When writing an essay in your Literature exam, you are writing under time constraints. Yes, write a brief plan to help your ideas flow and to get them organised into a logical order. Don’t make the plan too long though and then get straight into answering the question.

There will be no time for a lengthy general introduction. It won’t attract any marks, so there’s no point. You don’t need to give us lots of background about the plot either; just assume that your examiner has read the book/poem and seen the play.

Avoid waffling. Get straight to the point and make sure that you actually make a point in every precious sentence. Load your writing with lots of short quotes, but make sure that they back up the point you are trying to make and aren’t just randomly thrown in because you have learned them and want to use them somewhere.
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Keep answering the question. Keep re-reading the question to make sure that this is what you are doing. Stay on track right until the end. There is no need, and no marks, for a general, waffly, repetitive conclusion. Let every sentence count.

This may sound harsh but it is a lesson worth learning. You must plan your longer responses in the CIE English Language IGCSE exam, especially those in the Paper 3. A poorly structured response is inevitably the result of not taking the time to plan carefully what you are about to write.
 
Planning Directed Writing
If you make good use of your highlighter to identify the ideas from the passage in Question 1 that you want to use, that will go a long way to shaping the structure of your response. You need to develop each new idea in a new paragraph, sequencing your sentences within the paragraphs. This will make your argument logical.
 
Planning Descriptive Compositions
If you choose a descriptive essay for the second question, a spider diagram may well be the best way to plan, as you can include all the ideas you want to describe. Once the ideas are down on paper in the spider diagram, number them, so that the description flows smoothly through space or time, depending on which format you are using.
 
Planning Narrative Compositions
A narrative essay must be planned to the end, before you even write the first sentence. Too often, candidates will peter out or flounder around, searching for a suitable ending after writing a good story. Unfortunately, it’s too late to do a good job of the ending by then. Plan the final sentence before starting the first sentence. Plan to use an interesting or unusual narrative device, but make sure it is well constructed within the plan. This will help your writing be more purposeful and you can afford to be a little more free with your imagination, because you have an overall structure to work within, which will keep you on track to the end.
 
It always shows when a candidate fails to plan. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get away without planning. It’s too much of a risk.