Interactive activity for essay writing sessions in Biosciences degrees

Essay-based coursework is an important part of the assessment from most degrees. In Biosciences degrees, students often face numerous essays to write in the same semester. Some of those essays will be expected to be written within high academic standards, varying the difficulty depending on the course. 

Although essay writing might be seen as “common practice”, many students struggle with it, especially at level 3 and 4. Essay structure, contextualisation with wider literature, concise writing…. etc are examples of writing skills that students struggle with and can cause concerns.

Besides lectures that teach students how to properly write an essay, interactive sessions that allow students to visualise essay structure are key for them to understand how to organise a written piece of assessment. Once an essay is organised, it is way easier to approach the assignment and the writing can be eloquent and informative, rather than crammed and inconclusive.

The resource provided here is an interactive activity that fed into an essay-based coursework that students at level 4 had to write. The main aim of the session was to help students with basic essay structure through the visualisation of the entire essay backbone via flashcards. 

On the first seminar session, students were given a comprehensive review that was related to the essay topic and were asked to look at the main sections and their order. At the end of the seminar, students were split into pairs, and given one deck of coloured flash cards, so each group had one colour. Each group was responsible for reading one section of the review, which it was also a section to include in their essay. With the flash cards, students were asked to write all the subtopics that they thought it would be worth to include within their designated section. On the following seminar, each group had to vertically place their cards on one central table. This way, the students were able to see sections that 1) were overly repeated, 2) were not worth to include because they were out of the essay’s scope, and 3) sections that must be included. With the seminar leader help, all students had to participate in the discussion, having the ideal essay structure by the end of the session.  

This resource is highly adaptable to any field or context. The coloured flashcards help students to visually identify key areas of their essay, and helps them to compartmentalise the information and avoid future rambling. This activity is recommended for level 4 students but can be used for any level or group that requires an essay-based support session.