The document provides guidance from a book called "Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques" on improving writing skills such as essay writing, sentence structure, vocabulary, and language analysis. It offers exercises and examples to help students understand text response, develop analytical skills, and write high-scoring persuasive essays and paragraphs through techniques like establishing a clear topic, using evidence from texts, and employing cohesive devices and analytical vocabulary.

1. How to write an A+ essay
Transferable Skills by
Dr Jennifer Minter
Writing Better Essays and
Persuasive Techniques helps
students improve their essays and
written skills.
How do these skills relate to other
areas of the English curriculum?
.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

2. Transferable skills and knowledge
Text response skills: essay
writing, planning and topic
sentences
Written expression: the benefit of
an analytical vocabulary
Sentence models: close-passage
analyse: analyse the author’s
figurative devices.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

3. Text response skills
Better Essays and Techniques:
•essay-writing structure, p. 10 and
•a plan of a typical paragraph, p. 39
•Reasoning and persuasive strategies
also encourage close analysis.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques: pp. 10-39.

4. • Be sure to present your ideas
logically.
• Use appropriate keywords and
signposts to guide the reader
through your discussion.
• In each paragraph, start with a “big
picture” concept and then analyse
specific examples and quotes.
Signpost: a logical sequence
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques: pp. 34-38.

5. Your paragraph plan
• In your persuasive essay, you must base
your views on the facts and use a
combination of evidence and common
sense.
• You must show logical connections.
• Start with a concise and sharp topic
sentence and progress from the big picture
to particular, specific details/examples.

6. Summary: your paragraph
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques: pp. 28-34.

7. Paragraph plan:
language analysis

8. A paragraph in a
text response essay
• In each paragraph, start with a “big picture”
concept (author’s views and values) and then
analyse specific examples and quotes.
• Students should pay particular attention to
topic sentences. They should be analytical and
not descriptive.
• Students should also show an awareness of
the text’s complexities: see close analysis.

9. Your topic sentence should
be persuasive/analytical,
not descriptive.
It should not describe a
problem, but show a clear
analytical link to the
topic.
Better, clearer
topic sentences
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques: pp. 17.

10. Paragraph plan: text response
• Start with the key concepts; author’s views
and values and intentions.
• Give specific examples, referencing the
author’s depiction of characters and
symbols/narrative devices.
• Incorporate quotes.
• Show link to the big picture concept.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

11. Author’s intentions: how to avoid
“story-telling”
• If you summarise events you may be “story-
telling”.
• If you use the author’s narrative devices such
as symbols and character depictions and
contrasts to recount the event, you are
“analysing”.
• Focus on the purpose/impact of the author’s
language choices and narrative devices. (See
exercises relating to impact, p. 66-67
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

12. Your paragraph
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

13. Example: To Kill a Mockingbird
Topic:
• “Boo Radley, Tom Robinson and Mayella
Ewell are all outcasts” Explain the factors
responsible in at least three of these cases
and discuss what this suggests about the
communities attitudes and values.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

14. Paragraph sample:
To Kill a Mockingbird
• TS (Signpost): Statement on the topic analysing the
most important aspect of character/theme . (How Tom
suffers from prejudice/ how and why he is an outcast).
• Explain: author’s values: most important narrative
devices/symbols/depictions: Lee’s critique of the town’s
attitudes and values
• Evidence: explanation and quotes/ narrative
devices/examples from text: examples of injustice and
how Tom suffered unfairly
• Link: show how it relates to the topic: how the
attitudes prompted his exclusion/outcast/ death.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

15. Paragraph sample:
To Kill a Mockingbird
• As an African negro, Tom Robinson is a victim of the racial discrimination that
Lee believes leads to a serious miscarriage of justice in Maycombe. In court,
where everybody is supposed to be treated fairly, a white man’s word is more
credible (believable) than a black man’s. The Ewell’s contempt of the Negroes is
typical of much of the townsfolk. They perpetuate the “evil assumption” “that ALL
Negros lie, ALL Negroes are immoral beings, that ALL Negro men are not to be
trusted around our women.” Because of their sense of superiority, Lee suggests
citizens like Ewell scapegoat the negroes and blame them for their woes. In fact in
Tom’s case, he was a “a dead man the minute Mayella opened her mouth and
screamed.” As Lee suggests, “it is a sin to kill a mockingbird” because of its purity ,
beauty and innocence, and in this case, Tom becomes the “mockingbird”. He is a
symbol of man’s cruelty to each other. In particular Bob Ewell is particularly
hostile towards Tom Robinson because of his compassionate attitude towards his
daughter which that challenged his authority and exposed his abusive nature.
Even after destroying the last shred of Ewell’s credibility, “if he had any to begin
with”, Atticus knows that Tom still does not stand a chance in court ….
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

16. Romeo and Juliet paragraph
• Who is to blame for the tragedy?
• (Topic sentence: link to topic)
• As a fiery Capulet, Tybalt plays a prominent
role in perpetuating the feud through his
provocative and misguided attempts to
protect their family pride.

