Monday, June 18, 2012

Course Description


The content of this course is driven by the English and essay portions of the ACT as well as the Writing and Language and essay portions of the SAT.  Fortunately, for both this teacher and his students, both tests are good assessments of standard English. Each focuses on prescriptive rather than descriptive skills, meaning that it tests the student’s ability to edit writing, not merely to label the parts. This is a good thing, and a great improvement over the old-school approach that balked at “teaching to the test.” There’s nothing wrong with teaching to a test as long as the test is a good one.
Here’s what your child will be studying:
  • agreement (subject/verb,  pronoun/antecedent)
  • pronoun use (clear reference, case forms)
  • modifiers (misplaced, dangling, comparative forms)
  • punctuation (comma, colon, semicolon, quotations, parentheses, bracket, dash, hyphen, ellipsis)
  • common usage errors
  • rhetorical skills such as style, voice/tone, organization
  • all of the above will be practiced through retired ACT and SAT test portions
Students will quickly see that the test questions fall into predictable patterns and categories. They’ll get good at identifying the specific knowledge being tested and will become so familiar with the format that they’ll feel they’ve “disarmed” the test.
We’ll also be spending time working with the ACT and SAT essay requirements. For the SAT, students will analyze an argumentative essay or speech. For the ACT, students will synthesize different perspectives on a debatable issue. So both formats offer good opportunities for practicing different modes of writing. 

Though you may know already which test your student will be taking, BOTH tests cover the same material. If you have studied and are ready for the ACT, you will also be ready for the SAT, and vice versa.


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