ACT Prep & College Writing Class Notes -- Week 9 (March 25)

 Greetings!

We had a productive time in class today.  We started with a Quick Write for which I asked the students to think about what they might write about for their college application essay.  They were to start with 3 and then choose 1 to expand upon.  

We've finished the Math section of the ACT Prep and are now onto the Reading section of the test.  The Reading test is passage-based with 40 questions and is 35 minutes long.  The 4 passages are prose fiction, social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences.  The first strategy is to decide the personal order of the passages and then to work the passages and the questions.  We covered basics this week and will go over some of the more challenging types of questions.  

Students will write 2 rough drafts of College Application Essays.  These will be potential essays that they could use for their own college applications.   I have some sample essays that we'll be reading for the next few weeks.  The one we read today had 3 versions, each one with improvements.  It's helpful to look at samples to get a more clear idea about what a good essay looks like.  

At the beginning of the class I checked in with the students about their homework and cleared up some missing work.  

Have a blessed weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

Assignments for Next Week

• Read Chapters 17 & 18

• Take notes, highlight, underline, and flag sections

• Read Summary for Chapter 17 on p. 244

• Work Sample passage (p. 261 – 263)  (Answers in Ch. 25 on p. 394 - 395)

• Reading Drill 1 on p. 269 – 271 (Answers in Ch. 25 on p. 395 - 396)

• Start on College Application Essay (Not due until April 15)

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Sample "Ellie"  Essay

ACT Prep Slides -- Ch. 17 & 18

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

ACT Prep & College Writing Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 28)

 Greetings!

We had a full class today as we worked through Chapters 5 & 6 of Cracking the ACT book.

We started class with a Quick Write in which I asked the students to think and write about two prompts -- 1) What makes you unique?  What makes you "you?" and 2) What factors do people consider when making decisions for the futures?  I appreciated their comments about themselves and about their futures.

As I mentioned, we worked through Chapters 5 & 6, which are about the English Test.  This is the first test of the ACT, and it's mostly about grammar, mechanics, and word usage.  I have slides that I use to present the information; they are also posted on Google Classroom.)  We discussed basic steps for approaching the questions:

Step 1:  Identify the Topic (see p. 35)

Step 2:  Use POE

Step 3:  Use the context

Step 4:  Trust your ear, but verify

Step 5:  Don’t fix what isn’t broken

Each week I will go through 1 - 3 chapters from the book Cracking the ACT, and for homework, students will read that those chapters and do practice exercises or drills. For this week, they are to do the English Drill 1 (here are instructions for how to do the Drills on Google Classroom.)

One thing that I've noticed is that, due to the masks, it's harder to have discussions in part because it takes a lot more energy to respond and talk. That said, the class has done a great job at answering questions and taking part in discussions.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings!

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week

Read through Chapters 5 & 6 -- Be an active reader 

• Especially read the practice/example questions and the explanations
  
• Review the Summary
  

English Drill 1 on p. 54 - 56 (Answers in Chapter 25, p. 384)
Bring to class questions about troublesome sections or topics
Review the following topics as needed:  

• Verbs:  Subject-verb agreement, Verb tenses, Irregular verbs, participles
  
• Pronouns:  Agreement, antecedents, cases
  
• Modifiers:  Adjectives, adverbs, comparison, superlative
  
• End (Stop) punctuation:  period, question mark, exclamation point, semicolon
  
• Go punctuation:  comma, colon, dash
  

Links for This Week

Class Notes

ACT Syllabus

ACT Assignments Checklist

Spring ACT Prep Google Drive folder

Instructions for Drills and Practice Tests

ACT Week 2 (Ch. 5 & 6) Slides

Where Will I Go?  (due 1/28)

ACT Videos (Supplemental)

3 Must Know Tips for English Test

4 Major Rules for Commas for the ACT

Number 1 Tip for the English Test

10 Quick Hints for the English Test

ACT Grammar Top Punctuation Rules

Video:  5 Most Important Things to Know for the English Test

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature