How to Make Essays More Sophisticated

Ep. 152

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I'm a big fan of making the biggest difference to results and confidence,
in the simplest, most efficient and effective ways.

This example of how to make essays 'more sophisticated' is a great example of this:
> One strategy that demonstrates multiple capabilities means your teen can significantly elevate their response to help meet top level descriptors, such as

- an EXTENSIVE knowledge to support an argument

- a DEEP understanding of subject knowledge

and
- a SOPHISTICATED, sustained argument that answers the Q

... all with their existing subject knowledge,
and without any fancy writing or re-writing of the essay content. 

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Transcript

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You're listening to the Parents of Hardworking Teens podcast, episode 152. Now, you know that I am a big fan of making the biggest difference to students' results and confidence in the most simple, or efficient, or effective ways. And this example that I'm going to share on this episode of coaching a student on how to make their essays more sophisticated is a really good example of this. It's one strategy that demonstrates multiple skills so that we could elevate his response to help him meet the top-level descriptors, and do it with his existing subject knowledge, without any fancy writing, and without needing any rewrite of the actual essay content.

Hey VIPs, how are you going? It has been a little while. I have to apologize that I've been a little bit absent from the podcast for a few weeks. Ah, my excuse, my reason—when does a reason become an excuse, when does an excuse become a reason?—is our renovations. I haven't spoken about this for so long because it has been a very long road with some choices, and plans, and getting a builder confirmed, and getting things set off, and making decisions. It has been a long path, much longer than my husband and I both had anticipated, which has been really tricky for me because I am such a doer and I think I'm so efficient and everything gets done really quickly and really well. So, that has been messing with me a little bit. But, now that we finally have essentially all of our ducks in a row and everything good to go, what we ended up deciding is that we would basically just rip off the band-aid and just do everything all in one go. So, instead of sort of staggering it and doing this part and then this part, we just have basically a bit of a shell of a house right now. Everything is going to be ripped out, everything is getting done, which is going to be much more efficient, so that does tie in nicely with me, and probably will be a little bit more cost-effective, I guess. But then again, it's taken us so long to get here that maybe not. But, it just means that things are pretty full on.

And I am recording this in our sort of what was our office, um, with a headset microphone, which is hopefully better than the usual microphone I use because the room is so echoey. So, if this sounds a little bit different, that is why.

But, we're getting on with it, and I have just jumped off of a call with, an accelerator call with a student, and there was a little part of it, well actually a very big part of it, that I decided would be worth sharing with you.

So, last Sunday, also in the midst of all the chaos, but we managed to carve out space and time, last Sunday was the "How to Hit the Top Criteria in Essays, Assignments, and Extended Response Exam Questions" workshop.

So, this was a pretty big workshop. It was a 2-hour workshop, and if you want to get your teen in on it, I do have access to the recording that you can still purchase as a ticket to the workshop, so if what I go through on this episode sounds really helpful and you would like your teen in on it, then I will share the link to be able to get a ticket—not to the live event because that was last Sunday, but to the full recording, the workbook, everything that was included, including some bonus resources, so stick around for that. And included as one of those bonuses is a 20-minute accelerator call with me, a 1-on-1 call with me where your teen can work directly with me on having them hit the top criteria in whatever their assessments are that they are working on.

So, this particular student wanted me to provide some feedback on modern history practice essays. So, they actually had two that they submitted. Obviously, in a 20-minute call, we are not going to have time to go through two full practice written essays, which is no problem because this is all about being super strategic and really getting most bang for buck, which is kind of going to be the theme of this podcast episode. And that's because I see my work, or at least part of my work with students, is to find the most impactful thing to laser in on with them and then train them and get them skilled in—something that for them will make the biggest difference to their results without them having to do a ton more work. And I will tell you, we basically sussed that out within the first 4 minutes. And we did it in two steps, so I'm going to share with you a little bit about what we covered on the call—obviously, no personal information details will be shared—but just a couple of concepts that I think will be really, really helpful for you to just be aware of, and for your teen to potentially be able to take and use. They're going to be very, very actionable, very, very specific, but also the broader concept behind or backing all of this that will ultimately be the most helpful thing that you and your teen can take away from this.

So, first we dissected the question. I said we did this in two steps: first we dissected the question, so we went through and figured out the command of the question, the demands of that command, and we also identified—I also like to identify—the topic trap. Essentially, the topic that lots of students will just start writing about and they will fall into that as a trap because they'll be operating at those lower levels of describe and explain. So, we always want to highlight that in order to avoid it and side-step it. And so then we focused on how this student had actually responded to that question—not by going through the whole essay, that would have been super time-consuming, but to figure out where had they directed their response.

