<<back to main education page

The “Write” Stuff
Tackling the new essay component of the SAT.
by Pamela Rice Hahn

PARENTGUIDE News February 2006

Why do so many students fear writing? People fear what they don’t understand. To get beyond that fear, look at writing as if it’s like any other endeavor in life. To understand writing, first learn the basics. Once you’ve done that, you can master writing in the same way you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.

Research shows that if you can write a good first draft of a short, timed essay, you’ll do much better in college courses that require writing. Academic success in college is the foundation for a lifelong, fulfilling career. For that reason, and in order to reinforce the importance of writing skills throughout one’s schooling, The College Board has added an essay component to the writing section of the SAT. In the essay component of the SAT, you will be asked to write a response to an essay assignment or prompt. How well you complete that task determines how well you score.

Therefore, kids today can’t hold off on learning writing skills until they get to college. It’s to your benefit as a tween or teen to start to hone your writing skills now.

Learning how to write well may not seem that important, but in the current information age, good writing skills are an asset even if you don’t intend to be a writer. Despite the ease at which almost everyone can be reached by phone at any time, e-mail and text-messaging continue to gain momentum as the communication methods of choice. More than ever, writing is an important part of everyone’s everyday life.

In the SAT’s essay portion, carefully selected assignment topics are broad enough to allow you to write your essay in a variety of ways. Free of figurative, technical or specific literary references, the topics are such that they are meant to be easily understood, even if English is your second language.

However, comprehending the topic won’t be enough to ace the exam. You need to know how best to respond to the essay prompt. If you begin learning the basics and doing some simple practice exercises now, knowing how best to respond to the SAT essay prompt will become second nature.

Begin by perfecting your spelling skills. The spell check on your word processing program can somewhat help you with this. Pay attention to which words you consistently misspell and then learn the correct spellings for those words. But that also isn’t enough. You additionally need to recognize what can be problem words and expressions. Here are some basics to study.
•Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive pronoun (you’re and your).
•Learn to distinguish between homonyms (they’re, their, there).
•Learn the proper ways to spell the plural versions of singular nouns (noun, nouns; vocabulary, vocabularies).

Along with mastering spelling and learning the basic rules of grammar, to be able to write an effective essay you should also study style techniques.
•Learn the difference between exposition and persuasion.
•Learn the different types of essay styles.
•Learn how to formulate an outline.
•Learn how to develop an essay thesis.
•Learn how to gather the evidence for your essay.
•Learn how to write a strong conclusion.

Once you know the basics, you’re ready to begin practicing ways to engage your reader and create a strong argument. It’s not enough to write that “history teaches us that this has never been a viable alternative.” You need to cite examples of how and when that alternative has failed. Be sure you eliminate any ambiguous antecedents for pronouns, too.

If knowledge of history isn’t your strongest subject, there are other ways you can choose to present and defend your essay argument. The SAT essay allows you to support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience or observations.

The secret to your future SAT essay success is to begin learning how to plan your work— and work your plan. It’s impossible to know what you’ll be expected to write about during the SAT essay’s allotted 25-minute time limit. But, you can anticipate what you may be asked to write about, and come up with some examples from your reading, studies, experience or observations that you could use to define and defend your position.

You wouldn’t be able to walk onto a stage, sit down at a piano and give a command concert performance without first taking lessons and spending hours and hours practicing what you had learned in the lessons. Writing is no different. When you prepare, writer’s block becomes a forgotten myth. More often than not, writer’s block is a result of stress caused by lack of preparation. The preparation you begin doing now will result in your SAT essay, college and lifetime writing success.

Pamela Rice Hahn is the author of The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Acing the SAT Essay (Alpha); this article is adapted from the introduction to that book. Pam is also the author of 13 books, and has contributed chapters to more than 20 books and written hundreds of articles related to education, test preparation, food, medicine and health. Her personal Web site is www.ricehahn.com. Her comic strip about writing is at www.blueroses.com/writing/.