why essay writing is important for students

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The significance of writing – why crafting essays holds key importance in academic and professional circles.

Essay writing is a crucial skill that plays a significant role in academic, professional, and personal development. It enables individuals to express their ideas, opinions, and arguments effectively, making it a powerful tool for communication and persuasion. Essays allow writers to dive deep into specific topics, conduct research, analyze information, and present their findings in a coherent and organized manner.

Furthermore, essay writing fosters critical thinking and analytical skills, helping individuals to evaluate and interpret information, develop logical reasoning, and form well-supported arguments. It encourages creativity and originality while promoting the ability to articulate thoughts clearly and concisely.

Whether in school, university, or the workplace, the ability to write compelling essays is highly valued and can make a difference in academic achievement, career success, and personal growth. By honing their essay writing skills, individuals can enhance their communication capabilities, expand their knowledge, and engage in meaningful dialogues with others.

Understanding the Significance

Essay writing plays a crucial role in academic and professional settings, as it helps individuals develop critical thinking skills, refine their writing abilities, and articulate their ideas effectively. By composing well-structured essays, students can demonstrate their understanding of a subject matter, analyze complex topics, and present well-supported arguments. The process of essay writing also encourages individuals to conduct research, explore different perspectives, and engage with diverse sources of information.

Furthermore, essay writing fosters creativity and innovation by challenging individuals to think creatively, organize their thoughts logically, and express their ideas in a coherent manner. It allows writers to refine their communication skills, develop their own unique voice, and convey complex concepts in a compelling way. Additionally, essay writing enables individuals to reflect on their own experiences, explore new ideas, and expand their knowledge base.

Ultimately, essay writing is a valuable skill that equips individuals with the tools they need to succeed both academically and professionally. It encourages critical thinking, enhances communication skills, and fosters intellectual growth. By mastering the art of essay writing, individuals can effectively convey their thoughts, ideas, and findings to a wider audience, contributing to their personal and professional development.

Exploring Academic Benefits

Essay writing is a crucial skill in academia, providing students with numerous benefits that extend far beyond the classroom. Through the process of researching, analyzing, and articulating their thoughts in a coherent manner, students develop critical thinking skills that are essential for success in their academic pursuits. Writing essays helps students to sharpen their ability to organize information, present arguments persuasively, and communicate their ideas effectively.

Furthermore, essay writing enhances students’ ability to conduct comprehensive research, evaluate sources, and synthesize information from various sources. These skills are essential for academic success as they enable students to delve deep into a topic, explore different perspectives, and develop well-rounded arguments supported by evidence.

Moreover, writing essays allows students to improve their writing skills, including grammar, punctuation, and style. By receiving feedback from teachers and peers, students can identify areas for improvement and refine their writing techniques. This process not only enhances students’ academic performance but also equips them with valuable communication skills that are essential in their future careers.

Enhancing Critical Thinking

One of the key benefits of essay writing is the enhancement of critical thinking skills. When students engage in the process of researching and constructing an essay, they are encouraged to think analytically and critically about the topic at hand. This involves evaluating different perspectives, assessing the validity of arguments, and forming coherent and logical conclusions based on evidence.

Through the practice of essay writing, students are challenged to engage with complex ideas, think creatively, and develop their ability to construct well-reasoned arguments. This process of critical thinking is an essential skill that is valuable not only in academia but also in professional and personal life.

• Essay writing requires students to analyze information critically
• It helps in developing the ability to construct well-reasoned arguments
• Enhances creative thinking and problem-solving skills

Developing Writing Skills

Essay writing is a key way to develop essential writing skills. By regularly writing essays, students can enhance their abilities to organize thoughts, construct arguments, and communicate effectively. Writing essays also helps to improve grammar, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills. Additionally, the research and analysis required for essays enable students to deepen their understanding of various topics and develop their ability to think creatively.

Boosting Communication Abilities

Essay writing plays a crucial role in boosting communication abilities. Through the process of researching, organizing ideas, and presenting arguments coherently, students develop their critical thinking skills and learn how to effectively convey their thoughts through writing. This practice translates into improved communication skills, both written and verbal, as students become more articulate and confident in expressing themselves.

Increasing Creativity

Essay writing is a great way to boost your creativity. When you are required to express your thoughts and ideas in an essay, you are encouraged to think critically, analyze information, and come up with creative solutions. This process helps to expand your mind and develop your creative thinking skills.

Through essay writing, you learn how to organize your thoughts, structure your arguments, and present your ideas in a clear and compelling way. This not only improves your writing skills but also stimulates your creativity. As you explore different topics, research new information, and form unique perspectives, you are constantly challenging your creative abilities.

Moreover, essay writing allows you to experiment with different writing styles, tones, and voices. By trying out new approaches and techniques, you can discover your unique writing voice and unleash your creativity. Whether you are writing a persuasive essay, a descriptive essay, or a narrative essay, you have the freedom to express yourself creatively and explore diverse formats.

Overall, essay writing is a creative process that can enhance your imaginative thinking, foster originality, and spark innovation. It provides a platform for you to unleash your creativity, express your ideas, and engage with others through meaningful and impactful writing.

Building Research Proficiency

In order to write a well-informed and compelling essay, it is essential to develop good research skills. Research proficiency involves the ability to gather and analyze information from credible sources, including books, articles, and academic journals. Conducting thorough research allows you to deepen your understanding of the topic and provide evidence to support your arguments.

One way to improve your research proficiency is to practice effective search strategies. Learning how to use online databases, library catalogs, and search engines can help you find relevant sources efficiently. Additionally, developing critical thinking skills can help you evaluate the reliability and credibility of the information you encounter during your research.

Furthermore, building research proficiency involves proper citation and referencing. Accurately citing the sources you use in your essay not only adds credibility to your writing but also demonstrates academic integrity. By following the guidelines of a specific citation style, such as APA or MLA, you can ensure that your research is properly acknowledged and avoid plagiarism.

Fostering Analytical Skills

Essay writing plays a crucial role in fostering analytical skills. When students engage in the process of researching, analyzing, and constructing arguments in an essay, they are honing their critical thinking abilities. Writing essays requires students to evaluate information, draw connections between different ideas, and present coherent, logical arguments.

Through the practice of essay writing, students learn to think critically, question assumptions, and develop their own unique perspectives. This process of analysis and reflection is essential for academic success and for preparing students to navigate complex challenges in their future careers.

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Why Students Should Write in All Subjects

Writing improves learning by consolidating information in long-term memory, researchers explain. Plus, five engaging writing activities to use in all subjects.

For Kyle Pahigian, a 10th-grade math teacher at University Park Campus School in Massachusetts, a lesson on congruent triangles doesn’t start with calculators and protractors. Instead, she hands her students a treasure map and asks them to write detailed directions—using landmarks as a guide—to the buried treasure.

“I won’t tell the kids right away, ‘Today we’re going to learn about triangle congruence theorems,’” said Pahigian. “I want them to instead view it as them experimenting with something and doing something that they feel like they’re really good at.” Students often feel intimidated by math, and transforming the activity into a writing exercise eases some of the anxiety of introducing difficult concepts, she said.

In Pahigian’s math class, writing is regularly used as a learning strategy, one that gives her a window into her students’ thinking. “I like to do low-stakes writing when we’re coming up with definitions,” said Pahigian. Instead of telling her students what a polygon is, for example, she’ll show them a set of polygons and a set of non-polygons, and ask them, “What do you notice? What differences do you see?” Students spend a few minutes writing down their answers, and then join groups to compare responses.

“It’s really interesting and fun for me to read what they’ve written, because I can see all the questions. I can see the process,” said Pahigian.

A recent study sheds light on why writing is such a beneficial activity—not just in subjects typically associated with writing, like history and English, but across all subjects. Professor Steve Graham and his colleagues at Arizona State University’s Teachers College analyzed 56 studies looking at the benefits of writing in science, social studies, and math and found that writing “reliably enhanced learning” across all grade levels. While teachers commonly ask students to write about a topic in order to assess how well they understand the material, the process of writing also improves a student’s ability to recall information, make connections between different concepts, and synthesize information in new ways. In effect, writing isn’t just a tool to assess learning, it also promotes it.

Strengthening Memories

Why is writing effective? “Writing about content material facilitates learning by consolidating information in long-term memory,” explain Graham and his colleagues, describing a process known as the retrieval effect . As previous research has shown , information is quickly forgotten if it’s not reinforced, and writing helps to strengthen a student’s memories of the material they’re learning.

