• Take short break before you revise your draft several times as you eliminate unnecessary information. Ask for a second party to help in your revisions by asking them to read and give suggestions for improvement.
• Finally ensure that your essay meets minimum set requirements and does not overlook some key requirements. Proofread the essay by checking for spelling errors or grammatical mistakes that may be there. Have a final sentence of your essay that is appealing to the reader and can keep lingering in him for some time.

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