How To Write Any High School Essay: The Essential Guide

A wonderfully thoughtful, and thought-provoking, book for students, but also for adults (hopefully lifelong students!) Jesse Liebman clearly loves literature, and language; he encourages students by urging them to read, to think, to not be overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. In this internet age, when shortcuts are available but not always accurate or soul-enhancing, the importance of reading, both for education and for pleasure, cannot be overstated. This book will be an invaluable guide to students, parents and educators. Jesse's own brilliant academic record, and his ongoing passion for teaching and continued learning, give him tremendous credibility. He is also young enough to still relate to students; thus, he can expertly advise them on how to overcome frustrations and obstacles with regard to formulating their thoughts and analyses of texts into smart, coherent essays. His passion for helping and encouraging students; for teaching; for reading and writing about a wide range of books and topics shines through this terrific book.

Thank you so so much, Jesse for this guide that is both comprehensive and accessible, clear and engaging. Jesse does a fantastic job of breaking down the various components of both reading and writing in a way that is easy to follow and with specific strategies you can immediately apply to writing, teaching, and beyond! What I especially love about this book is that throughout, he encourages and empowers young people to think critically, formulate their own opinions, and apply this deeper engagement with text to produce writing with a strong, unique sense of voice and perspective. As an educator, I was immensely energized by these strategies and am eager to share them with students! Thank you again, Jesse!

I have been teaching writing for about 20 years now, and I think Jesse Liebman's slim, informative guide should be given to every high school student at the beginning of ninth grade. It begins by explaining what writing is, and then the high school essay as a genre. Chapter 1 takes the reader through the process of writing, from reading to ideation to editing; Chapter 2 demystifies the dreaded Five-Paragraph Essay. But Chapter 3 is where Liebman's mind and sense of humor really shine: there he talks about good essay structures and bad, analogizing to Goldilocks, Frankenstein and of course, lemmings. If you're a student, give yourself a leg up and buy this book and take its lessons to heart. If you're a parent, buy it for your high schooler!

I write well. I do. My first degree is in English Literature and Political Science and I picked those concentrations because I knew they would be fun and fast. My son, an AP student who is brilliant with the STEM subjects, like his father, an electrical engineer, writes like an on-level student. There have been actual tears during essay assignments and in class writing assignments have resulted in receiving his first B ever. In the past when I have tried to help him with the process (explaining essays are actually formulaic) it has not helped; he just couldn't get it. I was ashamed that I could not break down something so obvious to me--the writing process is so intuitive for me I can't teach him how to do it (teaching is a skill I do not possess, apparently). This book is everything I was looking for--it breaks down the entire process. There are things I do when writing that I never thought about when trying to teach him how to write like reading aloud what I have written or looking to tie in something seemingly unrelated to make my conclusions strong and interesting; Liebman thinks about those things, gives brief examples of how to do it and tells the reader why they enrich the essay. Most importantly he does all that with a meager 121 pages including the epilogue. This book has no fat to be trimmed; I think everything it covers is essential and I am so glad that I listened to the other reviews and took a chance on it. I have two children, and I purchased this book for my oldest, so the investment was more than worth it. I did not give 5 stars because he hasn't actually had to use the book yet; I hope I remember to update this after the school year begins. Although this book is written for the student, I feel this book also teaches me how to become a better teacher and recommend it for anyone teaching a high school student how to write an essay as well.

I just read your book and found it invaluable. It's short, clearly written, practical, with a wealth of immediately useful guidance. As an educational therapist specializing in writing with middle and high school students, I’ve found an abundant number of books teaching this craft. Many offer very useful advice but require too much time to locate easily what I need at the moment. Yours is different because it's direct, clear, and makes essay writing straightforward. I look forward to future books addressing the writing needs of middle school and college students. Many kudos!

While I do think there is plenty of good advice and valuable information contained in this guide, I think the biggest drawback is that is not enough coverage and depth of certain topics. The title suggests that this book will cover many of the essay types that high school students would encounter, but it seems to be a guide based mainly on literary type prompts and is totally devoid of going over anything in the way of persuasive/argumentative types. Also, although the book’s structure is that it is organized into the beginning, middle and ending of an essay, there is a scattered and sort of random feeling to the guide. The guide does have some good tidbits of advice but does not go into the process of writing in much depth and is lacking some practical examples that might help a struggling student. That being said, there are some good pointers scattered throughout the book. As examples, there is a section on the 5-paragraph essay as well as some thoughts on how to use transitions in an essay and a brief discussion on the importance of editing (macro-editing: looking at the big picture of your work vs micro-editing: scrutinizing and proofreading more carefully). I appreciate any guidebook or resources about writing, as it is one of the more difficult skills to teach, but I just wish there had been a little more depth in the process of writing and some coverage of the persuasive essay, one of the most frequent type of essay a student is asked to write.

As an educator for middle school and high school students alike, I found Liebman's book to be a great supplement for any English class. I particularly like that Liebman encourages more freedom (and fun) in writing, rather than sticking to hard and fast rules. His theme examples give inspiration to the reader while building on the basic structure of essays as taught in middle school. His essay examples (especially the bad ones) give a clear idea of what to apply to essays and what to nix. I found myself thinking "ah, so that's why I got a B on that paper way back when!" It's a great and easy read that I would recommend for fellow educators and students to help strengthen their writing skills.

As a tutor, I find that many students lack a foundation in how to write a standard five-paragraph essay, and this book breaks down the writing process into easy-to-follow steps. Jesse provides helpful examples of the different kinds of essays that might be assigned in English and History classes and offers guidance on how to best approach each type. I’ve noticed drastic improvement in all of my students’ grades within two weeks of using Jesse’s methods for close reading, outlining, drafting, and editing. (It also helped me fine-tune my own writing skills!) I would recommend this book to any student, parent, or educator.