It’s the same cognitive mechanism that explains why practice tests are effective : In a 2014 study, students who took low-stakes practice tests in science and history classes scored 16 percentage points higher on their final exams than students who simply studied the material. “Practicing retrieval of recently studied information enhances the likelihood of the learner retrieving that information in the future,” the researchers of the 2014 study said.

Writing about a topic also encourages students to process information at a deeper level. Answering multiple-choice or short-answer questions may help with factual recall, but putting thoughts on paper encourages students to evaluate different ideas, weighing the importance of each one and considering the order they should be presented in, Graham and his colleagues write. By doing so, students may make new connections between ideas, ones they may not have made when initially learning the information.

A Metacognitive Tool

Students often believe that they understand a topic, but if they’re asked to write it down—and explain it—gaps in their understanding may be revealed. One of the most effective writing strategies that Graham and his colleagues found was metacognitive prompting, in which students are asked not only to recall information but also to apply what they’ve learned to different contexts by thinking about multiple sides of a position or making predictions based on what they currently know. For example, instead of simply reading about ecosystems in a textbook, students can write about their own impact by examining how much trash their household produces or the environmental impact of producing the food they eat.

5 Writing Strategies to Use in Any Subject

Here are a variety of ideas teachers have shared with Edutopia in recent years on incorporating writing into a variety of subjects.

“I wonder” journals: At Crellin Elementary School in Oakland, Maryland, teachers encouraged students to ask “I wonder” questions to push their learning beyond the classroom. After visiting a local barn and garden, for example, Dave Miller realized his fifth-grade students had more questions about animals and plants than he had time to answer, so he had them write down anything they were confused or curious about, which helped him plan future lessons and experiments.

“If they don’t wonder, ‘How would we ever survive on the moon?’ then that’s never going to be explored,” said Dana McCauley, Crellin’s principal. “But that doesn’t mean they should stop wondering, because wonderings lead to thinking outside the box, which makes them critical thinkers. As they try to figure it out, and reflect on what they’re doing, that’s where it all ties together for them. That’s where all that learning occurs—where all the connections start being made.”

Travel journals: Every student at Normal Park Museum Magnet, a K–8 school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, created a travel journal to chart their learning. These journals included not only charts, drawings, and graphic organizers, but also writing and reflection pieces that capture students’ learning about a topic.

When fifth-grade teacher Denver Huffstutler began a unit on earth science, he asked his students to imagine they were explorers looking for a new world that could sustain life. In their travel journal, they kept track of everything they were learning, from the impact of man-made disasters to their designs and calculations for a manned rocket that could reach distant planets.

Low-stakes writing: Writing can be daunting, so teachers at University Park Campus School used daily low-stakes writing activities to foster student voice, self-confidence, and critical thinking skills—a school-wide strategy used in every subject.

“The most important thing about it for me is that it’s not censored, and it’s not too highly structured,” said seventh-grade science teacher James Kobialka. “It’s about them getting their own ideas down, and then being able to interact with those ideas, change them, and revise them if they’re not correct.”

For example, when Kobialka’s students were learning about the conservation of mass, he didn’t start by defining it—he showed them a picture and asked, “What do you notice about the atoms on both sides? How can you explain that?” Students wrote down their observations, and the entire class came up with a definition. “From there,” he said, “once that consensus is formed, I’ll ask somebody to write it on the board, and we’ll talk about the key concepts.”

Student-created magazines: In Alessandra King’s algebra class, students created a magazine with dozens of articles about real world applications of math. For each article, they selected a primary source—an article from Scientific American , for example—read it closely, and then wrote a summary. Students wrote about a range of topics, from gerrymandering to fractals in Jackson Pollock’s paintings to invisibility cloaks.

“Effective writing clarifies and organizes a student’s thoughts, and the slow pace of writing is conducive to student learning because it allows them to reason carefully to make sure they’re correct before they state their thoughts,” King wrote. “Studies have shown that writing is valuable specifically for the math classroom—for example, it seems that a student’s ability to explain concepts in writing is related to the ability to comprehend and apply them.”

Creative writing: Former teachers Ed Kang and Amy Schwartzbach-Kang incorporated storytelling and creative writing into their after-school program’s science lessons. For example, they asked students to imagine a creature that could survive in a local habitat —the Chicago River, in their case. What color would it be? What features would help it to survive and defend itself? How would it hunt its prey? Students then wrote a story about their creature that combined science concepts with creative storytelling.

“There’s brain science to support using stories to help kids engage with content and create personal meaning,” explained Kang, who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience. “Listening to facts mainly stimulates the two language-processing areas of the brain. However, when we listen to a story, additional parts of the brain are also activated—regions involved with our senses and motor movements help listeners actually ‘feel’ the descriptions.”

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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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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Why Essay Writing Skills Are Important

What is the most well-known, legalised torture device utilised in schools in current times? Essay writing! Though today students can easily delegate their assignments and have professional paper writers write an essay for me , dealing with writing assignments is still torture for most students. Nearly every English writing class exhibits some form of instruction on writing these oh-so-dreadful explanatory essays and argumentative papers. It is no secret that many students find essay writing to be dull, tiring, and useless, moving them to question if, or why essay writing is important. Are essay-writing skills useful at all? Unequivocally, the skill of essay writing is essential and one of the most influential and beneficial skills one can learn.

Essay writing teaches individuals to organise their arguments in a proper manner. In essence, every statement is an argument, arguing an idea or belief that the speaker is attempting to prove or support. Essay writing equips individuals with the skill of effectively introducing an idea, and choosing methods of support they should utilise to formulate a convincing argument; improving the ability to explain one’s thoughts in an understandable and convincing manner is the sole purpose of writing essays. By practicing writing essays , people imprint in their minds a general structure for presenting ideas, building a foundation for successful argumentation and coherent, logical presentation of concepts. Some may claim that “copying” the typical essay format results in unoriginal arguments, yet they fail to recognise the true purpose of following such a structure. In the real world, individuals do not present every thought in the form of a five-paragraph essay; this model is only a template to guide a person’s thoughts and aid them in presenting a logical arrangement of ideas. Revision of a draft plays a crucial role in writing an essay. In this case, you can address Studyfy proofreading  professionals for them to evaluate your work and give you tips on how to improve it. Repeatedly writing essays trains the brain to automatically present ideas and supports in the best way possible. Cohesive explanations and rational placement of concepts are a skill essential in all careers, and essays are the perfect tools to sharpen these skills and better prepare individuals for their future careers.

Essay writing also teaches individuals how to effectively support well-thought-out claims. By writing multiple essays, individuals learn to choose the most compelling evidence to support an argument. Research essays are especially useful, as they train the mind to search for the most credible, correct, and useful information and incorporate it in such a way that will leave the audience convinced of the speaker’s claim. Choosing useful evidence to prove a claim is an essential skill in all areas of life, as it helps individuals better argue their ideas and choose supports that will enhance their claim or idea. Knowing how to select key points to argue a claim and understanding the best way to present an idea will help individuals successfully formulate convincing arguments in their future. The main advantage of essays is that there is no single template for writing all of them. However, there are still some criteria that must be met anyway. You can buy paper , list your requirements and preferences, and see what your assignment will look like when completed by experts.

Some may assert that essay-writing skills are most useful to those pursuing careers in writing or language only, however, this is false. Writing essays and essay outlines teaches people to think smarter. Rather than writing simple, one-sentence responses to a prompt, essays push individuals to delve into the subject matter and explore topics more in-depth. Repeating the exercise of writing essays trains the brain to think beyond the superficial meaning of concepts, improving analytical skills, and pushing individuals to learn more. This teaches critical thinking, and forces the mind to consider the issue, claim, or concept from different standpoints, and, most importantly, to understand and refute opposing views. Writing essays also allows individuals to practice condensing a plethora of material into a shorter, concise finished product that is not overwhelming and is easy to understand. Through this practice, people learn to expand a topic and explore all of its meanings, as well as convey a complex and multifaceted subject in a simpler, better manner. Polishing these skills helps prepare individuals for real-world scenarios such as providing an explanation for a concept, or giving a presentation about a topic, or even having a discussion about a certain subject matter. Essay writing is not difficult to learn, but difficult to master. Without a doubt, the skills individuals learn from essay writing are among the most significant skills one can obtain in their youth.

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Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

Why Essay Writing is Important for Students? Insights From College Professors

Essay writing is often considered a challenging and tedious task for students, causing some to question its importance. However, college professors from various disciplines argue that essay writing plays a central role in a student’s academic as well as professional career.

In this blog, we will explore the multiple reasons why essay writing is important for students, as shared by these educators.

So let’s get started!

