ACT WRITING REVIEW Monday, January 26th, 2015

Today’s Agenda Collect projects ACT Review Transcendentalism Discussion Self Reliance & Nature Packet

ACT Practice Writing… Why are we still doing it? To Begin, some of you may still plan to take the ACT The SAT has a writing portion very similar to the writing essay on the ACT. The SAT test for 2016 has not fully been rewritten yet… so we cannot just jump directly into SAT practice writing exams Both the SAT and ACT are timed writing exams. Any practice at all that you receive to attempt to respond to a prompt during a 30 minute period will benefit you, with both the ACT and SAT writing exam An old SAT Writing Rubric….

What we need to work on in our Act/Sat Writing Your thesis statement- Many of you attempt to answer the “because” in your thesis! Do not do this Many of you began a body paragraph with evidence or an example. You completely skipped your “because” in your topic sentence. Each body paragraph should have one specific reason to support your thesis. Ex: One Development of ideas is minimal. You need to think about how you can fully explain yourself in only thirty minutes Introductions were extremely brief. You simply need to introduce the topic, not any opinions, just 2-3 sentences discussing the subject. After this, you state your thesis.

What we need to work on in our Act/Sat Writing When you address the counter-argument, you spend very little time explaining exactly what the counter- argument is. You need to be sure that the reader is aware of the other point of view. Once you establish that, then you can explain why the counter-argument is wrong. You often used very few “real life” examples to support your reasons. Many of you felt the need to describe what it is that already exists as oppose to why your viewpoint is correct. You needed to discuss the subtleties and implications of the argument to defend yourself. Not simply state, this is how it is, therefore this is correct. Avoid Qualifying point of view: Religion should be in the workplace as long as it doesn’t bother others.

Impromptu journal Spend the next fifteen minutes looking over your ACT practice write. Re-read it. Journal about what changes you would make. How could you have made it better? What crucial mistakes did you make and why do think you made them? Don’t focus solely on my comments. Look over the rubric and read the category you scored in. What is highlighted in the next best category that you can aim to do in the next essay?