<p>Finally, when he was consistently writing essays that looked like 10’s, 11’s or 12’s to me, I said, “enough!”
and after that he just practiced by outlining a mentally, or with jot notes, f how he “would have” replied, using as many prompts as we could find.
On those, I listened to him…and if his logic or examples could be improved, I’d say so. But we didn’t grade that.
You could do this with a teacher, parent or super-good writing friend.
Or, if necessary, alone…</p>