Why Writing Good Essays Helps

Let’s begin by examining the practical benefits of developing strong essay-writing skills. Imagine you’re a student aiming for good grades in your courses. Writing essays can be a game-changer. When you become proficient at essay writing, you acquire a powerful tool for engaging with academic material at a much deeper level.

Essays require more than memorising and repeating information; they demand critical thinking and analysis. You need to dissect complex concepts, explore different viewpoints, and formulate your thoughts into coherent arguments.

This kind of active engagement with the subject matter naturally leads to better academic performance. Professors appreciate students who can demonstrate their understanding in a well-structured, logical, and persuasive manner. Therefore, mastering the art of essay writing can be your secret to success in the classroom.

Getting Better Jobs

Now, let’s fast forward to the future – when you’ve completed your education and are ready to enter the job market. Writing essays is still relevant. In fact, it’s more important than you might think. When you apply for jobs or internships, employers look for candidates who possess excellent written communication skills.

Think about it: in the professional world, you’ll need to write clear and persuasive emails, create compelling reports, and express your ideas convincingly in meetings and presentations. These skills are directly related to what you learn through essay writing. Employers want individuals who can explain complex concepts in a straightforward manner and make a strong case for themselves.

Furthermore, consider the connections you build during your academic journey. Professors often have extensive networks in their respective fields. If they’re impressed by your essays, they may be more inclined to help you find job opportunities and provide recommendations. So, your proficiency in essay writing can be a stepping stone to unlocking job opportunities down the road.

Thinking Smarter

Essay writing is not just about words on paper; it’s about becoming a smarter thinker. As you craft essays, you’re challenged to consider different sides of an issue and present your own perspective clearly and persuasively. This process fosters the development of critical thinking skills, which are incredibly valuable in various careers, including business, politics, and research.

In your essays, you’re often required to analyse complex ideas and arguments. This analytical thinking is transferable to real-world problem-solving scenarios, which are prevalent in many professions. Being able to dissect intricate problems, evaluate data, and construct well-reasoned arguments becomes a superpower that sets you apart in the workplace.

Showing What You Know

A fundamental reason why essay writing is important for students is that it serves as a tool for demonstrating your understanding of a subject. When you write an essay, you undergo elaborate rounds of research and analysis. You dig deeper into a topic, explore different perspectives, evaluate evidence, and construct a coherent argument.

This process isn’t just about getting a good grade; it’s about showing your teachers and professors that you genuinely comprehend the material. Your ability to synthesise information and present it effectively enhances your overall academic performance. It’s like saying, “I get it, and here’s why.”

Better Communication Skills

Effective communication is a fundamental skill in all aspects of life, and essay writing contributes significantly to improving your communication skills. Through essays, you learn how to articulate your thoughts and ideas clearly and concisely. You also develop the skill of structuring your arguments logically.

These communication skills extend beyond writing. They help you become a better speaker and presenter. Whether you’re explaining a complex idea to a colleague, giving a presentation at work, or making a case in a meeting, the ability to communicate effectively is invaluable.

Becoming a Research Pro

Want to earn A+ in your marketing essay? Learn about the major concepts of marketing so you can improve your essays without even trying!

Essay writing is synonymous with research. To write a well-informed essay, you must gather a lot of information, evaluate the credibility of sources, and synthesise the findings into a logical argument. This process enhances your research skills.

In today’s information-rich world, the ability to distinguish reliable sources from unreliable ones and extract meaningful insights from data is a highly sought-after skill. It’s not only useful in the academic world but also in many professions. Employers value individuals who can gather, assess, and apply information effectively.

Growing Personally

Beyond its academic and professional benefits, essay writing offers you a perfect opportunity for personal growth and self-reflection. When you write essays, you often engage in introspection and explore your personal beliefs and experiences. This process encourages deep thinking and self-awareness.

As you dig deeper into a topic, you may find yourself challenged and your beliefs questioned. You might discover new perspectives and broaden your horizons. This personal growth is a powerful aspect of essay writing that extends far beyond the confines of the classroom.

So, why is essay writing important for students? It helps you succeed in school, opens doors to better job opportunities, enhances your critical thinking skills, allows you to demonstrate your knowledge, improves your communication abilities, makes you a research expert, and fosters personal growth.

The skills you gain from essay writing will be a valuable part of your competencies in both your academic journey and your future career. So, don’t be afraid of essays; embrace them, learn from them, and watch how they can shape your future in positive ways.

As you continue to hone your essay writing skills, you’re not just improving your grades but investing in a brighter, more prosperous future.

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What is academic writing and why is it important?

Dec 27, 2020 | Academic Writing , College Applications , Englist blog , TOEFL Prep | 0 comments

Academic writing has become an increasingly important part of education as parents and educators realize the value of critical thinking skills and preparing students for college. 

Still, many students, parents, and even other teachers don’t have a great grasp on this area of learning and why it is so critical.

As such, at Englist we find it is important to not only teach academic writing, but also help everyone understand why it is imperative to the development of thoughtful and capable students.

What is academic writing?

First, what is academic writing? Most students see writing as something they just have to do because a teacher says so, and it becomes a painful and time-consuming assignment. Our mission is to end this kind of thinking.

Simply put, academic writing is teaching students how to write essays. That sounds pretty simple, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Essay writing is the process of sharing complex ideas, thoughts, or opinions. Writers learn to construct a rather complicated argument or explanation by combining sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into an essay.

Academic writing demands writers become clear in their explanations and reasoning, direct in their communication, and most importantly, able to make readers understand their topic and thesis.

Do students write every day in your classroom? 

If not, you’re not alone. Research on writing frequency suggests that just a quarter of middle and high school students write for at least 30 minutes a day, a minimum standard set by learning experts.

During my sixteen years as an ELA teacher, there were times my students wrote enough and times they did not. But, unsurprisingly, when I had my students writing every day, my students gained skills and confidence more quickly and I had greater insight into their lives.   

Why is writing important for students?

Studies suggest that teaching students how to write well is one of the best things educators can do to ensure academic engagement and future success. Of course, some students may struggle.

I remember one student—we’ll call her Imani—who would sit in class and stare at her blank computer screen as the minutes ticked by. She sighed, she groaned, she started writing and hit the delete key almost immediately. She seemed to feel like everything was riding on crafting the perfect paragraph. 

Now, I think about how she would have responded if I had added short, low-stakes writing sessions to our daily schedule. If she came to class knowing she would write every day, would she feel less pressure to “get it right?” Probably. Would she start to see that the only way to become a better writer was to write frequently? Likely. Would writing begin to feel more attainable and perhaps even a little rewarding? Definitely!   

From building confidence to fostering metacognition, the benefits of daily writing are worth the time invested. Here are the top five research-backed reasons why writing every day is important for students.

1. Writing is good for mental health and capacity.

Anyone who writes in a journal every day can talk about the emotional benefits of having a place to clarify their thoughts and work through their emotions. And it turns out that science confirms these benefits. There are more than 200 studies that show the positive effect of writing on mental health .

Not only can writing help students understand their emotions, it can also help their brains run more efficiently. A study funded by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health showed that anxiety takes up a tremendous amount of brainpower. However, when daily writing soothes students’ worries, cognitive resources are freed up to work on other tasks.

Jason Moser, one of the study's authors, explains, “Students who wrote about their worries were able to offload these worries and run more like a brand new Prius. Whereas the students who didn’t offload their worries ran more like a ’74 Impala—guzzling more brain gas to achieve the same outcomes.”

2. Writing strengthens executive functions.

Executive functions are the mental processes that enable us to plan, pay attention, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Given how many executive function skills are used in the writing process, it's no wonder that many children who struggle with executive function find writing to be daunting. But this skill overlap means that strengthening writing and executive function skills simultaneously is an effective way to learn.   

When teaching writing to students who struggle with executive function, you’ll want to give detailed instructions and models for every step of the writing process, along with frequent check-ins and practice time. If you just tell students to “write a paragraph,” they might not know where to begin and stall out quickly. But if you review steps, help them make a plan, and teach them to assess their work with rubrics, they’ll improve their writing and practice crucial executive function skills simultaneously.  

3. Writing helps educators assess student learning.

In a piece about teaching literacy in her math classroom , former teacher Sarah Galasso shares how she was surprised when a high-performing student wrote that she was confused about classwork. Equipped with this intel, Galasso adjusted her feedback to boost this student’s confidence and help her see that she understood much more than she thought she did. 

Reading student writing gives teachers valuable insight into how students are progressing in class and also who they are as people—what their likes, dislikes, concerns, and dreams are. The more we know, the more we can invite students to share all parts of themselves, which builds an asset-based classroom . 

