essay writing prompts

essay writing prompts

The Importance of Essay Writing Prompts

1. Understanding the Purpose of Essay Writing Prompts

Essay writing prompts are created for a variety of reasons. It is very important to understand the purpose of each type of essay prompt. Why are instructors and teachers giving them in the first place? It is simple that if students are clear about the purpose of it, then they can write their essay in a well manner. Essay writing prompts are created to guide and almost to shape the writer’s thinking. The world does not come to us in a neat and tidy question. In a planet of billions, things are complex and interwoven and the answers to most questions are not simply right or wrong but are many times complex which take root and grow in the soil of opinion, culture, and personal experience. The goal of a free writing prompt is to help the writer get started. It is to give the writer a point in which to begin writing and to give the first concrete details. Students need the practice of writing, whether creative, narrative, expository, or other kinds of writing; practice will make them better writers. But also, practice will make them better thinkers. If students have quite a long time, have practice and practice and still they can complete assignments in class, so one of the first things that a lot of teachers and instructors will tell them is to give themselves more time through provision of essay writing prompt.

2. Benefits of Using Essay Writing Prompts

Furthermore, using writing prompts keeps you motivated to write every day. The excitement of pleasure followed by essay writing prompts is overwhelming, due to the fact that they enable them to make a giant leap beyond the routine that they often adopt. It is an established routine that many professional writers will advise to students or any other person who is interested in developing their intellects. A creative writer seeks to be able to generate fresh ideas every day. Apparently, making it habit to turn the creative reservoirs into a productive cycle may be quite cumbersome. As a result, many professional creative writers will tell you that it is easier to feel creative and to put your ideas on paper when you are working on a specific project as opposed to just brainstorming for ideas. We all understand that the second approach seems to be a futile attempt at creativity if at all it is not based on a certain project or on some type of productive output. Every day you write, you will get used to constantly pushing your ideas to the limit, and you will see that it is not an inconceivable task for you to accomplish since you will overtime build that momentum of being creative. This is even easier if at all you are using an essay writing prompt. The reason behind this assertion is based on the fact that there is always a specific direction that your essay is going whether given by the teacher or by you. It is this kind of practice that will make you more attentive to the details of your material as you will be on your way to make concrete and elaborative work, something that is important to every writer’s success.

3. How to Create Effective Essay Writing Prompts

Most significantly, you need to let the students’ imaginations and creativity do the work. Do not give too many limiting instructions. Do not decide for them what they want to write about. Writing a prompt that is too specific will only lead the students to understand what the prompt is asking for without giving it much thought, and lead to producing less quality work. Descriptive language is the key. Use language that will excite and interest the students. Use language that will create a certain mood. Use language that will paint a picture of what the students are writing about. Do not be boring, and do not be plain. Just like when writing anything that has to capture the reader’s interest, have a beginning, middle, and end to your prompt. Do not jump the gun and give everything away just by writing the ending to the prompt. It is important to let the students form the form of the writing in the beginning and middle. Also, do not have a “run-on” prompt. Do not write too much. Writing too much for a prompt will give the students too many instructions and set limitations on thoughts. Give the students enough to start their thinking, but do not overdo it. For example, a prompt that suggests creating a how-to book will bring out the unique ideas of the students. On the contrary, a prompt that tells the students to explain the book they learned in class step by step will just lead to a summary. Three points to support that – more creativity; more when the prompt reveals less; more quality works will be produced.

4. Tips for Using Essay Writing Prompts Effectively

One useful tip for using essay writing prompts is to find or create a prompt that allows for depth and exploration. For example, a prompt might ask a student to consider the challenges to a proposal to create a wildlife refuge near their town. A good prompt of this sort will help the writer focus on the substance of an argument. It might also help the writer consider opposing viewpoints. In contrast, a prompt that asks the writer to explain the impact of a world event might lead to shallow writing because a “cause and effect” style of response is likely to be the only one possible. A second tip is to resist the urge to use a prompt that is “too prompt-like” as a kind of writing “formula”. Sometimes the formula works fine. We know that the five paragraph essay format works well for a timed test. However, good prompts can be re-tooled for a variety of writing situations, and Tutor also has the ability to create new prompts and scaffold writing. A prompt met in a college writing class might not work as the assignment in a freshman introduction to a literature class at the college level. This tip is really just a reinforcement of the idea that students can and should learn to respond flexibly to a variety of different writing situations – including the use of different kinds of writing prompts as Tutor moves from class to class. Last but not least, while it is important for students to have practice in responding to prompts, it is also crucial for students to write without a prompt at times. When thinking about the importance of finding or creating a flexible prompt, it can be helpful to remember the purpose of writing prompts. If we understand a prompt to be a hook that helps us generate writing that we may not have done otherwise, we begin the writing process with a way to help un-stick ourselves and access our own thinking. Students, particularly those like Eric who may have some difficulty transitioning from high school to college writing, may benefit from practicing with different prompts that encourage deeper thinking and chances to practice writing without a prompt to rely on.

5. Enhancing Writing Skills through Essay Writing Prompts

When approaching an essay writing prompt, the primary focus should be on analyzing and defining the essay topic as illustrated in the table of contents. This could involve making the essay prompt into an operational question, taking the variables in the question and using them as different thematic markers to define what the essay is actually about. The ability to decide what information to include and what to exclude when answering an operational question in an essay is an invaluable skill and the mark of an excellent student. As such, creating essay writing prompts for a subject is, in itself, a more complex process than mere parroting what the lecturer said in class. This is because the students are embarking on a form of communication. However, in creating essay writing prompts, one has to consider many constraints as one can only have so many materials, topics, and activities. Also excluded are candidates, or rather people playing the activities. Essentially, the objective is to bring the educational process closer and into balance with the everyday life and reality of the students – to facilitate making connections. Writing a brilliant essay necessitates more than a mere knowledge of the various types of essay writing. One must also focus on the essay writing prompt as it is the initial step through which one is able to come up with good themes which are essential in essay writing.