Essay Writing Series (Reflective Recount)

Essay writing is a key component of the Secondary English syllabus, and one of the genres that students will be tested on is the personal reflective recount. This entails writing a narrative or story based on one’s personal experience from the first-person point of view and incorporating a reflective element in which one’s thoughts and responses are shared at length. Do note that a personal reflective recount can also include descriptive elements.

Lesson Objectives

This essay-writing webinar series aims to help students achieve the following:

· be exposed to a range of personal reflective recount essay questions

· be able to analyse a given topic and fulfil the essay requirements

· develop a narrative coherently and sufficiently in terms of plot structure

· apply a broad range of writing techniques to create impact

· use more advanced and varied vocabulary to spice up or enliven the narrative

Lesson Structure

This workshop comprises six two-and-a-half-hour interactive sessions conducted once a week over six consecutive weeks. For every lesson, an essay topic will be covered and students will engage in bite-sized writing activities for hands-on practice. A model essay and vocabulary lists will also be included for reference.

Each lesson is structured as follows:

· Overview of the key elements of a personal reflective recount essay

· Analysis of a given essay topic

· Drafting of an essay plan to generate ideas

· Various techniques on developing an impactful introduction, complication, climax, resolution and conclusion, accompanied by paragraph samples that illustrate such techniques

· Focus on crafting a strong and amply-developed reflective slant

· Literary analysis of prose extracts that feature aspects of good narrative writing, such as characterisation, creating dominant impressions of people and places, the purposeful use of dialogue, figures of speech, etc.

· Editing for language, sentence structure and punctuation

· Analysis of the writing techniques used in a model essay on the given topic

Learning Methodology

While the approach is largely lecture-based, there is scope for interactivity where students are called upon to share what they have written for the various bite-sized writing tasks. The tasks are also very much guided to ensure students are able to assimilate and apply what is being taught. Model sample paragraphs, in addition to a full model essay on the given topic, provide a useful reference for students to learn how to apply the array of writing techniques taught.