Lastly, reading student writing regularly lets you monitor how your students are doing with their social-emotional learning . You’ll gain insight into any emotional road bumps they’re encountering and also be able to identify students who may need more support.  

4. Writing cultivates creativity.

Creativity, as psychologists define it, is the ability to come up with original and useful ideas. And contrary to popular opinion, creativity can be taught . Combining seemingly unrelated ideas, working backward to solve a problem, and challenging assumptions, are three ways, among many, we can ignite creativity.

Another way to build creativity is through daily writing . Writing encourages students to use their imaginations, make connections, view a problem in various ways, strategize solutions, and tell stories. Writing also lets students exercise agency and feel joy at creating something new.  

5. Writing encourages reflection and self-awareness. 

Writing requires students to reflect , and the metacognitive skill of thinking about thinking is an invaluable learning tool. When students can reflect upon what they know, don't know, and would like to learn more about, they’ll be able to consolidate information, ask the right questions, self-direct when acquiring new knowledge, and take ownership over their learning.      

Writing every day can also increase students’ self-awareness by helping them learn from their experiences. Research suggests that becoming more self-aware can increase our confidence and encourage us to be more accepting of others . Confident students tend to fare better academically and socially, and strong classroom communities rely on students embracing one another’s differences.  

All Students Can Be Writers

Think back to Imani, my student who didn’t know how to start writing. Now imagine her walking into her classroom knowing that she’s there to write. She sits down, takes out her computer, and gets to it.  

Her writing isn’t perfect, of course, but it’s improving. She’s learning that process is more important than perfection. She’s learning how to clarify her thinking and express herself effectively. Most importantly, her writing confidence has soared, and every day, she’s building skills that will improve her future.

Emily Anderson, PhD

• Content Marketing Specialist
• Carnegie Learning, Inc.

Before joining Carnegie Learning’s marketing team in 2021, Emily Anderson spent 16 years teaching middle school, high school, and college English in classrooms throughout Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, and Minnesota. During these years, Emily developed a passion for designing exciting, relatable curricula and developing transformative teaching strategies. She holds master's degrees in English and Women’s Studies and a doctorate in American literature and lives for those classroom moments when students learn something that will forever change them. She loves helping amazing teachers achieve more of these moments in their classrooms.

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"When I devoted adequate time to in-class writing, my students gained skills and confidence more quickly and I had greater insight into their lives."

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Anchor your writing instruction in big ideas students can remember

Years later, when one of my journalism students won a Los Angeles Times award for news writing, I thought more deeply about the instructional changes I had made. I also thought about the social and emotional factors that likely enabled this once-timid reporter to tackle tough issues and blossom into an adept writer. What I realized from this exercise is that many of my instructional shifts had more to do with “leaning in” and getting to know my student as a writer, along with “letting go” of some outdated notions about what good writing is.

These are the three most important lessons I learned that I’d like to pass along.

Lesson #1: Writing instruction begins with a shared language for talking about writing and a shared understanding of the purposes for writing

Anchoring your instruction in a few big ideas that students can remember helps simplify the experience for everyone—and writing is always an experience.

As a new English language arts teacher, I often made writing more complicated than it needed to be. In my journalism classes, things were simple: we focused on the 5Ws and H (who? What? When? Where? Why? How?). It was easy for every student to remember and internalize these guiding questions.

If only there were a similar list of questions I could apply to other writing tasks! Over time, I found that there was. And at NWEA, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with current and former teachers to hone that list of essential questions down to the following five.

If anchoring your instruction in big ideas students can remember resonates with you, like it did for me, I encourage you to try incorporating these five essential questions into your writing curriculum.

We’ve even compiled these big ideas for growing writers into a free resource aimed at building a shared language for talking about writing with students. To that end, we’ve created a student version , too.

1. Why am I writing?

This question encourages students to ponder their purpose for writing. Often, their immediate response to this question is, “I’m writing because my teacher assigned me this essay/report/research paper.”

If we can get students to push past the idea of writing as an assignment and toward writing as a form of communication, we may see a dramatic increase in their motivation and writing quality. “What do you want to accomplish with this piece of writing?” becomes the question, not “What kind of writing does your teacher want from you?”

Writing is always the intellectual product of the writer, and the more we can encourage students to see themselves as writers and to take ownership of their writing, the better the results. Before students write, it’s critical they know and understand their purpose for writing, as this purpose informs so many other choices they will make.

2. Who are my readers?

This question forces students to consider their audience . When writers can anticipate the needs of their audience, they increase the effectiveness of their communication.

If the only audience a student ever has for their writing is a teacher, they lose the opportunity to make writerly decisions based on different audiences, such as considering their unique feelings and opinions about a topic, their different vocabularies (e.g., familiarity with code switching, idioms, or jargon), and their varying degrees of background knowledge. This is why giving students authentic writing tasks is so important . Authentic writing engages students in the same cognitive processes they use to write for real-world situations, such as applying for a job, taking civic action, or even communicating with family and friends.

3. What am I writing?

This question gets students to think more deeply about the task , genre , and form for their writing. While some of this information is likely included in the writing assignment, it’s still important for students to work through the task details on their own.

Students will make more informed writing decisions when they are able to clearly articulate the expectations and success criteria for a writing task . The writing genre provides another framework for students to think about their purpose for writing. Each genre’s unique features have developed over time through socially agreed-upon conventions, and experienced writers understand how to use these features to communicate more clearly with their audiences. Finally, form —or format—describes the type of text to be produced, and today’s writers have more forms to choose from—both analog and digital—than ever before.

When students put time and thought into their purpose, audience, and task, they have a greater command over their writing and what they want it to accomplish. And that’s when we get to see students’ communication skills and creativity truly shine through.

4. How am I presenting ideas in my writing?

This question addresses the myriad of choices a writer must make when they embark on a task, including decisions about writing development , organization , style , and conventions . Too often, this is where we ask students to start, and it can be overwhelming to make all these decisions before a student has wrapped their head around what they plan to write and why. In addition, while these writerly decisions are important, we may place too great an emphasis on a student’s final written product when a focus on their writing process may have more instructional utility.

My advice to students is, “Don’t sweat the small stuff when it comes to presenting ideas in your writing.” The ideas themselves are what’s most important. They’ll have numerous opportunities to practice and hone their writing development, organization, style, and conventions with every piece they write and over an entire lifetime.

5. How am I using the writing process?

This question reminds students that writing is both a product and a process . And the writing process is where much of the learning and critical thinking takes place.

Though writing is often taught as a sequence of forward-moving steps, the writing process is recursive and iterative, not linear . For example, writers go back and forth between planning, drafting, translating, reviewing, and revising to meet their writing goals, and writing goals can be self-generated or revised at any time during the writing process.

Writing itself is a work in progress that includes collaboration, self-regulation, and self-evaluation in addition to the other steps students typically learn. The more frequently students engage in and reflect on their own writing process, the more likely they are to develop productive and efficient writing habits, as well as growth mindsets that can help them overcome writing challenges in their school, career, and personal lives.

Lesson #2: Writing instruction is most impactful when it extends through professional learning communities (PLC) that offer students school-wide support for writing

As students move from grade to grade, a strong and coordinated PLC can help them build on what they already know about writing and focus on becoming even more expressive and effective writers.

In my first year of teaching, a colleague and I had an opportunity to attend a professional learning summit on writing. One session led by Harry Noden taught us how his Image Grammar could help students expand, vary, and improve their sentence structures. The majority of our student population was multilingual learners, and we rightly suspected that focused practice on writing, even at the sentence level, could increase language development in English . In part, this is because writing has a slower pace, provides a permanent record, and calls for greater precision in word choice.

We accurately assumed that sentence writing would benefit all our students , too. And once we were satisfied with the results, we leveraged our PLC to encourage a school-wide adoption of teaching grammar with Noden’s “brushstrokes.” We saw students quickly embrace the concept of “brushstrokes” because it positioned them as “artists” painting with words. This artistry was reinforced by the quality of their sentence writing. Often shared aloud, these sentences could be chill inducing they were so beautiful. For many students, this was their first proof they could be excellent writers, once they learned how.

Lesson #3: Writing outcomes can be improved through the use of common assessments and common rubrics at the school, district, or even state level

Common assessments and common rubrics help educators develop a shared understanding of how to evaluate writing. This includes providing students with meaningful feedback and grading writing more consistently across a school, district, or even state.

