Pitt County Schools 951012 SAT/ACT Preparation: English
Instructional Guide
Time Frame: 9 Weeks for Verbal Study SCOS GOALS AND OBJECTIVES Understanding the requirements of the old SAT, the new SAT (March 2005), and the ACT. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS, BENCHMARKS, AND SKILLS ESSENTIAL TASKS, STRATEGIES, PROJECTS, CONNECTIONS Students should determine which test they will take based on the requirements of the school they plan to attend. Students should determine whether they are taking the new or the old SAT. Review the content specifications for each test with students. Point out what percentage of the questions are based on which content areas. Discuss the sample questions in the manuals with students to give them an idea of what each content category includes. Discuss the alternative responses and the rationale for the correct responses. Review the format of each test with students. Have students respond to sample questions and discuss the answer in each question. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES AND ASSESSMENT http://www.act.org http://www.colleg eboard.com/newsa t/hs/hs.html Preparing for the ACT Assessment student booklet (Students should buy if they plan to write in this book) (For teachers) Test Preparation Reference Manual ACT Assessment Barron’s Preparing for the SAT/ACT (The new materials for the New SAT will be available during the fall of 2004). (Students should buy if they plan to write in this book) Administer a pretest for each test
Which test do colleges require? What are the requirements of the new SAT verbal section? What kinds of essay skills do students Students taking the SAT before March need to develop for the new SAT essay 2005 should prepare for the OLD SAT portion? which will include analogies but will not What six elements of effective writing include writing an essay. are included in the ACT English Test? What formats will the tests take and Students taking the SAT beginning in how can students best plan for taking March 2005 should prepare for the the tests? NEW SAT which will eliminate What content and formats do the SAT analogies, will add shorter reading and ACT reading tests have and what passages in addition to the longer are the best strategies for preparing for passages, and will include an essay these tests? exam. What are the differences between the new and the old SAT, and which will Students taking the ACT beginning students take? February 2005 will add an optional 30minute Writing Test.
Goal 1: The student will acquire extensive, new vocabulary in order to perform better on the verbal portions of the SAT. 1.1: The student will build vocabulary. 1.2: The student will master word parts. 1.3: The student will improve sentence completion question strategies
What are good strategies for learning SAT vocabulary? What major roots, prefixes, suffixes are most likely to be helpful for allowing students to figure out the meaning of unknown words?
Discuss the requirements of the SAT essay exam and give students sample essays to determine the criteria and a rubric for scoring. Discuss the requirements of the new and old SAT and determine which one students will take based on projected date of administration. Students should study based on which form they will take. Train students in peer editing and feedback groups and establish writing portfolios. Tactile word projects, quizzes and tests Quizzes, tests Proper identification of question types through quizzes/tests, group challenges. 1000 word target Memorization of prefixes, suffixes, roots and stems Study of definitions, examples, comparisons, contrasts, arguments or cause/effect questions.
and category. Take a writing baseline sample for those students taking the new SAT starting March 2005.
Barron’s SAT/ACT Prep book Barron’s book
Goal 2: The student will improve reading comprehension skills in order to perform better on the verbal portions of the SAT or ACT Test. 2.1: The student will properly identify all reading types. 2.2: The student will properly identify/ successfully complete all types of reading questions.
What are the best reading strategies to employ for different types of texts including prose fiction, social sciences, humanities, natural sciences? What kinds of question stems are used on the different tests including details/facts, inferences, character generalizations, main idea (section/whole), author’s point of view, cause/effect relationships, vocabulary meaning through context, comparisons?
Goal 3: The student will improve rhetorical skills in order to perform better on the verbal portions of the SAT or ACT Test. 3.1: The student will properly identify and edit writing strategies. 3.2: The student will successfully identify proper organization in writing samples. 3.3: The student will successfully edit writing for the purpose of style.
(ACT) Rhetorical How can readers judge the appropriateness of expression in relation to the audience and purpose? What strategies will enable students to correctly judge the effect of adding, revising, or deleting supporting material in text? What effect do opening, transition, and closing sentences have in a text? What skills enable a reader to judge effective organization and relevancy in the context of ideas with regard to order, coherence, and unity? (SAT) (Improving sentences and paragraphs) How can readers judge appropriate revisions of sentences or sentence parts for more effective sentence structures and word order? How can knowledge of parallelism improve revision of sentence parts?
Have students find different reading text structures on their own or in groups. Model how to identify the characteristics of different text structures and how to vary reading strategies according to the purpose and text structures. Practice tests, dissection of question types. Create own questions using correct type characteristics. Study of transitions and topic sentences, details and evidence, big picture purpose. Study of sentence reorganization, paragraph reorganization, passage reorganization Study of redundancy, word choice, tone Dissections/editing of writing using strategies. Creating writing using strategies Reorganization of writing pieces by exchanging group writing samples that are jumbled. Improvement of student samples and incorrect samples for style.
Cross-curricular textbooks, news media, internet sources Barron’s book
Barron’s Barron’s Cross-curricular text books or student work
How can readers judge revision of sentences to eliminate unnecessary wording? How can readers judge more appropriate order of paragraph and essay parts? Goal 4: The student will improve What common errors of usage and Study of commas, grammar and editing skills through the conventions do individual students need apostrophes, colons, study of punctuation, mechanics, and to learn to edit? semicolons, parentheses, sentence structure in order to perform dashes, periods, Based on student diagnostic tests, which better on the verbal portions of the SAT question/exclamation editing skills groups do students need to or ACT Test. marks concentrate on? 4.1: The student will improve punctuation Study of subject/verb skills and properly edit punctuation. agreement, pronoun4.2: The student will improve mechanics antecedent agreement, and usage skills and properly edit such pronoun cases, verb tenses, skills. adverbs and adjectives, 4.3: The student will improve sentence idioms structure and edit for structure. Study of connecting/transitional words, subordinate/dependent clauses, fragments and run-ons, comma splices, misplaced modifiers, parallelism Projects involving overemphasis of each mark in order to learn mark’s use. Poetry describing each mark. Editing incorrect texts, correction of them. Editing incorrect texts, correction of them
Grammar Texts, Barron’s Text Grammar Texts, Barron’s Grammar Texts, Barron’s
Goal 5: The student will improve writing skills through the study of the proper formatting of a writing response for the SAT (March 2005) or ACT test (February 2005).
What are the criteria and rubrics by which the New SAT and ACT writing assessments will be scored? What are the characteristics of the writing prompts? What critical thinking skills will students need to perform well on the writing assessment? What are the scoring methods that will be used? Which colleges and universities will require the writing test? How can students improve writing skills through Writer’s Workshop and peer review and editing?
Examine the Guide for the A Guide for the New SAT Essay for scoring New SAT Essay, criteria and rubrics and The College Board help students analyze the ACT webpage requirements. Barron’s Require students to write Accelerated Writer essays and evaluate in peer groups. Help students analyze prompts and approach responses through Thinking Maps or other type of advance organizer. Writing Essays, peer editing. Study of writing structure such as focus, organization, support/elaboration, style, conventions.