Intensive Writing Course Information and Outline
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SAT Writing Course Information |
Getting Started |
| Students who register for our SAT writing courses select a course with the desired start date, desired number of practice essays, desired duration, and desired level of review from the options shown on our Register page. Once registered, the student logs into his or her personal page in our website to review writing lessons, complete assigned practice SAT essays, and read the comments of the writing tutors. |
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Assignment of students to writing tutors |
| After a student registers for a course, we assign the student to two writing tutors, who trade off in reviewing the student's practice SAT essays. |
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Format of writing lessons |
All our writing courses include 12 writing lessons. The lessons provides our students with key techniques for writing a superior SAT essay. We do not try to review all the grammar and usage that students are taught in school; our goal is to give students the key tools they need to write a superior SAT essay.
Click here to view a clip from one of our lessons. |
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Writing assignments |
Each writing course includes two, four, or six practice SAT essays, depending on the course selected. We draw up our essay prompts to be like those found on the SAT. The essay prompts do not require students to have specific knowledge to write a superior practice SAT essay. Rather, the prompts require students to draw on their general life experience and general analytical ability. As an example, a prompt might ask students to write an essay explaining why they agree or disagree with the proposition that laughter is the best medicine.
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Completing the assignments |
Students write their practice SAT essays in the form that we provide on our website and submit the essays to us through the website. There is no paper to handle or lose and no electronic files to deal with.
Students have through Thursday of each week to submit the practice SAT essays (s) for that week. Missed deadlines result in cancellation of the assignment (s), but we give students the opportunity to make up one week's missed assignment (s).
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Review of practice SAT essays |
When a student submits an essay to us, we automatically route it to one of the assigned writing tutors for review.
If the student is registered for a STANDARD REVIEW course, then the writing tutor reads the essay and prepares feedback and comments for the student. The feedback and comments are based on the five scoring categories applicable to the SAT: (1) persuasiveness, (2) organization, (3) vocabulary, (4) sentence structure, and (5) grammar/usage. The writing tutor points out both the main flaws and positive features of the essay.
If the student is registered for an ADVANCED REVIEW course, then the writing tutor provides the feedback and comments described above and, additionally, corrects the essay by marking specific, significant errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics. The writing tutor also suggests appropriate language changes. Corrections and suggestions appear in red text in the essay when it is returned to the student.
When the writing tutor has finished reviewing an essay, the student can read the review, and view the corrections, by logging into the student's page on our website. Thereafter, the student can email the tutor with questions. (As described in the All About Intensive Writing page, all email flows through our website; we do not share the tutors' email addresses with the students or the students' email addresses with the tutors). |
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Quality control |
| We strive for top quality in the feedback we provide to students. All essay reviews submitted by our writing tutors are read by a second tutor or management. At the end of each course, we ask the students to evaluate their tutors. |
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