Coordination among teachers can help establish a school-wide writing community that all students can tap into for peer review. It can also lead to greater consistency in writing instruction and evaluation. Such consistency builds trust between students and teachers, which in turn can strengthen students’ view of themselves as learners and increase their motivation to learn .

When students don’t have to figure out individual teacher preferences for writing—and they feel confident every teacher will grade their writing for substance not style—they can focus their mental energy on becoming better writers. This includes developing their own sense of how to use language(s) effectively for personal, academic, and civic purposes.

One way to foster student-teacher collaboration is to encourage students to enter writing contests . Student writing contests can range from local to national, and it’s worth some extra effort to find ones that are a good fit for your students. Once my journalism students began entering (and winning!) writing contests, these events became an annual tradition. My students also became more willing to work on their digital portfolios throughout the year.

At the district level, common assessments and common rubrics can help leaders identify schools that need more support, such as more professional learning for educators or more high-dosage tutoring for students . They can also identify schools that have model instruction and can serve as resources for others. If you’re looking for a place to start in your district, the Literacy Design Collaborative offers common analytic rubrics for several writing genres , and the New York Performance Standards Consortium provides a robust set of performance-based assessments and rubrics .

Districts that use state rubrics in their common writing assessments help ensure all educators have similar expectations of student writing. If your state assesses writing, check the state department of education website for newly released writing assessments and their accompanying rubrics. And if your state doesn’t assess writing, they may still offer writing materials for teachers to use.

Finally, NWEA is often asked about the connection between MAP® Growth™ and writing. MAP Growth does not include writing prompts, so it can’t take the place of high-quality formative assessment in the classroom ; it simply wasn’t designed to assess students’ writing. But MAP Growth can provide insights into students’ strengths and opportunities for growth, and these insights are especially helpful when educators use an integrated approach to reading and writing instruction.

The MAP Growth instructional areas for reading, for example, offer some information about how well students understand literary text, informational text, and vocabulary. Students who are performing below grade-level for vocabulary would likely benefit from more explicit vocabulary instruction, including more strategic exposure to roots and affixes. This expanded vocabulary knowledge can later be applied to students’ writing. One approach is to have students “speak in synonyms,” a kind of oral rehearsal that can be done with peers or small groups and then integrated into a piece of student writing. Meanwhile, students who struggle to comprehend informational text might benefit from a self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) approach to writing . This method teaches students to recognize, internalize, and utilize important genre features in writing. And since reading and writing are related, SRSD can help improve students’ comprehension of informational texts, too.

A recap of lessons learned

Writing is hard, and teaching writing may be harder still. As educators, we continually learn new lessons about how to help our students (and ourselves) become better writers. I hope the three lessons I’ve shared here are helpful to you and bring you closer to having every student see themselves as a capable writer or, better yet, an artist painting with words.

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The Writing Process

Making expository writing less stressful, more efficient, and more enlightening, search form, you are here, why should i use a writing process.

“A blank piece of paper.” —Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway when asked about the scariest thing he’d ever encountered

First of all, it is important to recognize that even though it may be informal or unconscious and may vary slightly depending on the writing task, you probably already do use a writing process , and it probably goes something like this:

• You read the instructions and anxiously choose a topic, doing a cost-benefit analysis between what will be easiest to write, what will be most interesting for you, and what will get you the best grade in the least amount of time.
• You do some brainstorming and make some notes.
• You make a very rough, minimal outline, either on paper or just in your head.
• You begin a painful struggle of writing the paper itself, agonizing over sentences and worrying not only about what ideas to put down but also how to say them not only grammatically correctly but even elegantly.
• As this is often done the night (or morning) before the assignment is due, you take a short break and then reread the paper, fixing any spelling or grammar mistakes you notice and perhaps rewriting or adding a sentence or two.
• You turn in the paper with that sense of fear still in the pit of your stomach and perhaps a vague—or very distinct—feeling that you could have done better, though you're not sure how.

Thus there are a few important reasons to use a formal writing process:

1. Reduce anxiety and stress.

2. Increase quality.

3. Learn more.

Home › Resources › Giving Effective Feedback on Student Writing

Giving Effective Feedback on Student Writing

By Amanda Leary

Providing feedback is one of the most critical tasks of teaching. Well-balanced feedback, addressing both achievements and areas for improvement, can help students develop new skills, reinforce their learning, and boost their academic confidence. Ineffective feedback, however, can compound students’ low motivation and self-perception, hindering their development and learning (Wingate, 2010). Good feedback does much more than correct errors; it’s an opportunity to empower and affirm students as knowledge makers, to improve their self-awareness, and to develop strategies for improvement now and in their future work.

By focusing on providing quality, effective feedback, we can maximize its positive effects on learning—not only helping students become better writers, but better thinkers, with increased confidence and motivation to succeed. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum, however; feedback isn’t useful for students if they don’t understand or know how to incorporate it.

Deciding what and how much to comment on will depend on your particular disciplinary, class, and assignment context. The strategies below will help you determine what kind of feedback to give and when, as well as identify potential next steps for helping students actually use your feedback.

Preparing to Give Feedback

Before you ever read the first paper, there are a few key questions to ask yourself that can help save a lot of time and make your feedback more effective: 1) why are you giving feedback , and 2) what are you looking for? Let’s take these in turn.

Why are you giving feedback?

Depending on when in the writing process you’re providing students with feedback, your comments will serve different purposes. Just as assignments can be either formative or summative , so, too, can your feedback. Summative feedback addresses what students did well or poorly at one particular instance and is often used in evaluation to justify a grade, whereas formative feedback often answers, “What can I do to improve next time?” While formative feedback often aligns with formative assignments, such as drafts and other process work such as proposals and outlines, you can also provide formative feedback on final, summative assignments and vice versa. We often switch between these two types of feedback on a single assignment, so taking time to establish beforehand what the goal of giving feedback is will focus the kinds of comments you make. It might be helpful for students to use markers in your comments to clearly distinguish between “this time” and “next time” feedback.

Another way to distinguish the two is in your mindset toward the task of giving feedback: are you a coach or a grader? If you’re approaching student work with the sole purpose of attaching a grade, then your feedback is likely to be more summative—feeding back to the writing. The mindset of a reader, however, is more aligned with a developmental approach giving more formative feedback. Here, we might think more in terms of feeding forward —concentrating our attention on actionable steps students can take to continue to improve their writing.

What are you looking for?

Sometimes, the hardest part about giving feedback can be deciding where to start. We know good writing when we see it; however, articulating those features of good writing into clearly defined criteria for a successful assignment can help mitigate the feeling that you need to comment on every feature or correct every mistake you see. Providing these criteria to students in advance has demonstrable benefits for their learning and can improve the quality of their assignments (Brookhart, 2018). Criteria should be aligned with the goals you have for the assignment, the overall goals of your course, and targeted at students at the appropriate level (Hattie and Timperley, 2007).

As you’re developing your criteria, you may find it helpful to prioritize your higher-order and lower-order concerns . Higher-order concerns will be more closely aligned with your goals for the assignment. For example, if you are providing feedback on a seminar paper, your higher-order concerns may be related to how well students demonstrated their understanding of a particular set of readings through a clearly articulated thesis and synthesis of primary and secondary sources. Lower-order concerns, such as sentence structure and grammar, would not feature as heavily in your feedback except where they affect the readability of the writing. However, if teaching specific writing skills was the primary focus of your class, your higher-order concerns might include sentence structure or grammatical understanding. Knowing what your priorities are for students’ writing before you sit down with the first assignment will keep your feedback targeted to your high-priority criteria rather than noting every little detail, resulting in fewer comments—which can be overwhelming for both you and students.

Taking the time to identify why you’re giving feedback and what your priorities are for students’ writing keeps your comments focused and relevant to students.

