40 sentence essay plan

Contact Lucy Scott for more information about the technique.

In most examinations, students are given a defined time to plan and write an essay or a long answer. Providing a structure for students for planning is helpful for both revision and for use in the final exam.

In the “Forty Sentence Essay Plan”, the student writes the essay title in the centre box and then identifies 8 sections or paragraphs of the essay and writes those along the thick branches connected to the title box. They then identify (in note form) 5 sentences for each section/paragraph. The whole plan takes about five minutes, after which they write a sentence per minute for 40 minutes, sticking to their plan, to complete their essay without wasting a second!

Using this technique they can build up answers which they can look back on and also learn time management. The technique can be reduced and used just for long answers.

Click here to download a template.