“The perfect score will again be 1,600. What’s more, the essay will be optional, students will no longer be penalized for wrong answers and the vocabulary is shifting to do away with some high-sounding words such as ‘prevaricator’ and ‘sagacious.'”

New SAT 2016

The Perdue Online Writing Lab: a useful resource for writers, teachers, and tutors

Perdue OWL

First, read it aloud before you turn it in, and second, if you can, get someone to look it over for you.

“Faced with closure, [New Dorp High] School’s principal went all-in on a very specific curriculum reform, placing an overwhelming focus on teaching the basics of analytic writing, every day, in virtually every class. What followed was an extraordinary blossoming of student potential, across nearly every subject[…]”

“Over the next two school years, 46 states will align themselves with the Common Core State Standards. For the first time, elementary-­school students—­who today mostly learn writing by constructing personal narratives, memoirs, and small works of fiction—will be required to write informative and persuasive essays. By high school, students will be expected to produce mature and thoughtful essays, not just in English class but in history and science classes as well.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-writing-revolution/309090/