ACT Prep & College Writing Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)

 Greetings and Welcome to the first set of Class Notes for this class!

It was good to be back in the classroom and to see everyone's faces (at least I'm sure there were faces behind the masks.)

Note:  For those who have been trying to get onto Google Classroom, the site had been down for a couple days.  It's up and running and at its regular speed.

We began class with a Quick Write.  I asked students to give some thought to the ideas of where they saw themselves in 5, 10, and 20 years.  As high school students, it's hard to picture themselves that far ahead, but I feel it's important to start imagining and then planning for the future.  Students shared some comments about college, choices of occupations, and gap years.

After that, we covered some housekeeping topics.  First, I will be using Google Classroom for this class.  (Here's the invitation to the class.)  Most of the students are familiar with it from last semester.  All of the assignments will be posted on Google Classroom.  Finished assignments can be handed in during class OR on Google Classroom -- but not both!  I have all of the assignments posted as "Ungraded," so Google Classroom is the place to go to see what the assignments are and to see whether or not a student is missing an assignment.

For scores, students should go to TrackMyGrades.com.  You should have gotten an invitation to your account; your user name is the chatclasses.com email and the password is a 4-digit number.  

This week was an introduction to the ACT.  My plan for our week by week progress is to introduce the information, give examples and explanations, and do some practice.  Students will then work through those chapters that we discussed and do whatever drills are a part of the assigned chapter.  The homework for the ACT Prep part of the class includes reading chapters, completing the drills, and taking practice tests.

For the College Writing portion of the class, we will learn how to write the ACT Essay Exam and do some initial writing of the College Application Essays.  

In the Class Resources topic on Google Classroom, you will find these resources:

ACT Prep Syllabus, Spring 2021

ACT Prep Assignments Checklist

Instructions for Drills and Practice Tests

In the Week 1 topic, you will find the following material

What are Colleges Looking For?  (Google Slides)

College Admissions in 2021 (Google Slides)

ACT Week 1 (Ch. 1 - 4) (Google Slides)

Taking the ACT (2 Google Docs)

Have a great weekend!  

Blessings,

Mrs. Prichard

Homework for Next Week

• Read through Chapters 1 - 4

• Be an active reader -- highlight sections and write in your book.

• Review the Summary

• Sign up on the Princeton Review website -- www.princetonreview.com/cracking

• “Where will I Go?”  Worksheet

Links for This Week:

Google Classroom Class Resources

Google Classroom Week 1

Spring ACT Prep Students Google Drive Folder

ACT Prep & College Writing Class Notes blog

Tamera M. Prichard

Writing Instructor at CHAT

Writing 1, Writing 2, Writing 3

ACT Prep, British Literature

ACT Prep Class Notes -- Week 1 (August 22)

Greetings!

We had a full class time for our first day of ACT Prep and College Essays class.  We started the class with a cooperative game that I've played with other groups called group juggling (see this video).  Not only is it a good way to work on names, it also gave us some analogies about working as a team, communication, and goal setting.  I don't usually do cooperative games in class, but every now and then they serve a good purpose.  At the beginning of every class I usually start with a Quick Write, which is a short writing activity intended to get students thinking and then putting their thoughts on paper. The prompts can range from deep philosophical ideas to current events to light-hearted topics.  This week's prompt asked the students to write convincing arguments why they should be admitted to the exclusive "Awesome Problem Solving Club" and include specific contributions that they might make.  Their responses showed a wonderful blend of the practical skills, interpersonal abilities, and creativity that are in this group of students.

Most of the first week of class is spent introducing the class and handing out a number of papers to get us started. I begin every year with a Class Policies document, which lays out some guidelines for positive interactions in the class, homework guidelines, and communication resources.  I think that I forgot to mention to the students that they need to have you read and sign this and then bring it back to class next week.  It's pretty straightforward but feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

The next document was the Syllabus that lists the discussion topics and assignments for the semester.  The class is divided in half: preparing for the ACT and writing test and application essays.  Some days we might spend more time on one topic than the other, but students should use this as a reference, especially if they miss a week.

We are using the Cracking the ACT book published by Princeton Review, and for each section of the book, I will discuss the main points and work some sample questions in class.  This week I gave an overview of Chapters 1 - 4.  Their homework then will be to read the portions of the book just discussed, work through the rest of the samples, and complete the drills at the end of the chapter. In class this week we talked about note-taking and about being active readers.  (These are important study and learning skills that we will be working on throughout the semester.)  Students will also take practice tests for each of the sections (English, Math, Reading, and Science).   Because the students are reading the information AFTER it's been discussed in class, they should bring to class any questions about the reading or about troublesome topics that they need clarifying.

Assignments for Week 2 (Aug. 29)

-- Read Chapters 1 - 4

-- Be an active reader by highlighting and taking notes in your book 

-- Complete the "Where Will I Go?" worksheet

-- Read and have parent sign the Class Policies document

Links for This Week

Class Notes

Class Policies

Syllabus 

The New SAT

Top Tips for the SAT Essay

Google Drive Folder