Essay Prep

[Zacharie Brodhacker]

Mostwriting programs expect kids to jump from early childhood writing to academic writing with little to no help. Our Essay Prep series bridges that gap. These exercises and writing processes can be used again and again as your teens move into high school and beyond!

Our Essay Prep classes are designed for 8th to 10th graders or older high school students who've had little experience with academic writing.

The Essay Prep series provides a foundation for the Essay Writing 101: Analytic Essay class and ought to be taken first if your kids have never studied the essay form. The classes in this series are designed to be taken in any order. We recommend completing all three classes in the series before moving on to the essay class.

You've been asking for a way to support your struggling readers, and we heard you loud and clear! You have the option to add on audio tracks of all class readings for $49. Your child can now listen as they read, strengthening those developing reading skills and deepening understanding!

Exploring Viewpoints. This week, students explore multiple viewpoints in a novel way as they come alongside varying perspectives on controversial issues in an attempt to understand them better.

At Brave Writer, we read a range of essays and literature that address a wide variety of perspectives and include time-bound references. Please be aware that you may experience strong reactions to what you read. By using literature as a teaching tool to foster understanding and growth, we have the opportunity to discuss these evolving ideologies.

Informative Essay. Students dig deep into the writing strategies authors use to engage and inform readers. They next consider an audience as they employ the element of surprise to inform on a topic.

Persuasive Essay. Students examine how authors persuade readers using emotion, humor, argument, and facts. Students end with a thinking exercise as they develop their own persuasive arguments.

The ACT writing test is a 40-minute essay test that measures your writing skills. The test consists of one writing prompt that will describe a complex issue and present three different perspectives on that issue. It is a paper-and-pencil test. You will write your essay in pencil (no mechanical pencils or ink pens) on the lined pages of an answer folder that will be provided to you. The only exception is for approved students with diagnosed disabilities who cannot hand write the essay. (See Accommodations.)

You are asked to read the prompt and write an essay in which you develop your own perspective on the issue. Your essay should analyze the relationship between your perspective and one or more other perspectives. You may adopt a perspective from the prompt, partially or fully, or you may generate your own. Your score will not be affected by the point of view you take on the issue.

There are many ways to prepare for the ACT writing test that don't even include writing at all. Reading newspapers and magazines, listening to news analyses on television or radio, and participating in discussions and debates about issues and problems all help you build a foundation for your writing skills. These activities help you become more familiar with current issues, with different perspectives on those issues, and with strategies that skilled writers and speakers use to present their points of view.

The ACT writing test asks you to explain your perspective on an issue in a convincing way, so writing opportunities such as editorials or letters to the editor of a newspaper are especially helpful. Practicing various types of writing will help make you a versatile writer able to adjust to different writing assignments.

The ACT writing test contains one question to be completed in 40 minutes. When asked to write a timed essay, most writers find it useful to do some planning before they write the essay and to do a final check of the essay when it is finished. It is unlikely that you will have time to draft, revise, and recopy your essay.

Before writing, carefully read and consider all prompt material. Be sure you understand the issue, its perspectives, and your essay task. The prewriting questions included with the prompt will help you analyze the perspectives and develop your own. Use these questions to think critically about the prompt and generate effective ideas in response. Ask yourself how your ideas and analysis can best be supported and organized in a written argument. Use the prewriting space in your test booklet to structure or outline your response.

Establish the focus of your essay by making clear your argument and its main ideas. Explain and illustrate your ideas with sound reasoning and meaningful examples. Discuss the significance of your ideas: what are the implications of what you have to say, and why is your argument important to consider? As you write, ask yourself if your logic is clear, you have supported your claims, and you have chosen precise words to communicate your ideas.

Take a few minutes before time is called to read over your essay. Correct any mistakes. If you find any words that are hard to read, recopy them. Make corrections and revisions neatly between the lines. Do not write in the margins. Your readers know you had only 40 minutes to compose and write your essay. Within that time limit, try to make your essay as polished as you can.

There are many ways to prepare for the ACT writing test. These include reading newspapers and magazines, listening to news analyses on television and radio, and participating in discussions and debates.

One of the best ways to prepare for the ACT writing test is to practice writing with different purposes for different audiences. The writing you do in your classes will help you. So will writing essays, stories, editorials, a personal journal, or other writing you do on your own.

It is also a good idea to practice writing within a time limit. Taking the practice ACT writing test will give you a sense of how much additional practice you may need. You might want to take the practice ACT writing test even if you do not plan to take the ACT with writing, because this will help build skills that are important in college-level learning and in the world of work.

The program includes access to 16 small-group classes. These sessions go over topics such as finalizing a college list, navigating financial aid and scholarship options, writing personal statements, and so much more.

Many students start working on their application essays during summer or fall of senior year, but some students begin as early as spring semester of 11th grade. However, there are many factors that may prevent a student from starting at that time, such as extracurricular involvement, a challenging course load, admissions testing, etc. But remember, college applications are time-consuming, and it takes a lot of work to build one that stands out.

National Merit, Merit Scholarship, Merit Scholar, National Achievement, Achievement Scholarship, and Achievement Scholar are federally registered service marks of National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

The Common App essay is the essay that admissions committees will use to get to you know you. While your test scores, academic courses and GPA will provide a quantitative picture of you, the Common App essay will give the admissions teams some sense of who you are and what you are like. Successful students use the Common App essay to talk about what makes them unique and what matters most to them.

In our workshop, students will learn to compose exceptional application essays to showcase the uniqueness that college admission boards are looking for: the character and individuality that go beyond test scores and GPA.

You could write an incredible essay on current issues or you could write something forgettable, trite, or offensive. Your treatment of the topic matters. If you choose a sensitive or controversial issue, be sure you can write your essay in a professional and academic tone.

In deciding whether to address current events, you need to determine how your essay will function as part of your overall application. Does the essay provide unique information that will help admission officers see you and your strengths? Your college admission essay needs to

Writing about staying home during the shutdown and struggling with online learning presents an experience that could apply to thousands of other applicants. Will you write the essay to say something different? Will your response be unique to you? Writing about how you spent time at home developing specific hobbies (particularly if they are an extension of previous interests) could be unique.

Recognizing that events like the deaths of George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery are tragic examples of racial injustices in our country, while true and significant, might not make for a strong essay unless you have actions to back up your ideas.

If events this spring inspire you, great. Take action. Change. Your actions can become part of your essay, but your thoughts and changed mindset, while significant, are not enough for a strong college essay.

Maybe your quarantine experience is representative of what you have been working on over the past three years. Maybe participating in local protests goes along with your resume of other activities. In that case, writing about these current issues is likely to be part of a larger topic showing your actions over time. But if not, why let the last couple months eclipse the last three years?

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