The biggest mistake that many students make when they are first starting out in college is that they simply dive into the writing of their papers without taking the steps that should come before writing - and the first step you will want to take before you start writing is to examine the topic in question, making sure you have a complete understanding of the topic and of what you want to say in response.
You will continue to wait on the actual "writing" of the paper during the next step (the most important step of all!) and it is coming up with an outline; you should map out, in outline form, all the things you want to say in your paper, and the order in which you want to say them.
Now that you know what you want to say on the topic in question and have your outline ready, you will be ready to start "writing" your paper at last - and with the outline before you, this will actually be the easiest part of the process, as you will just simply need to work off the outline and "fill in the blanks."
It takes many college students a couple years to settle down with a system that truly works - but when you head into college with this approach in mind, you will be able to get started with a functional system right away, and can continue to improve your personal approach from there!