Jean in Newcastle Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 One of the things that I remember honing my writing and logic skills more than anything else in high school was having to write answers to essay exams. I'm thinking of introducing ds15 to this. Do any of you give essay exams? How does it work for you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 I do not give essay exams per se, but I use essay assignments in history instead of exams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenda in MA Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 I never assigned essays on exams for courses we've done at home, but my kids have had essays on exams in courses they've taken on-line. One took a lit course from Potter's School that required essays on exams. The other has taken both History & Latin from Lukeion that require essays on exams. I'm glad that they've had practice with this. If your dc are planning to take on-line classes, maybe they will get experience with essay exams there. Brenda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicole M Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 I'm glad you asked this. Having looked now at several essay type quizzes that one of my friends has assigned to students in his freshman seminar class, I am thinking that timed essays are actually critical. The freshman seminar classes are designed to help students learn how to read academic journal papers and to generate college-level papers themselves. His classes are on music history, history of rock, post-punk. I think the students who sign up for his courses must be thinking, hey, this can't be hard, it's rock 'n' roll! So they are very surprised when they realize that they are being asked to think at a whole new level. Anyway. We are currently using They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, and I've noticed that my son's short essay responses on his vocabulary tests (Vocabulary for the High School Student) just suddenly got much, much better. Between that recent development, and all the dreadful essays that my friend has shown me, I am thinking more about this, how to integrate this kind of writing into our ordinary routine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted March 17, 2013 Author Share Posted March 17, 2013 Thank you, Nicole! This looks very helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 We have been working on this in history and literature. AP exams for various history courses have very specific types of questions. We look at those and practice them, but they are a bit artificial in the overall scheme of essay writing. Our goals with writing this year have been to be able to look at a prompt, figure out what is being asked, outline your thoughts, write your essay and do it in 40 minutes. It has taken some work to make sure ds is hitting all points of the prompt. I am maybe more open to working on these kinds of essay responses because they have been a standard part of my older kids' public school education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicole M Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 We have been working on this in history and literature. AP exams for various history courses have very specific types of questions. We look at those and practice them, but they are a bit artificial in the overall scheme of essay writing. Our goals with writing this year have been to be able to look at a prompt, figure out what is being asked, outline your thoughts, write your essay and do it in 40 minutes. It has taken some work to make sure ds is hitting all points of the prompt. I am maybe more open to working on these kinds of essay responses because they have been a standard part of my older kids' public school education. Lisa, where do you find these essay prompts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 Having looked now at several essay type quizzes that one of my friends has assigned to students in his freshman seminar class, I am thinking that timed essays are actually critical. Past year papers of the AP exam's free response questions section has the time for the section on them. Good for practicing taking timed exams. http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/prep_free.html I grew up with timed essay exams for LA for grade 1~6 and all subjects except math and science for grade 7 onwards. We were taught to use a scrap blank paper to draft our answer after reading the question. Then write the essay. That way it is more coherent. We were also taught note-taking skills since early elementary so that helps. ETA: Duke's short guide to doing timed essay exams http://twp.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/timed-essay.original.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted March 17, 2013 Author Share Posted March 17, 2013 Thank you, Arcadia. That is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 Lisa, where do you find these essay prompts? If you go to the AP Central page, then the individual course page, and then to the Course and Exam Description, you will find sample questions under the various types of essay with explanations of what the readers are looking for. For the pages that have several years of past examples, I find it easier to Google search than to dig through the AP pages. Teachers' websites will offer questions as well. You can overwhelm yourself so I suggest picking a few favorite pages per subject and bookmarking those. The quality of essay advice can vary too so be careful. I'll use the old tests that are actual student samples with scores to help Sailor Dude see what is expected for those particular types of tests, but refer to classic essays from professional writers to show what good essays look like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swimmermom3 Posted March 17, 2013 Share Posted March 17, 2013 Past year papers of the AP exam's free response questions section has the time for the section on them. Good for practicing taking timed exams. http://www.collegebo.../prep_free.html I grew up with timed essay exams for LA for grade 1~6 and all subjects except math and science for grade 7 onwards. We were taught to use a scrap blank paper to draft our answer after reading the question. Then write the essay. That way it is more coherent. We were also taught note-taking skills since early elementary so that helps. ETA: Duke's short guide to doing timed essay exams http://twp.duke.edu/...ay.original.pdf I admit to occasionally growing frustrated with SWB's emphasis on picking out the important events, people, and dates and on outlining. Enough already! This goes on and on for years. However, we are now at a point where I am beginning to see the payoff. Sailor Dude is fairly solid with his note-taking from a high school text; he writes down whats important and not an iota more. When he is lazy and the notes look a bit sparse, an oral pop quiz with a few questions that cover material he left out usually puts him back in line. All of SWB's practice teaches the student to know what is important and to quickly arrange the information in an orderly fashion. This is critical for a timed essay. Like Arcadia, I grew up with timed essays. Remember Blue Books? My older kids don't know what those are. I believe that drafting that answer beforehand is the key to a successful essay. The outline allows you to check your plan physically against the prompt and make sure that you are addressing all the issues required. It is easy without that plan to omit something important that will cost you points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted March 17, 2013 Author Share Posted March 17, 2013 Thanks, Lisa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Photo Ninja Posted March 18, 2013 Share Posted March 18, 2013 I know that writing timed essays is valuable because my dc have all thanked me for making them do it in high school, even though they hated it. I am convinced that writing is an important skill, and stressed it, and I consider timed essays important. It makes the student think and organize quickly, outline and be able to make a supported point in a short period of time. I made my dc do it at least once a week, sometimes more often. Sometimes I didn't have them actually write the essay, but would have them take five minutes to organize an outline for an essay based on a prompt. Other times they wrote the essay. This helped them on the SAT and ACT, as well as in college courses. My dc, at different times, each told me that one of the most valuable skills they used in college was writing a timed essay. In college courses, my dc did well on essay tests, but their classmates often did not because they had not yet learned how to write well in a short period of time. So please let that encourage you to push through teaching and assigning timed essays, even if your dc complain about doing it. They will use the skills if they go to college. Maybe they will thank you later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Wisc Posted March 19, 2013 Share Posted March 19, 2013 I had my kids do short essay exams in high school for all of their history classes and several of their social studies classes. I just answered a question that paralleled this here (about the Spielvogel history book) : http://forums.welltr...66#entry4837266 My kids were required to sit down at the computer and do the entire exam in one sitting.It was more work to grade than the multiple choice type of exam that some textbooks have. I really think it was a useful skill that they use in college a lot. Apparently, there are a lot of students at my boys' university that don't know how to put their thoughts down on paper efficiently...but I always remind my kids of how much work we put into learning how to write, and how the other students probably did not have a 1-on-1 tutor in writing. FWIW, Jean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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