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Writing As Thinking

Victor Tan
 

Writing is cool.

It helps you think about what you want to say, and makes you really articulate those ideas out – I’ve always enjoyed it, the way that it forced me to think: What is the best way to order my thoughts?

How do I get what I want to say out?

The answer invariably begins with this:

I must know what I want to say – I must understand what I want to get across; but at the same time, it is through the process of writing that I think my thoughts out.

It then surfaces to me as it always has:

Writing is thinking. 

Not all writing is thinking, it’s true – but writing is a very specific form of thinking – a process of looking at the words that you see and repeatedly clarifying them into a cohesive whole.

The reason I emphasize this is that all too often, students think that writing is a magical skill – the words appear out of nowhere as if transported from a magical box; that what comes out of their pens or their keyboards must be perfect and completely formed; that is an understandable mentality, but it is also often a dangerous one; if you think that perfection is what is needed from the very beginning, you are not likely to start, and in not starting, you won’t get better.

Take this essay, for example – it didn’t come about because of something magical that happened on the page; I didn’t transport it out of my grey matter onto the page just because it all already happened to be there – rather, every word and every sentence came about because I was looking at what I had already said, thinking about what would be logical, and then from there, brick by thought-brick, constructing everything that would eventually come to pass, rearranging, finding out what works.

Why does this sentence go well with that sentence?

What does putting this word in front do?

If I use this word and not that word, how does that change the meaning of what I’m getting across?

These are small things that teachers can teach you in part, but that you also need to figure out on your own.

Maybe I’m wrong – Maybe it depends on the teacher?

Sure, that’s possible – but even if it is, you may have to ask yourself:

Can you afford to spend all your time with a great teacher, whether monetarily or time-wise?

If you can, consider hiring me and we’ll go a part of the way together (email at victortanws@gmail.com!) – but the broader point is this:

There are plenty of intangible and small things that life’s challenges present to you that you won’t be able to figure out unless you let your mind operate on a document, unless you allow yourself to choose what you’ll articulate, bring across, and eventually ship as a story.

Writing is thinking, and it’s watching your brain formulate, mold, recreate, and complete – it doesn’t come out perfect, but nothing does, not even this piece; when you lean into that imperfection and embrace that we’re here to try and in so doing get better through our experiments, some which will fail and if we’re lucky, some that will succeed, it is there that you’ll find yourself getting better, one step at a time. 

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How Much Grammar Must I ACTUALLY Know For First Language English?

Victor Tan
 

“Wow! Grammar! Something that I haven’t heard about for a long, long time.”

I can imagine that playing through your head time and time again as you show up for your First Language English class, probably you would continue for weeks on end. Before you know it, and contrary to popular belief, you’ll be at the end, and you’ll have never touched a lick of grammar.

What a weird thing to happen given just how important grammar is – but you certainly won’t need to understand grammar formally in the 0500 curriculum, although you’ll definitely be expected to know how to use it correctly.

As you probably know, grammar refers to the rules that guide what is correct usage of the English language.

Your tenses, past, present, and future. Your keeping consistency, your using the rules at the right time in the right place to convey exactly the kind of meaning that you want. It is like the air we breathe – necessary for a smooth daily existence, forgotten when it’s there, but when it’s gone, everybody notices as they swim from the deep waters to the itch separating them from the air to breathe it all in.

And so it is with grammar—so important, yet so easily forgotten.

Unfortunately, if you are hoping to learn about grammar in the course of your daily first language English life, bad luck because you’re not going to. After all, in first language English, people pretty much assume that you just know everything. You’re a first language speaker, unfortunately. In many cases, though, that’s an assumption that’s not actually true unless you’re telling me that you know every single grammatical rule out there.

The good news is twofold:


Firstly, you don’t need to memorize every single grammatical rule in order to function, and in fact, most speakers or users of the language don’t.

What’s a lot more natural is that we just make use of the language the way experience teaches us.


