TRANSCRIPT:

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 114 - A better way for your teen to approach and think about completing tasks or answering questions so that they achieve more of those high level criteria and do it in a focused, clear and succinct way.

Hey VIP’s! How are you?I hope you’re super well and your teen’s week is going brilliantly so far. 

I am really good. I have my mother-in-law over visiting at the moment, which is really fun. And no, I’m not just saying that. I know the tradition is for there to be stress and tension with mother-in-law’s but I’m really lucky and get in really well with mine. She’s got a good sense of humour, is easy-going, but is also super-active, and has a real go-get-it attitude which is very much up my street and I also genuinely find inspiring as we all get that bit older.

However, it does mean that the spare room is currently the guest room, so I am still without an office, which you’ll hear by the sound quality in what I’m going to share with you in this week’s episode. Our new place is currently 2 bedrooms, but will become two plus an office once we do the extension and renovations, but obviously her visit was planned way before we knew we’d be moving, but I think she’s enjoying being in on the floor plan ideas and discussions. She’s much more creative minded than I am so it’s a good combo right now. Although not quite an ideal work set up. 

I don’t think I’ve shared this so far, but I’m actually recording these podcasts from inside the wardrobe at the moment, just for audio quality! It works and you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, right!? 

So, into today’s topic… a better way for your teen to approach and think about completing tasks or answering questions. Whether it’s an essay, assignment or even an exam question. You could consider an exam to be a task in itself, but in this instance, it’s helpful to consider each question separately.

I’m going to share with you an excerpt from a student event I ran recently called Top Grade Tactics. 

We had 5 sessions, one each evening, Monday to Friday, looking at the reasons why we stay stuck just below the top grades. Why we end up in the criteria bands just below the top ones. And each day I’d deep dive into one of the reasons.
And on Day 2, we dove into how we tackle and think about and approach questions and tasks, and then got into the nitty gritty details of the tactics involved. But to introduce the session I explained the initial step: how to think differently about tasks and questions.

How to NOT fall into what I call the Topic Trap. And instead respond to a question or task in a way that is more likely to have your teen writing content that actually answers what the question is REALLY asking AND at the level required.
So, like I say, please excuse the quality of the audio, but I hope you find it helpful to listen in to going from ‘writing about TO responding to. Enjoy!

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So, how would your teen approach any task or question from now on, if they were considering it from the angle of responding to the question rather than writing about the topic in the question?

What would they need to be able to identify and understand in relation to the wording of the question? What would they need to be able to do in terms of then writing a focused, clear and succinct response at the appropriate and required level?

I mentioned the command of the question. That is a big part of it. So big that I have a WHOLE module dedicated just to command words in the 10 Week Grade Transformation Program - knowing what they are, how to identify them, what they all actually mean, and how to respond to them, how to actually answer them in different ways. But the first step is to realise that there is a difference. 

Like I said in the session, no question ever simply asks, please write all you know about… ‘topic’. So no answer or response from your teen should ideally descend into them doing that or resorting to that, or even thinking they are going to impress the marker by doing that.

So, don’t write about… Respond To.

I hope that helps just tweak the approach to things from now on.

Meet you back here next week, and until then I hope you have a brilliant rest of your week.

See ya, bye!