So, first of all, just to give you some context, here's a little bit of input on what the question was and what it was asking. So, first of all, the question started with a quote, what we'd almost call like a stimulus statement, so something to work from, and then the question itself asked: "To what extent does this statement reflect the nature and impact of Japanese expansion during the Pacific War?" So, reminder: this is a modern history essay. You can apply this, take these concepts, take these strategies, and apply them to any kind of extended response, assignment question, report, inquiry—you name it.

So, first of all, we broke that down, we figured out the topic, we figured out the focus, we figured out the topic trap, and we figured out what does "to what extent" really, really mean. Now, we'd done a lot of this—this student was very familiar with this—we'd done some of these skills, we'd gone through some of these strategies on the workshop, which is why this is called an accelerator call. It's about taking those things and putting them into practice and putting them into action, and really making sure that we speed up that processing and application of those skills.

So, the next question was, once we'd dissected the question and figured out all the elements of it, was how did this student actually end up responding? What was in their response of this practice essay that they had written? Now, this student could quite clearly tell me that they had agreed with the statement. They said, "Yes, this statement does reflect the nature and impact of Japanese expansion," which is all good. They agreed with the statement and then they gave all the reasons why; they gave all of the evidence that supports that agreement, if you like.

So, I had a really quick scan of their intro and their hypothesis in that introduction, and they were definitely answering the question, which is a really great start. That doesn't always happen, but that was a great start. And here's what I said—this is the first 4 minutes—this is what I said: I said, "Yes, it is definitely possible to be getting full marks with that type of response—agree with the statement and here's all the reasons why." But you need to be really amazing in all of the analytical points that you're making to support that in that response in order to hit all of those very top criteria.

Now, we didn't have the criteria to hand, but I did go away afterwards, just in preparation for making this podcast, and I had a quick look at—this was a New South Wales NESA exam—and I had a quick look at the wording of their top criteria for a modern history essay. And it says:

• Supports the argument with extensive, highly accurate, and highly relevant historical knowledge.
• Provides a clear judgment with a sophisticated, sustained argument that directly answers the question's specific directive (directive being the command word).
• Demonstrates a deep understanding of historiography—that's different historical perspectives and schools of thought.

And this is the thing: How do we prove, how do we demonstrate that we have extensive historical knowledge, that we have sophisticated arguments, that we have a deep understanding? These are the things that I think it's so hard for students to really tangibly latch onto and grasp and therefore be able to demonstrate. And I'm always a fan of ways of demonstrating or meeting those criteria in the most strategic, efficient, and effective ways. And I will tell you—and this is exactly what I said to this student—I said a great way to do this, and this goes for any type of evaluation level question ("to what extent" question is evaluation), is to show both sides. So, yes, you had plenty of evidence that agreed with that statement, but can we find something that doesn't? Because that is a great way to show extensive knowledge, to show a deep understanding, to show a sophisticated yet sustained argument, by having what I've come to call a "yes, but" response. Now, it could be mainly yes with a little tiny but; it could be a half-half, like yes, but also this; or it could be actually mainly this other stuff—whatever it is, but you're on that sliding scale, but whatever it is, we have both sides.

Because this is a great way to provide—and I'm going to focus in on this word—a sophisticated response. And the reason I'm focusing in on that word is because I asked this student, "Well, what have you been told by your teacher? Have you been given any guidance in terms of what is an area to work on? What's something that maybe you're struggling to do or you know you need to do and we can focus in on with regards to reviewing this essay?" And they replied that they knew that they'd lost out on marks previously in their last essay because—and this was the teacher feedback—their answer wasn't sophisticated enough; they needed to make their answer more sophisticated. Now, and this is not a criticism of a teacher—I'm a teacher, I'm not one to criticize teachers—but it is a vague statement. What do we mean by sophisticated? I'm sure I've probably written that word at some point during my teaching career myself, and would go back and go, "Okay, let's be more specific." Students need to know what would actually make a response more sophisticated. How do they do that? What actually do they need to include in their writing? What do they need to have, what do they need to do, what do they need to state, what do they need to include, to have it be considered a sophisticated response?

I know what I would have wanted as a student was tangible, to-do items—practical actions, specific strategies. Is it the wording, what I would call the quality of written communication? Is it how much historical knowledge there is? Do we need more sources, do we need more quality sources, what about the quality of the evidence, or the quotes that we're using? It could be all of those things, it could be any of those things, it could be one of those things. All of those things, I'm sure, could have been upgraded. I did not read this essay word-for-word, I didn't need to. But what I could tell, the other side of this "to what extent" response would immediately catapult this response across multiple criteria if they did it clearly, if they did it well. Now, that doesn't mean they have to write a load of new stuff—it ended up being just a really small thing that we identified.

