Christopher Black - McGraw-Hills Conquering SAT Writing

McGRAW-HILLs CONQUERING SAT WRITING

Second Edition

Christopher Black
College Hill Coaching

Copyright 2011, by Christopher Black. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-174914-5

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Much of the material in this book is based on the College Hill Method, which I have been using with my students for 15 years. It focuses on developing reasoning skills, and so provides a sound basis for preparing for reasoning tests like the SAT. It is based on seven principles.

1. Good students work to understand how their minds work. For instance, you should know that your brain has evolved to solve some problems naturally, but not others. We learn to speak and to gesture without being taught, but we cant learn to write essays without instruction. This is because speaking and gesturing helped our ancestors to survive and reproduce, but writing did not. Therefore, there is no natural way to write. It is an unnatural process that requires us to think differently than we do when we are simply talking.

2. Good students work to improve their reasoning skills. We use many different reasoning skills to solve tough problems, and all of them can be improved with practice, just as a baseball players skills can be improved with practice. These reasoning skills include the ability to conceptualize problems, to analyze problems, to find patterns, to manipulate mental images, to simplify problems, to recall information, and to use logic. Good students work to improve these skills, and pay attention to how they are used in solving tough problems. To become a good writer, for instance, you must learn to analyze your audience, your task, your essay, your paragraphs, your sentences, your clauses, your phrases, and your words. These are not natural skills, so they require focused practice.

3. Good students focus on the questions that concern the disciplinary experts. In school, its easy to get caught up in the task of getting good grades and lose track of the questions that concern the real disciplinary experts. A good student should not merely be interested in getting a good SAT Writing score, but also with solving the problems that a good writer must solve, like How do I write something that is worthwhile? How do I convince an antagonistic audience? How do I keep their attention? and How do I analyze a difficult topic?

4. Good students build disciplinary understanding through mental models. A mental model is a set of interrelated concepts that work together like a mechanical device in your mind. You can manipulate these concepts to test hypotheses and make deductions. For instance, the balanced scale concept helps students to understand how to manipulate equations in a logical way. A good writer understands the craft of writing with mental models also. For instance, writers tend to conceptualize paragraphs as stepping stones on a journey, and examples and reasoning as the foundation of a building.

5. Good students break bad thinking habits. The bad habits we develop as writers usually come from our habits as speakers. A good writer understands the difference between having a casual conversation and writing a formal essay. Different assumptions must be made, and different rules must be followed.

6. Good students constantly seek new challenges. Life will present you with many opportunities to take the easy way out. If you want to be happy with yourself, avoid them. Youre on the right track because youve chosen to prepare for the SAT Writing with the method that works best, even though its not the easiest.

7. Good students work to make the world better. Okay, so getting a 750 on your SAT Writing wont really make the world better. But the skills you develop in getting it just might, if you put them to good use.

Ill try my best not to hit you over the head with these principles as we work together. Ill try to work them in only as necessary. It might benefit you, however, to think of these principles as you go about your business of being a student.

Deepest thanks to Elizabeth, Sarah, and Anna for their love and support and to my students at College Hill Coaching for their inspiration and hard work. Special thanks to Jennie Nevin for her energy and inspired words.