While You’re Responding to Student Work

Whether formative or summative, your feedback should be specific , actionable , focused on patterns , and balanced . The following tips will help you not only save time commenting, but will also ensure your comments are useful to students:

• Be specific: Simply underlining, using exclamation marks, or the infamous “awkward” doesn’t tell students anything about how to revise their essay. Highlight strengths and weaknesses in reference to specific passages and examples and offer concrete, actionable suggestions for improvement.
• Focus on action: If students don’t understand your comments, they can’t use them (Chanock, 2000; Lea and Steirer, 2000). We may know what periodic and loose sentences are, or maybe we wrote our dissertation on that niche author that would really round out a students’ discussion of a topic. Writing “comma splice” or “what about the kinematics of root growth” in the margins without explaining what that is or why it matters for their writing (especially if it isn’t connected to what you’ve taught in class) isn’t actionable feedback.
• Look for patterns: There are likely to be several mistakes repeated within and across students’ writing. Keep a comment back of feedback addressing common mechanical mistakes; rather than re-writing the same comment on every paper, you can note the first instance with an explanatory comment that applies across students. Over time, you might also develop a repository of recurring comments on more structural or content-based patterns, such as thesis development, structure and organization, or use of quotes and evidence. Having stock language on hand that you can then tailor to a student’s particular essay can help save time. Where you see the same mistake being repeated across student work, you can include a more general comment about the issue with a note that more information will be provided in class.
• Balance praise and critique: The most effective feedback contains a balance of challenge and support (Lizzio and Wilson, 2008). This doesn’t mean, however, that we should feel compelled to use the “feedback sandwich”: placing critical feedback between moments of praise. Students can recognize and discount token positive comments (Hyland and Hyland, 2001), so rather than sandwiching feedback, give valid criticism while offering encouragement, genuine appreciation for student writing, and belief in students’ ability to succeed.

Applying Feedback

Giving feedback is just one part of the process; it is equally important for students to be active participants if learning is to happen (Winstone et al., 2017). Depending on the context of your course, you might facilitate student engagement with feedback in class or through assignments that promote reflection on the writing process:

• Use class time to address feedback that applies to many students’ work. Provide instruction or resources for how students can integrate that feedback into their writing with an opportunity to practice.
• Where time allows, incorporate writing days into your course calendar as a dedicated opportunity for students to work through your feedback as they revise their assignments.
• Try a reflective feedback journal as a space for students to reflect on their immediate reactions to your comments and how they plan to address them. This could be done in class or as part of an ongoing journal throughout the course.
• Incorporate peer review as a mechanism for understanding feedback and to empower students to further self-assess their own work (McConlogue, 2020; Huisman et al., 2019).
• Add a brief metacognitive cover letter or memo to final assignments that asks students to reflect on how they incorporated feedback from rough to final draft.

Integrating these strategies into your practice will not only save you time, but helps keep your feedback targeted, educative, and effective. Viewing feedback as a dialogic process that begins before you make your first comment and involves students as active recipients of that feedback is an important part of giving students comments they can—and actually want to—use.

Brookhart, Susan M. “Appropriate Criteria: Key to Effective Rubrics.” Frontiers in Education 3 (2018).

Chanock, Kate. “Comments on Essays: Do Students Understand What Tutors Write?” Teaching in Higher Education 5, no. 1 (2000): 95–105.

Hattie, John, and Helen Timperley. “The Power of Feedback.” Review of Educational Research 77, no. 1 (2007): 81–112.

Huisman, Bart, Nadira Saab, Paul van den Broek, and Jan van Driel. “The Impact of Formative Peer Feedback on Higher Education Students’ Academic Writing: a Meta-Analysis.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 44, no. 6 (2019): 863–80.

Hyland, Fiona, and Ken Hyland. “Sugaring the Pill: Praise and Criticism in Written Feedback.” Journal of Second Language Writing 10, no. 3 (2001): 185–212.

Lea, M. R. and Steirer, B. (eds). Student Writing in Higher Education: New Contexts . Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000.

Lizzio, Alf, and Keithia Wilson. “Feedback on Assessment: Students’ Perceptions of Quality and Effectiveness.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 33, no. 3 (2008): 263–75.

McConlogue, Teresa. Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education: A Guide for Teachers . UCL Press. 1st ed. London: UCL Press, 2020.

Wingate, Ursula. “The Impact of Formative Feedback on the Development of Academic Writing.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 35, no. 5 (2010): 519–33.

Winstone, Naomi E., Robert A. Nash, James Rowntree, and Michael Parker. “‘It’d Be Useful, but I Wouldn’t Use It’: Barriers to University Students’ Feedback Seeking and Recipience.” Studies in Higher Education (Dorchester-on-Thames) 42, no. 11 (2017): 2026–41.

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The Importance of Writing Skills: Why It Matters to the Student

There are some important skills students have to learn as they go from one stage to another in their academics. These skills are taught in our schools—right from high school through to the college years—to expose them to the different ways they can solve real-life problems whenever they’re confronted with one.

Among all these is writing, which is, undeniably, one of the most important skills every student must perfect. 

Writing, as a skill itself, offers the students the opportunity to simultaneously catch on to many other vital facilities that can help them succeed in their academics, career, and also in other relevant aspects of their lives.

Sadly, however, many students do not seem to understand the importance writing has in their lives. This is why, in this article, we’ll be examining, together, some of the importance of writing and why it so much matters to students, at all.

So, What are The Importance of Writing to Students?

As a student, you must have heard it several times that writing is an important life skill to learn, which is why it is deliberately taught in all our schools today. 

However, you may still find it a bit difficult to believe this, and I understand why…

You do not really know why it is so important! Those essays you write are not really a sort of punishment that your teachers hand out to unnecessarily frustrate you. 

No, far from it! 

Writing, actually, is a skill that has a whole lot of benefits, not only to you as a student but to you as a person, too. 

So why is writing is taught today in schools?

Because It Improves Communication Skills

Communication (oral and non-verbal), is one essential skill every student must master to be able to succeed not only in their academics but in life as a whole. Because, to be honest, without communication, the real essence of life would be lost, which is why writing has been deeply integrated into the school curricular as a way to significantly improve the communication skills of students. 

Writing provides students with the avenue to learn all the rules of their language and how they can better organize their ideas more coherently using the language. 

Grammar, spelling, and punctuation, gestures, paralinguistics, and so on, which are major parts of communication, can also be improved upon when we learn how to use writing as means of expressing our ideas and messages clearly and directly to our listeners. 

Because It Sharpens Creativity and Imagination Levels

Research confirms all of us are naturally creative. When you write, certain areas of your brain are activated, especially what is referred to as the “frontal cortex”; the part of the brain popularly known to be the seat of creativity. 

However, without any effort to actively demonstrate this inherent creativity we have, especially with writing, it would remain stifled and almost impossible to develop over time. 

So, the more frequently you write, the more the whole of your brain is enhanced to generate novel ideas that can be applied to solving real-life problems. 

By producing ideas, reflecting on, and juxtaposing them, you can also form free and productive ways of extensively exploring the world around you and also improving every situation you may find yourself in.

Because It Widens Knowledge Base

Writing can also widen your knowledge capacity, and significantly, too. 

Even before you develop the ability to write, at least sufficiently, you must first have been able to read, too. Writing, as you know, involves a lot of research, 99% of the time, into things you don’t know and may even know, as well. 

As you continue to write and, of course, carry out research, you also continue to widen your knowledge base and develop an excellent memory, too. 

You’ll also be able to learn about things that happened in the past, events that are currently happening, and the possible ways you can actively influence future situations with your present actions, in the process.

Because It is Vital to Academic Success

Writing, without any doubt, is a significant part of your academics. 

Writing is vital to your academic success, in that it is identified as one of the most important requirements a student must satisfy to be able to earn excellent grades and also a good degree, at the end of it all. 

This is why students make use of good essay writing services, they must have been able to confirm on review sites , for their essay assignments and other important academic responsibilities they have to fulfill.

Because It Increases the Level of Confidence

One of the least important reasons writing is important to students is because it can increase their level of confidence and even their sense of achievement, too. 

You can’t deny it, completing your essays and the other writing tasks you have gives a strange feeling of fulfillment that you have been able to successfully exploit your literary skills.

I remember how joyful and confident I also felt when I finally completed my undergraduate dissertation. I was particularly happy because I was able to contribute a token of my knowledge to the huge body of research, and this gave me more confidence to state my opinions more expressly especially in the public.

This is the kind of feeling writing can give you, too, as a student.

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Why Is Essay Writing Important?

DETROIT – Essays are defined to be short pieces of formal or informal writing, but they can also be longer-length opinion pieces, portrayed in the writer’s own voice and style of writing. They are meant to inform, persuade, explain or entertain and can be custom written papers. 

An essay is a type of academic writing that is usually written from the author’s personal perspective. It is usually based on the writer’s personal experience, observations, or ideas, and it frequently tells a story. It usually depends on the type of paper that an essay writer has to write. They are usually written in prose and are about a specific topic or issue.

Writing is important because it allows students and journalists to express their feelings, thoughts, and opinions about the world around them. Writing essays demonstrates a student’s knowledge of various subjects and disciplines such as history, science, mathematics, literature, art, and so on. Often students  order an essay by EssayService or similar writing services to get assistance and improve their writing. You can also use Write My Essay. 

Students can use essays to explore their own thoughts and feelings about various topics. They can learn how to present their ideas in a clear manner while developing an understanding of how they want to be perceived by others. 

