This year, I am giving Certs to all of my students. No, my students do not have bad breath! I am giving them breath mints to remind them that commas= breaths. Just as you can’t talk without breathing, you can’t write without commas. Commas = Breaths use commas to separate items in lists use commas… Read more »
Posts By: Laura Wilson
Troublesome Pronouns in Writing, Reading, and Test Taking
Pronouns are troublesome in our WRITING, READING, and TEST TAKING. Reminder: Pronouns are little words that often like to be bad. A pronoun can be like a pesky fly that ends up at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and annoys the wrong number of people. (Read pages 12 and 13 in Guide… Read more »
It’s All about Context
Question: Why do students have trouble with vocabulary on the High School Daily Quiz and on the new 2024 SAT word-in-context questions? Answer: Students think vocabulary = definition. However, students will only get the question correct if they think vocabulary = context clues. Example: “Nature’s imagination, as physicist Freeman Dyson likes to… Read more »
Are you a 10th Grader who took the October 2022 PSAT?
The SAT is changing….the SAT is changing…. As of March 2024 the SAT will be a very different exam. It will contain similar content, but the structure, format, and timing will be completely different. Goodbye: Paper 5 LONG (800-900 words) Reading passages with 10 -11 questions per passage 4 Grammar passages, each containing… Read more »
Profile of a Strategic Reader
Why are some students excellent text readers while others are not? I think the answer boils down to aggressive vs. passive reading. Far too often, I see students passively read every word within a text, underlining indiscriminately (or not at all). When I ask these students what they have read, they often look up and… Read more »
Entice the Reader with Style
(Last Blog I wrote about Element #1: Sentence Variety) Element #2: Add Rhetorical or Thought-provoking Questions Adding a rhetorical question is a great way to add a “bang” to your introduction or body paragraphs and to push your essay to the next level. The following essay response demonstrates how rhetorical questions can be used to… Read more »
Overuse of “THAT” within Student Writing
Students (and adults) love the relative pronoun “that ”. Although an important little word within our writing (that = the start of an essential clause), it is overused within students’ writing. “That” can often be eliminated from a sentence without any loss of meaning. Students should check their overuse of the word “that” by using… Read more »