The Essay Route Map

The Essay Route Map: Helping students navigate their academic writing

With Angela Kilpatrick and Andrea Evans, University of Central Lancashire

The Essay Route Map is an institution-wide initiative designed to help improve students’ essay writing skills. The interactive online course guides students through the process of writing an essay and brings together the wealth of resources and tools available at the University of Lancashire. Students can feel overwhelmed due to the volume of information available and do not always know what is expected of them in HE, particularly as many of our students come from non-traditional backgrounds. Students enter university with preconceived ideas about what to expect based on previous schemas, such as school, college or the workplace, and often these do not align with expectations at HE level, with implications for student attainment, outcomes and retention (McEwan, 2017). The Essay Route Map therefore sought to provide scaffolding to help students with the transition to HE by supporting their development of key academic skills. The course can be embedded on a VLE or completed independently via the Learning Development Team resources webpage. This session will outline the pedagogical rationale for the Essay Route Map and the pilot of the project with two apprenticeship cohorts. It will cover the benefits of embedding the course on the VLE as part of a blended learning approach, its impact and future developments.