An essay is a brief piece of writing that typically discusses a specific topic or issue. They are frequently written to explore and share an author’s own thoughts and opinions on a specific topic, but they can also be used to train students in the art of writing opinion pieces that are interesting, intelligent, and rational. 

Features of an Essay

The following are some features of an essay:

• An essay should have a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. 
• The introduction should be written in the first person and can include anecdotes that are compelling and interesting enough to keep the reader invested until the end.
• The body of the essay should contain three paragraphs where each paragraph should have a topic sentence, supporting sentences with examples, and concluding sentences. 
• The conclusion should summarize the main points made in the essay and should leave a lasting impression on the reader and make them want to read more of your work.

Types of Essays

There are so many types of essays that exist, but the most popular ones are:

• An argumentative essay : This is a type of essay where the writer presents their opinion on a given topic and defends it against other points of view.
• A narrative essay : This is an essay that tells a story, whether it be about a personal experience or an event that has happened to someone else.
• An informative essay : These essays are usually written in order to inform the reader about something specific, usually with the intention of educating them on a particular subject.
• A persuasive essay : This is one designed to convince the reader to adopt your point of view and take certain action on it.
• A reflective essay :  Is one where you explore your own thoughts, feelings and experiences in order to better understand them.
• A research paper : This essay is one that requires extensive research into a chosen topic with careful analysis and an in-depth understanding of the topic. 

Importance of Essay Writing

Essay writing is an important skill for many reasons. It teaches students how to research, organize, and write about a topic by turning their thoughts and opinions into clearer compositions of words. It also helps to teach them how to develop ideas and arguments in order to support their thesis statement. Essay writing also helps students improve their reading comprehension skills by reading articles that are often used as sources for essays.

Essay writing provides many benefits for students and should be introduced in the school curriculum at an early age.

There are numerous reasons why essay writing is essential. A few of them are listed below.

• Essay writing helps in developing critical thinking skills, language skills, and analytical skills.
• It helps in understanding the meaning of words and sentences.
• It helps in enhancing communication and Comprehension skills.
• It helps in building confidence for public speaking and delivering speeches.
• It teaches how to organize thoughts into coherent sentences with proper grammar structure and how to use appropriate vocabulary for different audiences.

Important Tips For Writing Essays

The ideal essay is well-written, has a clear thesis statement, and is well assembled and organized. It should also be brief and simple to read and pass plagiarism tests including tools that detect ChatGPT content. 

There are numerous tips and tricks for writing the perfect essay; some of them are listed below.

• Choose the topic and make sure it is relevant and interesting for your audience. 
• Organize your thoughts into a logical sequence. 
• Write sentences that are clear and concise. 
• Begin with a clear thesis statement. 
• Use an organizational pattern that suits the type of essay you are writing (for example, compare/contrast essays require different organizational patterns than narrative essays). 
• Write in an engaging and interesting style. 
• Use strong supporting evidence from the text or other sources (make sure to cite your sources!). 
• Proofread your work for grammar and spelling errors. 

How Essay Writing Can Help You Improve

Writing essays is an excellent way to hone your writing abilities. It aids in the development of a better understanding of language, grammar, and sentence structure, all of which are critical components of writing. Writing an essay can also teach you how to conduct proper research, organize information, and present it in a logical and precise manner.

The best part of writing essays is that it helps students learn how to summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize information from different sources. Students can improve these skills by practicing them repeatedly during the essay-writing process.

When writing an essay, students have the opportunity to practice their vocabulary skills. They can use words in new ways or learn new words that they didn’t know before, broadening their knowledge of the English language.

Writing essays is an excellent way to practice improving your writing skills and communicating your message to your audience more effectively. This practice has many advantages: it helps you develop a better understanding of the language, grammar, and sentence structure; the process of writing an essay also teaches you how to research and organize information logically; and, finally, it’s an excellent way to get feedback on your work from others.

Essays have been shown to be excellent ways to improve your writing, comprehension, and critical thinking skills, allowing you to reflect on important issues, analyze source material and reach insightful conclusions.

Lauren Bradshaw started academic writing in 2003. Since then she has tried her hand in SEO and website copywriting, writing for blogs, and working as an academic expert at professional writing companies. Currently she is working for an academic essay writing service CustomWritings . Her major interests lie in content marketing, developing communication skills, and blogging. She’s also passionate about philosophy, psychology, literature and painting.

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Our 15th Annual Summer Reading Contest

Students are invited to tell us what they’re reading in The Times and why, this year in writing OR via a 90-second video. Contest dates: June 7 to Aug. 16.

By The Learning Network

The illustrations for this post were originally created by Adolfo Redaño for “ Summer Books 2023 .”

Our Summer Reading Contest is our longest-running challenge — and our simplest.

All you have to do to participate is tell us what you’re reading, watching or listening to in The New York Times and why.

Don’t have a subscription? No problem! We’ll be providing dozens of free links to teen-friendly articles, essays, videos, podcasts and graphics every week from June through August.

And this summer, both to celebrate the contest’s 15th year and to shake things up a bit, we’ll be trying something new: Students can enter as they always have by submitting a short written response — or they can make a video up to 90 seconds long.

Got questions? We have answers. Everything you need is detailed below.

But if you’re a teacher who would like to have your students practice for this now, before the contest begins, note that the only rule around content is that a piece must have been published in 2024. Beyond that, we don’t care if your students pick something on cats , chatbots , the cost of college or the crisis in the Middle East ; Beyoncé , book bans , basketball or banana bread . We just want to hear what they think. To help, we’ve created a special practice forum . Join us!

Have fun, and, as always, post your questions here or write to [email protected].

This announcement is available as a one-page PDF to hang on your class bulletin board.

Here’s what you need to know:

The challenge, rules and guidelines, resources for teachers, students and parents, frequently asked questions, how to submit.

Choose something in The New York Times that got your attention and tell us why — via a short written or video response.

Here’s how the contest works:

Every Friday for 10 weeks beginning on June 7, we will publish a post asking the same question: “What got your attention in The Times this week?” That’s where you should submit your response any time until the following Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern, when we will close that post and open a new one that asks the same question. On Aug. 9 we’ll post our final question of the summer, open until 9 a.m. on Aug. 16.

You can enter every week, or any week, all summer long, but you may only submit once each week.

You can always find the proper link to the place to submit at the top of this page, updated each week. Once the contest begins, you can also find it on our home page . Please see the How to Submit section below for more details.

You can choose anything you like that was published in the print paper or on nytimes.com in 2024, including articles, Opinion and guest essays , videos , graphics, photos and podcasts . To see the variety of topics winners have responded to over the years, read this column .

Then tell us what Times piece you chose and why it got your attention via a 250-word essay OR a 90-second video. See the full Rules and Guidelines for each type of response below. We have a contest rubric , as well as a guide for students that details four simple ways to make your response stand out.

We’ll choose winners each week, and every Tuesday during the contest, starting June 25, we’ll publish them in a separate post, which you can find here . All written and video entries will be judged together. We will also celebrate the winners on Facebook.

Please read these rules and guidelines carefully before you make your submissions.

Guidelines for written responses

Your written response should tell us what you read, watched or listened to in The Times and why it got your attention. You can find many examples in this column , which spotlights the work of our previous winners.

This guide walks you through some of the key elements of a great reader response, including making a personal connection to the piece, thinking critically about it, referencing specific details or quotes, and writing in your own unique voice.

Here are some guidelines to keep in mind:

Written responses must be no more than 1,500 characters, or about 250 words.

Make sure to i nclude the complete URL or headline of the Times piece you have chosen. For example, “The Joys and Challenges of Caring for Terrance the Octopus” or https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/us/tiktok-octopus-pet-oklahoma.html. Yes, this is included in the word count.

Guidelines for video responses

Just as with written responses, video responses should explain what Times piece you chose and why you chose it. The advice in this guide , while originally created with written responses in mind, can apply to video, as well.

We hope you’ll be creative, but that doesn’t mean your video has to be complicated or use special effects; sometimes simple is best. All you need is yourself and the camera on your phone to make a great video response.

Here are the guidelines:

Use a phone to shoot your video vertically (so it looks like the videos you might see on TikTok or Instagram Reels ).

Your video must be 90 seconds or fewer .

Please be sure to say or show the headline of the Times piece you are discussing.

Your video MAY NOT use any images, video clips, music or sound effects, other than those that appear in the Times piece you are discussing or what you create yourself. We cannot publish your video if it uses any copyrighted images or sounds — including TikTok sounds.

