Written Answers

I'm working on formulating written answers with the boys. Over the last couple of days we have used the questions at the end of Unit 2 lesson 2 of "A History of Muslim Civilization". The first question asks about the aspects of Muhammad (saw)'s character which prepared members of his clan and tribe to accept his claim of prophethood. The second question was to describe Muhammad (saw)'s social position in Makkah before prophethood.
The information for these answers is contained in the three text pages of the unit, and it is fairly straightforward to pick out the points, but putting them together properly is another skill altogether, and this is part of the transition from primary to secondary education I suppose. The boys first response is to write out the information, in sentences, but in a way which forms little more than a list. This is fine at primary level, it shows you have the facts to answer the question with. But what we are needing to work on is:
a. constantly relating the information to precisely answering the question
b. writing a concluding sentence wrapping up the information into an answer

It is not so much about supplying the information to answer the question, but manipulating the information into a specific answer.
The only way to deal with this, as far as I can see, is to practice and to go through all answers to work out how improvements could be made and keep drumming it in:
How does this answer the question?
And, Where is your conclusion?

Any suggestions? Is there something I'm missing?