I was completely clueless about writing strategies when I was in secondary school preparing for WAEC. Of course my friends came to me seeking guidance on how to write their essays. My approach and answer to their quest was to grab a pen, train it at the paper and to begin writing furiously to beat time. After I had written paragraphs, I told them: “like this.” Of course it worked for me. But I don’t think it did for my friends/students.
The only improvement on the above approach was to tell them what my teachers told me and what many English teachers tell their students: “Use outline,” that way you would be guided on what to write. Although this is a fair point, the benefit of outlining is rather limited. For a student who doesn’t know how to argue persuasively or doesn’t understand that writing is like joining a conversation or having a discussion, outlining wouldn’t help. He would do the outlining alright, but that wouldn’t improve the quality of the writing. It would be “step one, I will write this nonsense, then followed by that nonsense, I will also not forget to write the other nonsense.”
I managed to pass the English language paper and so did many of my friends. But I’ve since learned that for any writing (actually for anything) I do, it helps to develop a system on how to accomplish it, so that when inspiration refuses to prod you with its mesmerizing fingers, one would wheel out the system and produce content at will.
Some teachers are doing an amazing job, where some get it wrong however, is when they focus on grammar and other technicalities like proper address and punctuation. But you have to have content before you think about punctuation. Many students already have sufficient punctuation skills anyway, what is usually the challenge is producing the words. And essays are nothing but words properly arranged. So what approach can students use to easily generate the words at will and under the pressures of the examination? This is the question I try to answer today.
A more appropriate question would be, if I were a secondary school student preparing for WAEC, how would I approach the essay question?
I would use two things: a strategy and a template/steps. My strategy would be to answer any question that gives me an opportunity to argue. Luckily, out of the five (they used to be six in the late 80s and 90s) essay questions, four of them satisfy this condition. I bought the past questions book from Amab, a bookstore belonging to a friend in Minna yesterday to prepare for this column. While reading the book, I observe that out of the five questions, at least two are letters (formal and informal), one is a speech or debate, one is an article suitable for publication and the last question is usually a story that illustrates and ends with a moral of some description.
Only the last question could be viewed as not providing the opportunity for argument – but even that is arguable.Why do we choose questions which offer the opportunity for argument? This is due to the fact that it is the nature of man to argue – including about things he knows nothing about. If you doubt my claim, visit any group on the social media. It’s where people join discussion without first asking what the discussion is about. A commenter on the U.K. Guardian website accurately described this phenomenon: “Ah, the internet, where strongly-held opinions are strongly put, and facts be damned.”
Except that it is not only on the internet that people have strong-held opinions. They do so too offline. And even if someone doesn’t have an opinion, he can instantly generate one depending on the question you ask.
That’s why, when I want to elicit a lot of comments on my Facebook page, I couch a post in the form an argument. For example, “what is your assessment of this administration in the last two and half years?” would not generate as much reaction as “do you think this administration has performed well or poorly and what reasons do you have to justify your opinion?” now watch as everyone becomes a skilful debater.
It is for the same reason why questions are easier to respond to than statements. If I say, “write about WAEC” you may struggle to come up with words to use in your response, but if I say, “in what ways do you think WAEC has been useful to schools and students in West Africa?” now you don’t have to think deeply before you’re able to answer that question. That’s why when writing becomes a challenge for me, as it often becomes, I simply ask relevant questions such as why, how and so what.
Now that I’ve my strategy, the second thing I need is a template and the steps to follow for the student to easily produce more words than he or she needs. The next column will address that. Therefore, whether you’re a student preparing for WAEC or a teacher preparing students or anyone who no longer wants to suffer from paucity of words when writing should read this column next week.
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