A plan is a short list, written before the first sentence of your answer, that fixes who you are writing for, what you want them to think, and the order of your points. In timed writing, it is the cheapest way to stop a paragraph from wandering.
This lesson is part of timed reading and writing. It works for any writing task, and it supports the later skills of choosing audience and register and structuring an argument.
What does a useful plan contain?
A plan answers five questions in a few words each.
- Task: what exactly am I asked to produce (letter, speech, article, story)?
- Reader: who will read it, and what do they already know?
- Purpose: what should the reader think, feel or do afterwards?
- Points: which three or four ideas will I use, in what order?
- Ending: what is my last line trying to leave behind?
Notice that “write a good opening” is not on the list. You can often find the opening more easily once you know where the answer is heading.
Worked example
Task (original): Write a letter to your school principal arguing that the library should open on Sunday afternoons.
Step 1, read the task words. “Letter” means a formal layout and a polite, direct voice. “Arguing” means the letter must persuade, not only describe.
Step 2, reader and purpose. Reader: the principal, who is busy and thinks about cost and supervision. Purpose: the principal agrees to a trial.
Step 3, choose points. Brainstorm quickly, then keep the strongest three:
- boarding students have few quiet study spaces at weekends
- exam revision needs books, not only internet access
- a trial can start with two hours, which limits cost
Step 4, order them. Put the point the principal is most likely to accept first, and the cost answer last, because it removes the main objection just before your request.
Step 5, ending. Ask for a one-term trial and offer to help collect feedback.
The finished plan on your paper looks like this:
Letter, formal, principal → agree to trial 1 quiet space (boarders) → 2 revision needs books → 3 cost: two hours only End: one-term trial + feedback offer
It is short, yet it tells you the paragraph order, the tone and the last line.
The mistake to watch for
A common slip is to treat the plan as a dump of every idea and then start drafting from the first item.
Mistaken plan: library, quiet, books, computers, cost, friends, exam stress, cleaners, fairness, hours, teachers
Eleven ideas with no order. The draft will visit each one briefly and argue none of them.
The correction is to select and order. Cross out anything you cannot support with one reason and one example.
Then number what is left. If two ideas say the same thing, keep the stronger one.
Check yourself
1. A task asks you to write a speech to Year 7 students about looking after their sleep. Write the five plan headings and fill in “Reader” and “Purpose” in a few words each.
Show answer
Reader: younger students, new to secondary school, who may not see sleep as important. Purpose: they decide to fix a bedtime. Your wording may differ, but the reader must be specific and the purpose must be something the reader does or believes afterwards.
2. Here is a plan for an article about plastic bags: bags, cheap, ocean, shops, litter, reusing, fees, beaches, animals, cost. Reduce it to three ordered points and say why you removed the rest.
Show answer
One good answer: 1 bags are cheap so people overuse them; 2 the litter ends up in the ocean and harms animals; 3 fees at shops change habits. “Beaches” and “ocean” overlap, “reusing” belongs to the ending, and “cost” repeats “cheap”. The test is that each kept point has one reason and one example.
3. Why is “Start with a great opening sentence” a weak plan item?
Show answer
It describes a sentence, not a direction. A plan should tell you what the answer argues, in what order, and where it ends. A strong opening is easier to write once those three things are fixed.
Where this leads next
Next, decide how much of your time each part of a task deserves in allocating effort using the verified task requirements. When you are ready to test the skill, use the timed reading and writing practice set, and the writing revision compare view to compare a planned draft with an unplanned one.
Some students can plan well in a calm lesson but freeze when the timer starts. Our teachers work on that gap in online one-to-one English First Language tuition.