Lessons · Teaching · the ten minutes of planning that buy you twenty
Ten minutes of planning buy you twenty
A plan for a timed essay is four lines: your position, reason one with its example, reason two with its example, and the objection you will answer. Written before any prose, it removes every mid-essay decision, and mid-essay decisions are what consume the clock.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by a state certification officer. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
The failure mode in a timed essay is not running out of words, it is running out of structure: paragraph three arrives with nothing planned in it, the candidate stops to think, and the last paragraph is written in ninety seconds. A plan on paper converts thinking time into typing time.
How to think about it
Spend the first fifth of the time planning and mean it. Write the four lines in note form. Then write the essay against the plan without revisiting the decision. Leave the last tenth for reading it through, which is where the mechanics marks are recovered.
Worked example
Thirty minutes: six planning, twenty-one writing, three reading throughSix plus twenty-one plus three is thirty, and the three at the end is not optional.
Four planned lines: position, reason and example, reason and example, objectionEverything else is generated while writing, which is what writing is for.
A plan is notes, not sentences: writing the plan in full sentences spends the time twiceNobody marks the plan.
If a reason will not take an example, drop it now rather than discovering it in paragraph threeThis is the single most valuable thing the planning minutes buy.
Your turn
Name how many lines a timed essay plan needs.
Position, two reasons with examples, and an objection: lines
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Skipping the plan because the clock has started. The clock is exactly why the plan pays. Candidates who start typing immediately finish the introduction faster and the essay slower.