How to plan writing for an exam, test or homework

Children often find a blank page a difficult starting point for a piece of writing. Add the exam elements of stress, time and expectation; or the irritation factor of homework, and finding a way to structure writing can become even more challenging. Hopefully, the simple ideas below will provide some helpful tips on how to create a good writing plan, and how to create your own writing plan template that can be used repeatedly in exam or homework situations.

Some ideas to help with planning a piece of writing, such as a story or an essay, for an exam, test or homework task

Often children find it difficult to start writing without knowing beforehand what they are going to write about. Trying to write without having a clear idea of how to start, or what to write about can be frustrating and stressful for children.

However, once they have a clear idea of what they are going to write about, paragraph by paragraph, the writing task becomes much easier and much less daunting.

A simple plan is a good way to achieve this

This might be a spider diagram or a mind map, or a bubble plan, or simply a list of ideas.

For example – for a recount of a day to the zoo, a ‘list plan’ might read:

• The car journey
• The entrance to the zoo
• The penguins
• The hippo
• Lunch
• The unfortunate accident
• The lions
• Going home

It is often easiest to do this first as a brainstorming idea, and then assign numbers to each idea – for example 1) for the introduction, 8) for the ending, 5or6) for the turning point or problem in a story etc. This helps the child create a chronology and structure for stories and sequence ideas for an essay.

Cutting up the ideas and moving them around to arrange them into the best order can also help.

Once this has been done, in draft form, the child will always know what they are going to write about next.

Each point on the plan can be turned into two or three sentences, which will make up a paragraph. Each paragraph is then a section of writing about something different. Once a paragraph has been completed, then the child can write a new paragraph about the next idea on the plan.

When writing, and editing, it is always worth focusing on the quality of language, rather than the quantity of work. Powerful verbs, interesting adjectives and original ideas and phrases will always help improve marks rather than using words such as got, had, nice, went or good.

At Scribblebibble, we recommend checking spelling, punctuation (and proofreading) at the end of the piece of work. Checking spellings at the same time as writing tends to break the concentration and flow of the writing, which can result in frustration.