To Write or Not To Write

Writing a well structured academic essay may be perceived as a task which is arguably daunting to perhaps most students. This perception is justified as it can be argued that the concept of writing of this nature tends to be almost not taught and entirely ignored. This is particularly evident in most cases in the secondary school system.It is, however, relatively an easy and straight forward writing process if one is equipped with the nuts and bolts of academic writing. As such, by outlining the sensible elements of a good academic writing and providing a step-by-step process, it is believed that writing academic essay would be a breeze.
There is a set of skills that we, English teachers wish our students to develop.Our first step is to identify which skills.Then we have to decide our teaching strategy, exercises and activities that will help them develop these skills. For instance, if we assign our students to write a persuasive essay, we have to make it very
clear to them that the purpose of writing a persuasive essay is to convince the readers to agree with their viewpoints.The students also must present strong evidence that support their viewpoints. It would also be great if they can discuss the opposing views. To make it a grade A persuasive essay, the students must write a strong and impressive conclusion. Anybody would like to share their experience in teaching writing skills?