After two days of refreshing our grammar and word usage skills, today we are moving on to Successful Writing Strategies as needed in academic / test prompt response writing. As your The Great Gatsby essays are being returned and you prepare for the written portion of the ISTEP 10 test, here are some tips to keep in mind.

• Write Concisely: Eliminate Wordiness
• Eliminate All Unnecessary Words and Phrases
  •      Substitute “although” for “regardless of the fact” or “in spite of the fact”
  •     Substitute “since” for “because of the fact”
• Most sentences that begin “There is” or “There are” or “The reason why…is” are unnecessarily wordy and should be rewritten.
• Sometimes “to be” and “that” can be omitted.
• Pronouns are pointing words. When you speak, a nod can show which of two people or things you mean. When you write, there is no nod to identify exactly which person or thing you mean. Often, if the pronoun reference isn’t clear, a reader can’t tell who did what.
• If necessary, drop the pronoun and substitute the noun you are pointing to.
• Avoid using vague pronouns.
• Keeping sentence elements parallel in construction demonstrates good organization.
• Eliminate meaningless sentence extenders such as:
  • in my opinion
  • obviously
  • I feel
  • it seems to me
  • for the purpose of
  • the fact is
  • all things considered
  • without a doubt
  • in conclusion

After reviewing this list carefully, log into Canvas and take

Close Reading ISTEP+ Practice.

Remember that all homework packets given out yesterday are due by the end of school tomorrow (Friday).  Additional homework packets may be assigned tomorrow based on the results of today’s classwork.