Now, this whole process took less than 20 minutes. Luckily, the student had something—they were like, "Oh, well, I could mention this"—they had two things they could mention, and very quickly we figured out which is the one that's going to make the most sense, which one would fit. And then reviewing his essay on-screen, we very quickly also figured out where and how to integrate and put that in, to be able to then move up perhaps even two levels, I would say, across multiple criteria. Going from good knowledge to extensive knowledge to comprehensive; going from a sustained argument to a detailed argument to a sophisticated argument. Now, I am just making up those words—these are just words that I have seen on criteria, like I said, we did not have the criteria sheet—but I know one thing and that is that being able to demonstrate the nuance, the for-and-against, no matter how small that "against" or that "but" part is, the response of "yes, but also" or "actually" would absolutely help demonstrate extensive knowledge rather than just detailed knowledge. That most definitely answers the directive—that "to what extent" wording—because it really makes the most of it. It makes the most of it being a "to what extent" question, because just agreeing could technically just be about analyzing all of the ways that the quote was correct. This way truly brings in judgment and discernment at that evaluation level, discernment being another word that they absolutely love in marking criteria.

Now, there are other aspects as well that would be needed, for sure, and they absolutely need to discern where and how to use it. They can't just start doing this if that isn't what the question is asking. Because really what I'm using this as an example of is to demonstrate two things:

1. I want this to demonstrate an example of one way that students, your teen, can hit the top criteria in extended responses, in essays, in assignments. We had plenty more of these ways in the workshop—like I said, this was a 2-hour workshop, this is just one little aspect that I was able to pull out and use for this particular student's task.
2. The second thing I want it to demonstrate is to be an example of how determining the element that is going to give most bang for buck, make the biggest difference to a response with regards to the question and with regards to what those criteria are going to demonstrate—one of the things we did do in the workshop was essentially play "predict the marking scheme" and figuring out from the question what is that marking scheme going to require and then having the skills and the strategies to be able to deliver that—but figuring this part out, determining the element that's going to give biggest bang for buck, most reward for effort, is critical to providing the most efficient and productive, most strategic way to move up those criteria descriptors without having to do a ton more work. And I will say, having to add a ton more words, because there is very often a word-count limit on an essay, or there's certainly a time limit if they're doing it under exam conditions. So this can't be about writing loads more stuff. We actually figured out that two sentences could go into one of their body paragraphs to demonstrate this whole other side to the story and how to integrate it with everything they'd already written.

So all of that to say: hitting the top criteria does not have to mean genius-level subject expertise. I would actually say, in fact, that sometimes that in itself can almost be detrimental because the top descriptors will never say "states the most amount of subject knowledge" or "shows the most amount of subject knowledge"—that is never a top descriptor. It's always about what they do with that knowledge. What they do to discern what's the most significant subject knowledge and how do I put that across in the way that meets the demands of the question and what is going to be in those descriptors on those criteria.

So what I really hope is that this is helpful and maybe more reassuring—maybe even a little bit exciting—about what is possible with regards to figuring out the top criteria and what they want, and how to give it them. If you would love to have your teen have all of the training and the workbook of that workshop—"How to Hit the Top Criteria in Essays, Assignments, and Extended Response Exam Questions"—it is a 2-hour workshop where I delivered all of my top, most focused strategies and techniques on how to do exactly that, then you can go to www.gradetransformation.com/topcriteriaworkshop. I will put a direct link in the show notes with this episode so you can just click on it easily.

Because as well as that workshop being absolutely jam-packed—it very much was a workshop, it is not a seminar, it is not just me explaining and sharing my tips and strategies, it is very much a hands-on interactive workshop—but as well as that, what you will also get are three bonuses that I included with that workshop. You will still get these with the recording:

1. How to Plan Every Extended Response: This was a special seminar that I ran—four fast and simple steps that create higher quality writing more quickly and easily.
2. Essay Title Swipe File: This is a set of real-life exemplars and a detailed walk-through of the topic and focus system that I use to dissect any essay question and start to structure and scaffold a response that actually answers the question fully, properly, at the highest levels.
3. 1-on-1 Accelerator Call: That 1-on-1 accelerator call with me. This is me working with your teen on their own work to action and apply these strategies and techniques. You'll be amazed at what we can do and get through in 20 minutes when you are laser-focused on strategy and tangibles and specifics.

So like I said, check it out: www.gradetransformation.com/topcriteriaworkshop. It's just $150 for the complete workshop and all three of those bonuses. I'm not sure exactly how long I will keep that up there for purchase, so if you're listening to this episode a while beyond when it was released, I apologize if that is no longer there.

But I do want to give you the opportunity to grab that right now if this is something you think would be helpful for your teen. And I would love for you to let me know: What is holding your teen back? What do you believe is holding them back, what have they been told is holding them back, from hitting the top criteria in their essays, assignments, and extended response exam questions? Or maybe it is the fact that they don't quite know, and that is the issue. That is what this is all about solving. Drop me an email: support@rocksolidstudy.com—I would love to hear from you. And I will see you back here on another episode very soon. Take care. Bye!