Make sure we can see and hear your video clearly. Pay attention to lighting and try to limit background noise as much as possible if it’s not an intentional part of your video.

Please do not include anyone else in your video. For the most part, we recommend filming only yourself, inanimate objects, animals, or your Times piece. You may film crowds of people in public places, but, to protect people’s privacy, try to avoid any close-ups.

A few additional rules

These rules apply to both written and video responses:

You can participate as often as every week, but we allow only ONE submission per person per week.

Any teenager 13 to 19 years old anywhere in the world is invited to join us , as long as you are in middle or high school, or have graduated from high school in 2024 and haven’t started college yet. See below, How to Submit , for more details.

The children and stepchildren of New York Times employees are not eligible to enter this contest. Teenagers who live in the same household as a Times employee are also ineligible.

The work you submit should be fundamentally your own — it should not be plagiarized, created by someone else or generated by artificial intelligence.

Your work must be original for this contest. That means it should not already have been published at the time of submission, whether in your school newspaper, for another contest, or anywhere else.

Keep in mind that the work you send in should be appropriate for a Times audience — that is, something that could be published in a family newspaper (so, please, no curse words).

For this contest, you must work alone , not in pairs or a group.

Entries must be received by the deadline at 9 a.m. Eastern time each Friday to be considered.

We have created many resources to help students practice for and participate in this contest over the years. Although they were written with the goal of helping students create written responses, many of them can work for video, too.

Writing Resources and Lesson Plans: Our full unit on independent reading and writing has lesson plans, writing prompts and mentor texts that can support students in the kind of thinking we’re asking them to do for this contest.

But, to see how easy this contest is, you might start with “ A Simple Exercise for Encouraging Independent Reading .” We invited four teachers across the country to try a short experiment in which they challenged their students to read a Times article on a topic within their comfort zone, and one article on a topic outside it. In this piece, they and their students reflect on the successful results.

We also have a Student Opinion question that challenges any student to do the same.

Student Mentors: “ Writing Rich Reading Responses: Participating in Our Summer Contest ” showcases a series of student-written mentor texts that demonstrate the four key elements that can make a short response — whether in a written or video format — sing.

You can also read all of the winning student entries from 2017 to the present , including reflections from many participants and judges.

And, check out a video version of our “Annotated by the Author” series (embedded above) in which two student winners of our 2020 contest discuss the “writer’s moves” they made.

Webinars: Teachers, to learn more about this contest and how you can teach with it, watch this free on-demand webinar from 2020 . And, to get ideas for supporting your students’ independent reading and writing, watch this on-demand webinar from 2021 .

Our Rubric: This is the rubric our judges will use to judge this contest. We’re looking for written and video responses that include personal connections, critical thinking, references to the source material, and voice and style.

Q. What kinds of responses are you looking for?

A. The subject matter isn’t important; neither is whether you loved or hated it. What we care about is what you have to say about why you picked it.

If you don’t believe us, scroll through the work of previous winners . They have written on weighty topics like abortion , racism , the war in Ukraine , Alzheimer’s disease , climate change and the dangers of vaping , but they have also covered handbags , hummingbirds , the Minions , text messaging , staycations , power naps, junk food , Wordle , Disney shows, running and bagels.

Whatever the subject, you’ll see that the best responses year after year make personal connections to the news and discuss the broader questions and ideas that the topic raises. We have even created a guide that outlines four simple things you can do to make your responses more powerful. We will use this rubric to judge entries.

So whether you were moved by an article , irked by an essay , bowled over by a photo , or inspired by a video , simply find something in The Times that genuinely interests you and tell us why, as honestly and originally as you can.

Q. Since you now offer the option to respond in video, are you looking for something different in that format?

Short answer: No. Longer answer: We’re excited to see what you come up with! We’ve purposely not put a lot of guidelines around what you can create since a) it’s summer, and we want this to be casual and b) we hope you’ll surprise us and show us what’s possible.

Though at the beginning all our contests focused on writing, in recent years we’ve been trying to encourage other forms of composition and expression. We hope you’ll take a risk and submit in video at least once this summer.

Q. Who will be judging my work?

A. The Learning Network staff, a team of New York Times journalists, along with educators from across the country.

Q. What is the “prize”?

A. The prize for winning any of our contests is having your work published on The Learning Network.

Q. When should I check to see if my submission won?

A. Every Tuesday from June 25 until Aug. 27, we will publish the previous week’s winner or winners in a separate article that you can find here . We will also celebrate the winners on Facebook.

Q. How do I participate in this contest if I don’t have a digital subscription to The Times?

A. All Learning Network posts for students, as well as all Times articles linked from them, are accessible without a digital subscription . So if you use any of the articles we have linked to on our site, they will not be blocked.

Each time we pose our question — “What got your attention in The Times this week?” — we will link to dozens of recent, teen-friendly pieces that you can choose from if you don’t have your own subscription.

You can also find copies of The New York Times at most public libraries, and some even allow you to access NYTimes.com with your library card.

And remember: You can use anything published anytime in 2024.

Q. How do I prove to my teacher that I participated?

A. If you are 13 to 19 in the United States and Britain — or 16 to 19 elsewhere in the world — and are submitting your written response by posting a comment, make sure to check the box that asks if you would like to be emailed when your comment is published. If you do so, the system will send you a link to your comment, which you can use to show your teacher, your parents, your friends or anyone else you’d like to impress. (Please note that you will not get an email until the comment has been approved, which may take longer over weekends.)

If you are submitting a video response or an adult is submitting a written response on behalf of an eligible student via the embedded form at the bottom of the post, please take a screenshot if a student needs proof that they are participating in the contest. You will not receive a confirmation email.

Another method? Some teachers ask students to keep a Google Doc of all their submissions, while others instruct students to take screenshots of their responses before they hit “submit.”

Q. How can teachers, librarians and parents use this challenge?

A. Our goals for this contest include some that appear on many educators’ lists. We want to help students become more aware of the world and their place in it; learn how to navigate sophisticated nonfiction; and create for a real audience, beyond the classroom. But more than anything else, we just want students to realize that reading the newspaper can be fun.

Through the years, adults have told us over and over that participating in this contest has made their students both more aware of and more interested in what’s going on in the world. Many see it as a low-stakes way to help teenagers start building a news-reading habit.

And, too, at a time when some educators are alarmed by the ability of chatbots to do students’ work for them, this is a contest that rewards the human touch. As our step-by-step guide to participating shows, what we’re looking for are genuine personal connections to the news, explored with voice, style and personality — something A.I. can’t (yet?) do with anywhere near the verve of the teenagers we hear from.

Another reason? For some teachers, assigning the contest over the summer helps them to quickly get to know their new students when school starts. In our related webinar , Karen Gold, English department chair at The Governor’s Academy in Byfield, Mass., details how she uses the contest in this way.

But maybe the most compelling reason to assign this contest is what students themselves say about it. In 2017, Emma Weber, a student from London, posted that, thanks to the contest, “I feel grounded in my views and understand what’s going on in the world. It’s amazing what a change 1,500 characters a week make.” In 2020 we invited Emma to help judge the entries, and here is what she had to say after Week 10:

I know firsthand that the Summer Reading Contest has the ability to change the way one engages in the news — I went from passively reading to actively thinking and questioning. The more you reflect on what is going on in the world and what interests you about it, the more you will understand your place within it. I urge all those who enjoyed participating this summer to continue reading, reflecting and writing.

Thank you for making this contest a hit year after year, and please spread the word that it’s back for its 15th season.

Any 13- to 19-year-old anywhere in the world is invited to join us, if you are in middle or high school, or if you graduated from high school and haven’t yet started college.

Every Friday starting on June 7, we’ll post a fresh version of this question: “What got your attention in The Times this week?” We will link to each week’s version at the top of this post. Here is an example from last summer. How you respond to this question will depend on your age and whether you are choosing to respond via writing or video, but all responses will be judged together.

For written responses:

Students ages 13 to 19 in the United States and Britain — and ages 16 to 19 elsewhere in the world — can submit by posting a comment on the post itself. See the GIF below to see how to do that.

If you are a teacher, parent or guardian of a student or child who is ages 13 to 15 anywhere in the world besides the United States and Britain, then you should submit an entry on the student’s behalf using the form embedded at the bottom of each week’s post.

For video responses:

All students should use the form at the bottom of each week’s post to submit video responses. Students ages 13 to 19 in the United States and Britain — and ages 16 to 19 elsewhere in the world — can submit their own entries. Students ages 13 to 15 anywhere else in the world must have a parent, teacher or guardian submit on their behalf.