Ace the New SAT Essay

What sets this SAT Essay Workshop apart from all the SAT Prep courses available? Since we are not trying to be experts on every aspect of the SAT, we focus our extensive teaching and writing expertise on what we do best, writing. With a focus on individual strengths, multiple intelligences and learning modalities, you will develop organic writing strategies. Subsequently, we will not only help you ace the SAT Essay, we will also help you know yourself better as a writer and learner.

SAT Essay Course Methods

First of all, we will break each step of the process into small skill sets and practice these skill sets repeatedly. Consequently, we will add new skills at your own preferred pace. As a result, you will soon write essays with increased confidence, speed, agility and with the tools and resources to continue your training.

In the actual testing environment, you have 50 minutes to complete your essay response; therefore, you have no time to hesitate. For this reason, we will replicate the competitive atmosphere in a supportive environment. You will build confidence in timed, highly competitive testing environments.

On competition day, you will probably experience exhilaration and nervousness. Consequently, successful competitors not only build a regimen for competitive performance, but also explore their own organic approaches to competitive performance. Therefore, we will use the athletic training paradigm as we train your brain for your SAT Essay test.

Now, let’s get started. Below, you will find specific writing goals and modules that focus on each individual goal. Let yourself focus only on a single module lesson at a time, and don’t worry about the big testing picture yet. By breaking the big task of the SAT Essay test into smaller digestible steps, you’ll find that the SAT Essay is merely a process of simple tasks.

SAT Essay Writing Goals

Train Your Brain

  • First of all, read the Newspaper!
  • Next, prepare your body and mind for competitive, timed testing environments.
  • Explore and identify individual cognitive strengths and areas of continued need.
  • Identify and further develop individual acquisition and retention levels through brain games.
  • Leverage intellectual strengths and develop intellectual areas of improvement using Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences.
  • The Mental Self-Government Model: Are You Primarily Legislative, Executive or Judicial?
  • Finally, mind Styles: Are You Primarily Concrete or Abstract?


Reading

  • First of all, identify which parts of the SAT will be new on test day and which parts are consistent for each test and easily learned prior to test day.
  • Identify the main idea in the essay prompt and source text.
  • Finally, identify the source text’s most important details supporting this main idea (textual evidence).


Analysis


Writing

  • First of all, identify a precise central claim.
  • Create a skillful introduction and conclusion.
  • Demonstrate a deliberate and effective progression of ideas within each paragraph.
  • Demonstrate a deliberate and effective progression of ideas within the essay as a whole, from start to finish.
  • Use a wide variety of sentence structures (syntax).
  • Demonstrates precise word choice (diction).
  • Maintain a formal style and objective tone.
  • Finally, demonstrate a effective command of the standard written English language. Make sure punctuation and grammar are free or virtually free of errors.

Course Contributors

Rae Bryant, FacultyRae Bryant is a published author. She is a senior faculty member in The Johns Hopkins University Masters in Writing Program, director of The Eckleburg Workshops and lectured in the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa and American University as well as at AWP and other national writing conferences. She taught secondary eduction—Honors English, Advanced Placement Literature, Gifted & Talented—for 20+ years. She won writing awards and fellowships from Whidbey Writers, The Johns Hopkins University, VCCA and Aspen Writers. She earned a Masters in Writing from Hopkins and is editor in chief of The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. Rae is a member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, AWP, NBCC and CLMP. She is represented by Jennifer Carlson of Dunow, Carlson and Lerner.

Why Online Writing Workshops?

Online creative writing workshops present the best of both worlds for creative writers. Creative isolation and craft interaction. In “Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing be Taught?” (The New Yorker), Louis Menand not only asks should, but also if. Our stance at The Eckleburg Workshops is that writers can be shown craft writing skills. Writers can be encouraged to explore voice through the practice of these skills. Writers can observe and deduce authentic skills in both master and developing narratives. It is our job to sculpt and nurture creative writing and this is best done by published authors and experienced writing teachers. This is what we give you in each and every writing course and in our One on One individualized manuscript sessions.