Teaching guide
Everything you need to run the essay program in a short weekly slot. The exam is one analytical essay on 27 October, marked out of 45 on Ideas, Structure and Craft. This guide turns that into ten tight sessions plus a phone practice each week.
Six moves that make twenty minutes count
Twenty minutes is short, so every choice is about leverage. These six moves are the whole method.
1 Model first
Always show a strong example and pull it apart before he writes. Seeing it done well is faster than being told.
2 One move a week
Teach one thing per session. Depth beats coverage, and it protects his attention.
3 Recall, not re-read
The phone practice is retrieval, not reading. Pulling it from memory is what makes it stick.
4 Fade the help
Across the term go from "I do" to "we do" to "you do". Pull your prompts back as he grows.
5 Name the mark
Say which of Ideas, Structure or Craft you are building, so he learns where marks come from.
6 Effect, not label
Push past naming a technique to its effect and meaning. That is the biggest lever (below).
The twenty-minute template
Run most weeks to this rhythm. The middle block is where the real teaching happens.
One slot, four beats
How to teach the biggest lever
Most essays stall because they name techniques without analysing them. This is the move that wins the Ideas marks (18 of 45), so it is worth teaching slowly and returning to all term. The skill has three steps: spot it, work out the effect, say so what.
Teach it like this
- Model it aloud. Take one quote and think out loud through the three questions, including a wrong turn or two, so he hears the reasoning, not just the answer.
- Do one together. New quote, you ask the three questions, he answers. You hold the pen for the "so what".
- He does one, you watch. Same three questions, he leads. Only step in if he stops at the label. Fade this prompt over the weeks.
The three questions
Two things to watch for
The label trap: he names the technique and stops. Your move is always the same gentle nudge, "and what does that do to the reader?" The vague trap: effects like "it makes it interesting" or "it draws you in". Push for the specific feeling or idea, tied to the theme. Specific is the whole game.
The ten-week playbook
Each card is one slot. Two weeks need his text, so slot those in once his class confirms the book. Tags show which mark each week mainly builds.
The essay, and where its marks live
- Show the exam, the date, the countdown
- Walk the three marks: Ideas, Structure, Craft
- Read one strong paragraph, find all three at work
Knowing the text deeply
- Build a one-page text map together
- Three big themes, key characters, three turning points
Decode the question into a thesis
- Teach the three question shapes
- Take two real past questions, name the shape
- Turn each into a one-line thesis together
Writing a sharp, arguable thesis
- Upgrade two weak theses to strong, you model
- Then two more together, using the template
Building a quote bank
- Choose ten to twelve quotes worth memorising
- Tag each with its technique and its effect
- Start the flip-card set
The body paragraph that proves it
- Pull a model paragraph apart: find Point, Evidence, Analysis, Link
- Build one together on his text
Analysing the writer's choices
- Teach spot, effect, so what (the lever above)
- Climb the weak to strong ladder on three quotes
- Model one, do one together, he does one
A full essay, intro to conclusion
- Plan, do not write, a whole essay to a past question
- Thesis, three paragraph points, a signpost, a closing idea
Timed practice on a real question
- Mark the paragraph he wrote against the three criteria
- Set up a timed full essay for a longer block or home
Mock, and a personal fix-list
- Go through his mock essay together
- Build a personal three-point fix-list for the run-in
The phone micro library
Five to ten minutes on his own, each one a retrieval game. These carry the load between your short slots, so set one every week.
Quote flip-cards
Tap to flip: recall the line, then name what it does.
Name the technique
A short passage, spot the choice and its effect.
Thesis sprint
One past question, one minute, one strong sentence.
Spot the shape
Sort past questions into theme, character or discuss.
Sentence upgrades
Turn a flat line into a sharp one.
Better paragraph
Two paragraphs, pick the stronger and say why.
Running the Dissection Room and the Comparison Bench
Two pages built for judgement, not reading. The Dissection Room is three paragraphs (a C, a B and an A) on the 2025 reputation question. The Comparison Bench is two whole essays (a B and an A) on appearance and reality. Both work the same muscle: rank first, reveal second. If he reads with the answers open, the pages teach nothing.
Dissection Room, one 20-minute slot
- Silent read and rank (5 min). He reads all three clean and ranks them. No discussion yet, and do not let him touch the buttons.
- Defend the ranking (5 min). Before any reveal: "point at the exact sentence that decided it for you." The pointing is the skill.
- Reveal and mark (7 min). Reveal the grades, then Show the marking on whichever one he misjudged, or on the B if he got all three right. Read the marker notes together.
- One takeaway (3 min). He says in his own words what separates the B from the A. If he says anything close to "the A argues", the session landed.
Comparison Bench, run as two slots
- Slot one: read and list. He reads both essays (or intros and conclusions only on a low day), picks the stronger, writes his own five differences. Stop there, no reveals. The gap week lets his list settle.
- Slot two: score and steal. Reveal the verdicts, open the five difference cards, score his list against them. Then he picks ONE move (thesis, openers, extra why, verbs, conclusion) and applies it to his most recent practice piece.
Three traps on these pages
Reading instead of judging: if the answers are open before he has committed, close the laptop lid halfway and ask for the ranking out loud. Right answer, wrong reason: "essay two sounds smarter" is a guess, not a judgement, so always chase the sentence that proves it. Despair at the A: if the A-grade writing reads as out of reach, point at ONE move (the verbs are the easiest) and show him the A is five learnable moves stacked, not talent. That is the whole message of both pages.
Extension, when a session has spare energy
The rewrite ladder: take the Dissection Room's C paragraph and rewrite it into a B together, his pen. Next time, the B into an A. Rewriting a known paragraph one band upward is lower stakes than writing fresh, and it forces exactly the moves the marker notes name. It also makes a good low-energy fallback week.
From the mock to 27 October
Term 3 ends with the Week 10 mock. Term 4 is a short window before the exam, so it is timed practice on real past questions, then his fix-list, on repeat.
The last three weeks
Keep it calm and familiar. One full timed essay, mark it together against the three things, pick the single biggest fix, do it again. By the exam he should have written his text to three or four real past questions, so nothing on the day is new.
Print this and keep it in the maths binder, or open it on the laptop in the session. The week numbers are a guide, not a cage, the same as Josh's missions. When his text is confirmed I will drop the model paragraph and quote bank onto the essay page, and Weeks 2 and 5 come alive.