Putting aside the unhelpful question about what his English classes *have* been doing then - has he tried reading one of the many How to Write Essays books? I just searched on Amazon for how to write essays and there are zillions of them. The sort of rather formulaic thing expected at this level seems eminently teachable, and I'd think that reading some explicit guidelines might be all it takes?

Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail