Analyzing Writing Prompts

Often tests contain writing prompts that you must respond to. A writing prompt is a specific set of instructions that you must follow to write a well-targeted essay. If you write an excellent response that does not answer the prompt, you will score poorly. To succeed on writing assessments, you must start by analyzing the writing prompt.  You can use the PAST questions:

• Purpose? Why am I writing? (To argue for a position? To compare two concepts? To define key terms?)
• Audience? Who is my reader? (Tester? Classmates? Other citizens?)
• Subject? What topic should I write about? (A problem that must be solved? A key period or discovery?)
• Type? What type of writing should I create? (Position essay? Letter to the editor? Proposal?)

Sample Writing Prompt

Answers to PAST Questions

• Purpose?

  To explain Hawthorne's position and state and support my own position using logic and evidence

• Audience?

  Hawthorne as well as readers of the test responses

• Subject?

  Human societies (specifically Utopias) and the problems that they face

• Type?

  Position/argument essay

Warm-Up for Reading and Writing Assessments

© Thoughtful Learning 2016

Reading is the process of turning 26 letters and a dozen punctuation marks into meaning. Viewed that way, it's almost a form of magic. You decode symbols and transform them into thoughts. But how did those symbols get there in the first place? Writing, of course. Someone had a set of insights and rendered them on the page using just 26 letters and a dozen punctuation marks. The encoding process of writing is just as magical and powerful as the decoding process of reading.

Reading and writing help you learn and think about any subject. They let you succeed in high school, college, and career. Not surprisingly, these skills loom large in all of the key assessments you take now and into the future: the Common Core assessments for high school English, the ACT and SAT, and the AP English assessments. Don't worry. Reading and writing might seem like magic, but you can practice these skills using the specific strategies in this unit. They will help you succeed on assessments and launch into a bright and thoughtful future.

What Is Assessment?

The word assess means to "judge the value" of something. It originally meant "sit beside a judge" to determine the value of a piece of property for tax purposes. In its modern sense, an assessment is a test to measure the value of a set of skills, in this case reading and writing. You've been reading and writing from your earliest days in school, and all that work will help you succeed on the coming assessments you will face. You can also hone your skills with the specific strategies in this unit.

In the following activities, you’ll learn about close reading—reading to understand the thesis statement, topic sentences, details, and vocabulary of the nonfiction texts you’re assigned. You’ll also learn about writing for assessment—writing to express your own ideas during a test. Strong reading skills help you write and vice versa.

In this unit, you’ll learn the reading and writing skills that you need to succeed in nonfiction assessment. If you’d like to use these skills on a simulated assessment, see the unit “Practice Test for Reading and Writing.”

Thinking About Close Reading

To read closely, you need to think about the ideas in a text. You can do this by asking and answering questions:

• Who wrote this text? Who was meant to read it?
• What is it about?
• Why did the person write it (to provide information, to argue for a position, to tell a story, to make people laugh or think)?
• How does the writer communicate the ideas in the text?
• Where and when did this text originally fit? Where and when does it fit now?

Revising to Elaborate Details

In the warm-up to this unit, you discovered that basic research answers questions like who, what, where, and when, but rigorous research moves on to deeper questions like why, how, could, would, and should. You can answer basic questions with facts. To answer deeper questions, you'll need many other types of details: explanations, statistics, anecdotes, quotations, reflections, and even visuals. You need to elaborate your ideas.

In the following paragraphs from "The Man Writ Large," note how the topic sentence introduces the key event. Afterward, the writer uses a variety of details to fully elaborate the event, helping readers understand the why, how, could, and should of the situation. Click on the callouts to view each part.

Topic Sentence That indomitable spirit would have its greatest test a week later on July 1. Explanation While most of the regular army troops focused on a siege at Santiago, the Rough Riders, the Buffalo Soldiers, and a few regular army regiments sought to dislodge Spanish control at El Canarey. Doing so would prevent attacks on the American flanks during the siege ("Spanish"). Roosevelt would once again lead his troops uphill into the face of an entrenched foe with superior weaponry. Statistic Roosevelt, however, had a 10 to 1 advantage of soldiers against the 500 Spanish defenders. Just as he had done at the docks at Tampa Bay, Roosevelt jostled his Rough Riders forward to bypass the regular-army regiments and begin the assault on Kettle Hill. Anecdote A Buffalo Soldier asked, "Who do you think you are?" and was told, "Rough Riders going to take that hill. Get out of the way or fall in with us." The Buffalo Soldier replied, "I'll be damned if those Rough Riders will get ahead of me!" Roosevelt thus ended up effectively commanding his own men and that of the separate regiment. Quotation A Rough Rider said of that sudden battlefield brotherhood, "I most positively assert that every face I looked into, both white and black, had a broad grin upon it"(Gardner 161).

The regiments ground forward, eventually taking Kettle Hill, but gunfire still rained down on them from San Juan Hill. Amid the withering fire, Roosevelt raised his pistol and shouted, "Now by God, men! Let's charge 'em!" He jumped a fence and ran down Kettle Hill toward San Juan Hill, but in the noise and confusion, only five of his own men followed. He had to retreat to gather the others, as Roosevelt remembered it: "Even while I taunted them bitterly for not having followed me, it was all I could do not to smile at the look of injury and surprise that came over their faces" (Gardner 167-169). Mounting his horse Little Texas, Roosevelt led his soldiers in the charge up San Juan Hill, and to victory. Diary Entry In his July 1 diary entry, Roosevelt scribbled in pencil, "Rose at 4. Big battle. Commanded regiment. Helped extreme front of firing line. Under shell and rifle fire."Reflection Later, he would dub the charge up San Juan Hill "the great day of my life" ("T.R."). A battle that had been expected to take two hours stretched to twelve, with 300 Spanish casualties to the 500 U.S. casualties ("Spanish").

Photo and Caption Roosevelt and the Rough Riders atop San Juan Hill. Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site.

Writing the Beginning Paragraph

Your first job in writing a research paper is to catch your reader's interest. You can experiment with a number of strategies to form an interesting lead sentence.

1. Start with a fascinating quotation.

   "Do things. Be sane. Don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are, and be somebody; get action.”
   —Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.

2. Express what is most interesting about the subject.

   Teddy Roosevelt transformed himself from an asthmatic weakling to a brawler who won in Cuba and Panama, in Washington and on Mount Rushmore.

3. Provide an anecdote.

   As they charged up San Juan Hill into the teeth of machine-gun fire, Teddy Roosevelt turned to a fellow soldier and shouted, "Holy Godfrey, what fun!"

4. Ask an engaging question.

   Are heroes born, or are they made?

Prewriting to Select a Topic

The following "Basics of Life" list includes broad subject areas that are critical to life. You can click on any entry to find more resources about it. You can also apply these general subjects to a specific class in order to find a unique topic. For example, applying "Personality" to the Spanish-American War unit in AP U.S. History would suggest studying the irrepressible Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.

Reading a Research Paper

Before you start work on your own research paper, you should read a paper created by another student. As you read, note how the writer gathers interesting details from a variety of sources, both online and in print. Click on the side notes to study the different parts of the research paper.

Reading a Student Model

This research paper details what scientists know about Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The overall structure of the paper includes a beginning paragraph, multiple body paragraphs, an ending paragraph, and a works-cited page. The writer uses in-text citations to credit sources.

Warm-Up for Research Writing

You live at a fortunate time. Before the Internet, people had no easy way to find out what they wanted to know. Friends had heated arguments about which actor played a part or when Czechoslovakia broke up or why there are 360 degrees in a circle. To find answers, people had to go to a library, search through thousands of cards in a big set of drawers, search through hundreds of shelves to find the right book, and search through hundreds of pages to find the right information. That's a lot of work. Not surprisingly, many people just chose to remain ignorant.

These days, you say, "Hey, Alexa, when did Czechoslovakia break up?" In seconds, she tells you that the former nation dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993.

Still, many people choose to remain ignorant. One fifth of millennials know little of the Holocaust. (If you are one of them, ask Alexa about it.)

So, research in the Information Age is more important than ever. And rigorous research reaches beyond the free Internet to scholarly publications that only your library makes available. In this unit, you will conduct research about a topic that you care about, uncovering reliable and surprising information that you'll want to share with others. That's the key to an effective research paper.

What Is Rigorous Research?

© Thoughtful Learning 2018

Rigorous research digs deeply into a topic, discovering many surprising answers but also new, challenging questions. Rigorous research can start with Alexa and Wikipedia, but it certainly doesn't end with them. It can start with the top Google search result, but it must go much further than that.

Basic research finds reliable answers to who, what, where, and when:

• What was the Holocaust? The Holocaust was the state-sponsored persecution and murder of people deemed inferior by the Nazi regime in Germany.
• Who was targeted in the Holocaust? Six million Jews (two thirds of the European population) were murdered along with millions more Roma, Slavs, and Russians as well as homosexuals and those with disabilities.
• When did the Holocaust occur? The Holocaust occurred from the rise of Nazis in Germany in 1933 through the conclusion of World War II in 1945.
• Where did the Holocaust occur? The Holocaust occurred throughout Nazi-controlled territories in Europe, with numerous concentration camps in Germany and Poland.

Reading an Argument Essay

To understand how an argument essay works, you can read an example written by another student. He uses logic to build his case, and his voice shows investment in his position but at the same time fairly treats the views of others.

Reading a Student Model

Read the following argument essay and respond to the reading afterward. In the beginning paragraph, the student grabs the reader's attention and delivers the position statement. The middle paragraphs provide strong reasons in support of the position and answer objections from opponents. The ending paragraph sums up the argument and encourages the reader to agree with the position. Click on the side notes to study the features of this essay.

Editing for Subject-Verb Agreement

Subjects and verbs must agree. Follow these rules to ensure subject-verb agreement:

1. A singular subject needs a singular verb, and a plural subject needs a plural verb. Usually, plural nouns end in s, and plural verbs do not: terms have and term has. Watch for one s between the noun and verb.

   Merriam-Webster offers them as synonyms for each other, but each has a slightly different focus. (singular subjects and verbs)

   Now that both terms have shucked many of their negative connotations, they are used by people about all kinds of non-academic, non-techie subjects. (plural subjects and verbs)

2. A compound subject joined by and is always plural.

   In the days of traveling circuses, the lion tamer, trapeze artist, and tightrope walker were royalty. (plural subject and verb)

3. When a compound subject is joined by or or nor, the verb should agree with the subject closest to it.

   Neither the water boy nor the geek was considered a skilled carney. (singular final subject and verb)

4. Some indefinite pronouns are always singular (each, either, neither, one, everybody, another, anybody, everyone, nobody, everything, somebody, someone) and others are always plural (both, few, many, several).

   Everyone wants a geek to fix a computer. Few choose a jock.

5. Some indefinite pronouns (all, any, most, none, some) change depending on the object of the preposition that follows them.

   All of the sideshow acts are top notch. All of the bigtop is fireproof.

6. Don't be fooled when other nouns come between the subject and verb. Make sure the true subject and verb agree.

   A nerd, whether devoted to books or computers or sports, is a serious expert in the subject.