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During Alex's first week at college, he came home and thanked me for a specific skill he learned when we were homeschooling. Believe it or not, he thanked me for teaching him how to write essays in high school, specifically a quick essay. 

 Learning to write a quick one or two page, hand-written essay is important for three reasons.

1. Being able to write quickly is the hallmark of literate adults.
2. It's a skill that prepared my boys for college essay tests.
3. Demonstrating literacy by writing under pressure is a skill that many students aren't taught.

You may be thinking to yourself, "I don't have time to spend on just essay writing." But, what would you say if I told you that you could count those hours spent on practicing writing essays as hours toward a class that will go on the transcript? You can! A high school English credit can be awarded when your child has completed about 120 to 180 hours of work. You don't have to painstakingly count up every single hour though, you can easily estimate hours. If your student works at least an hour a day on a subject, it will typically add up to one high school credit. If they work half an hour a day, they will earn a half credit. Your English class could include teaching your child to write a quick essay as the cornerstone of their composition studies. Get your child to work for about one hour a day on writing skills.

Once you have identified instruction that works (I'll talk more about that below), and found writing prompts that will help you apply the instruction, you are halfway there. The most important key to writing an essay in high school is practice. We practiced timed essay writing three times a week. I used quick essays to document many of our other courses, creating my own prompt from other homeschool subjects. At times I used essay topics from the history curriculum or other subjects. If a topic from the writing prompts book reminded me of another subject, I tweaked it a bit to obtain an essay that fit what we were studying. This provided written material for other classes, as well as practice writing.

We used the Institute for Excellence in Writing for curricula in our home. Currently, they offer an essay curriculum called "The Elegant Essay." You can find lots of options to fit your family's needs on their website. In all my years of talking with homeschool parents, I know other people love IEW's products too!

Real success in writing a quick essay comes with practice. Once your child learns how to write reasonably well, additional writing skill will come through practice. Practice leads to success, which can help them get great grades in college and succeed in life.

I want you to be thanked by your children. I want them to demonstrate literacy in writing under pressure. I want them to be ready for college, in case they are ever headed in that direction. Start teaching them great writing skills now! You can do it!

You can read my entire article about this subject here - there are lots of details to mention!