The second thing is that there’s no real test of grammar—at least, in an explicit sense— with grammar drills or anything like that. The bad news is if you’re not one of those people who has that sort of explicit knowledge, then chances are you’re just going to pass through the entire course not learning clearly or intuitively about those rules; Thrown into the deep end, it’s your job just to function and level up. You have no idea how many people go through this.

People who are taking first language English, when really given their foundational skills, they should actually be doing second language. Never actually speaking English at home, only here to take it up because they need it for university.

Well, nowhere is the situation as dark or sad as you might imagine, because you’d be surprised what human beings can learn when under pressure.

But trust me, I’ve seen so many people just come and go, passing by, never really learning the rules, even though they would have made life so much easier for them.

That’s why right here we have The Complete Grammar Guide For IGCSE English, a small refresher for you to learn grammar in case you want to refresh your understanding of the foundational rules and how all of them work together with one another.

Real talk though – it’s probably going to be hard to pick up grammatical rules all along. In any case, that isn’t what first language English is about: This class is after all more about appreciating the different ways to use language, the different kinds of meanings that are produced.

You can approach to some extent without memorizing grammatical rules, although to some extent, of course, the rules themselves are what define meaning, so there is a challenge then in understanding enough grammar and appreciating language well enough that somehow or another your understanding of the rules informs your ability to create, understand, and appreciate meaning.

While at the same time you don’t get too caught up with memorizing things. It’s up to you to discover that balance.

If you pick up the complete IGCSE grammar guide, I hope you’ll think of this as you reflect along the way. Thank you for your support, and look forward to seeing you in the next ones!

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Narrative Essay Reflection and Breakdown: Write a story which includes the words, ‘… it could not be stopped … (May 2025 Variant 1, Question 4)

Victor Tan
 

Welcome back, friends!

January’s two thirds over (can you believe it???), and I’m starting to notice how much of our language is built around control—or the illusion of it. We “seize the day,” “take charge,” “make things happen.” English loves this fantasy of agency, as if willpower alone could bend reality. But then there are those other phrases, the ones we whisper when things go sideways: “it is what it is,” “que sera sera,” “nothing we could do.” It’s fascinating how quickly we code-switch between these two registers—the language of control and the language of surrender—depending on whether we’re winning or losing. And maybe that’s what makes storytelling so powerful: it forces us to confront the space between what we can change and what we cannot, between action and acceptance. The best stories live in that tension, where characters push against unstoppable forces not because they’ll win, but because not pushing would cost them something essential about who they are.

This week’s essay prompt: “Write a story which includes the words, ‘… it could not be stopped … ‘”; it is question 4 in the May 2025 Paper 2 series from Variant 1 – we’ll end with Q1 Variant 1 next week before heading in to Variant 2 thereafter!

Here’s what makes this prompt brutally effective: those four words force you to write about powerlessness—but they don’t tell you what cannot be stopped, who tries to stop it, or why it matters. The prompt is a constraint that creates immediate dramatic tension, but the real test is whether you can build a story where the unstoppable thing isn’t just plot machinery—it’s thematically essential. Many students will reach for the obvious: a natural disaster, a speeding vehicle, an illness. But the strongest responses understand that “it could not be stopped” is only interesting when someone desperately needs it to stop. The emotional stakes determine everything. What’s being threatened? Who’s trying to intervene? What does their failure (or partial success) reveal about human agency and limitation? This is where narrative writing becomes sophisticated: when you use external, physical momentum to explore internal, moral questions. Can you make us feel the gut-punch of pulling an emergency lever that does nothing? Can you show us a character learning, in real-time, that acceptance and action aren’t opposites—they’re sometimes the same desperate thing?

As always, the essay will be marked according to the IGCSE First Language English marking criteria available in the rubrics, and you will understand clearly what works and what doesn’t, and why. As always, so you can understand the logic of why what works works and get inspiration for your own writing.

You’ll find the essay here!

Write a story which includes the words, ‘… it could not be stopped … ’.

The full essay is available for our premium members. If you haven’t signed up already, then make sure to sign up over here!

Thank you all, and look forward to seeing you in the next one!

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