If you’re an English student in a Victorian high school, you’ve probably heard of TEEL!
What is TEEL?
TEEL is a simple essay structure that many teachers and tutors use to help high school students learn how organise the flow of their thoughts and ideas.
It is typically used for VCE text response essays (eg. essays about a book, movie, or other text), and many schools will start teaching this structure from middle school or Year 9.
Why can’t teachers and tutors stop talking about TEEL?
Like all things in life, there are pros and cons to TEEL.
Pros:
- TEEL is a very simple essay structure that most students can easily grasp
- Using a TEEL essay structure makes it easier to plan for, since students know roughly what needs to be included in a body paragraph
- TEEL can help students refine their analysis by removing variables such as the order of their sentences
Cons:
- TEEL is quite restrictive and some students find the lack of flexibility boring
- TEEL is not the only way to structure a text response essay
- TEEL is not the best essay structure for all types of analysis
Given the pros and cons, it’s easy to see why TEEL is used as the standard essay structure taught to most Victorian high school students. It’s simple and, if taught properly, can be really helpful to many students who struggle with writing VCE text response essays!
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