17. Romeo and Juliet paragraph cont’d
• (Shakespeare’s views and values) The playwright sets up a contrast between Tybalt’s
indignant and fiery stance, and Romeo’s desire for peace to reinforce his point that hatred
leads to division, resentment and death.
• (close passage) This is particularly evident during Tybalt’s fatal encounter with his mirror
image, Mercutio. Mercutio cynically suggests that Tybalt (“Good King of Cats”) is a coward
and urges him to draw his sword, “Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk” (3.1) Indignant
after Prince Capulet’s defence of Romeo during the masked ball, Tybalt has been spoiling for
a confrontation. The audience is aware that he hates “peace” as he hates “hell, all
Montagues, and thee.” Tybalt’s claim to Romeo that, “thou art a villain”, could be referring
to a man of inferior birth, such as a peasant, which is deliberately offensive and seems to
offer Romeo no option but to respond.
• (link to Shakespeare’s views and values) The ensuring fight and subsequent deaths
undermine Romeo’s conciliatory actions and accordingly, Shakespeare suggests that the
belligerent (bellicose) actions of both become the catalyst for Romeo’s exile and the hasty
marriage.
• (Link) As a result, Tybalt can be blamed for his contribution to the chain of events that lead
to tragedy, resulting in the lovers’ date with destiny.

18. An expository essay
• Students are encouraged to write “hybrid” or
feature-style analytical essays.
• See the Quick Guide on p. 90
• See the Feature-style article on p. 91.
• See the Source material and “suggested plan”
on p. 92.

19. Sentence models
• Students will practice sentence models that will help
them explain the significance of an author’s language.
• For example:
• Word choice: The alliterative phrase “famous fashion brand”
reinforces the negative impact of a model’s obsession with
fame and fortune.
• The figurative reference to the “three-legged bird” reflects her
view that 13-year-old girls are vulnerable in the modelling
industry.
• See e-book 3.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques.

20. Model sentences: (transferable)
Close passage analysis of Macbeth
• In an aside, Macbeth juxtaposes the positive and negative
aspects of this “supernatural soliciting” to reveal his moral
turmoil.
• Shakespeare uses alliteration such as the thoughts that “shake
so my single state of man” to reflect Macbeth’s fears.
• Adopting an alarmed and fearful stance, Macbeth comments on
the fact that “nothing is but what is not”
• The metaphorical reference to his “seated heart” which knock(s)
at my ribs, against the use of nature” draws attention to his
immoral thoughts.
• Macbeth states, the “eye wink at the hand” which figuratively
refers to need to conceal his motives.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

21. Years 7-9: building a tone vocabulary
Chapter 3: Persuasive Techniques and e-book 2
Work through the exercises to expand your tone
vocabulary.
Typical sentences include:
•Troy also adopts a candid tone to reveal his typical feelings of pain
and suffering as a “zoo animal”.
•Troy uses an aggrieved tone, when he suggests that they feel like “zoo
animals’. (He uses such a tone to reflect the depth of his feeling.)
•Ardently, the blogger seeks to justify the ban on the grounds that
“everyone clicks with their own kind”
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques: pp. 43-70.

22. Years 7-9: building a tone vocabulary
Use the tone words:
•in creative writing pieces to capture a
character’s manner of speaking
•in a character analysis of a play/film
•in a character analysis in a novel
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques and E-book 2

23. Creative writing
• Students will build an analytical (tone)
vocabulary.
• The adjectives/adverbs will help
students improve their use of dialogue in
creative writing: identifying the
character’s manner of speaking will help
students build more insightful
characters.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques

24. Writing Better
Sentences
• To achieve a high-scoring marks
students must improve the quality
of their writing.
• They must show a sound grasp and
control of a variety of sentence
structures.
• They must show a fluent grasp of
analytical vocabulary.
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques: pp. 97-112.

25. Resources include:
Suggested responses
E-books with exercises
(downloadable and
writable)
An e-licence (and
class sets)
Better Essays and Persuasive Techniques: pp. 77-94.

26. Language Analysis
pathway program
(Yr 7-12)
Series 1. Techniques of
Persuasion
Series 2. Language analysis:
become an expert
Series 3. Language analysis:
an essay-writing guide
www.englishworks.com.au

27. Language analysis
pathway program
Suggested Responses
Each workbook has a corresponding “Suggested Responses” booklet
for 20-40 exercises.
The Responses and “Taking it Further” extension activities are an
ideal correction resource for teachers.
They are also ideal as an independent self-directed learning program
for students.
www.englishworks.com.au