Need essays appropriate for younger readers

**qimissung** · 02-13-2013, 02:46 AM

I'm going to be tutoring an eighth grade girl who needs help writing better essays for the SAT. I personally think one of the best ways to help someone write better is to give them things to read. I have lots of essays for high school students, but she's in the eighth grade. I have a short story in mind and a poem and a Pre-AP vocabulary list (all thematically tied together, more or less), but I'm at a loss as to essays. Does anybody have any ideas? Your suggestions will be much appreciated.

Some age-appropriate non-fiction might also be a good idea. Thanks.

**Snowqueen** · 02-13-2013, 05:25 AM

Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb contains some the entertaining essays I’ve read so far. Such as Dream Children; a Reverie and The Praise Chimney Sweepers. His essays are deeply autobiographical and often filled with of humour, wit and pathos.

**Emil Miller** · 02-13-2013, 05:54 AM

Originally Posted by Snowqueen

Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb contains some the entertaining essays I’ve read so far. Such as Dream Children; a Reverie and The Praise Chimney Sweepers. His essays are deeply autobiographical and often filled with of humour, wit and pathos.

The first of these pieces by Elgar is a wistful evocation of Lamb's 'Dream Children.'

http://youtu.be/p99KlQA_cGg

**kev67** · 02-13-2013, 07:58 AM

I don't know how old an eighth-grader is. Some of Alistair Cooke's Letters From America may be suitable. I don't know if the BBC website has some sort of firewall to prevent non-BBC-license payers (i.e. foreigners) from accessing this site. If not, you can click down, select a program, then select the Audio Transcript (e.g. Franklin Do Roosevelt and the New Deal - 29 January 1982).

**qimissung** · 02-13-2013, 02:12 PM

Oh,kids in the eighth grade in the U.S. are usually about 12-13. Sorry.

Thanks for the excellent recommendations, Snowqueen and Kev. I'll check them out, pronto, and the youtube link, also, Emil, thank you.

**ralfyman** · 02-14-2013, 02:04 PM

Try textbooks like the Prentice Hall Literature Common Core edition for 8th grade.

**Sea** · 02-14-2013, 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by qimissung

I'm going to be tutoring an eighth grade girl who needs help writing better essays for the SAT. I personally think one of the best ways to help someone write better is to give them things to read. I have lots of essays for high school students, but she's in the eighth grade. I have a short story in mind and a poem and a Pre-AP vocabulary list (all thematically tied together, more or less), but I'm at a loss as to essays. Does anybody have any ideas? Your suggestions will be much appreciated.

Some age-appropriate non-fiction might also be a good idea. Thanks.

I will go out on a limb and say that, while they may be good for writing essays in general, most published essays won’t instruct students on how to write an SAT essay; or at least they will be less instructive than reading sample SAT essay responses. The SAT evaluators are looking for something very short and personal. In fact, they ask you to support your thesis with personal experiences, observations, studies, etc. and expect it to be written relatively succinctly and in a certain grammatical style.

If you consult the SAT writing rubric you'll find the key skills, organized into five sections, that should be demonstrated in any SAT essay. In addition to writing practice essays, practicing and testing skills in each of these five sections separately is something to consider.

The CollegeBoard websites has sample essay responses that serve as good references for tutors, teachers, and students. Also, I can also elaborate on each of the sections, which admittedly offer pretty ambiguous descriptions, if you have any questions.

**qimissung** · 02-15-2013, 01:05 AM

Thank you, Sea. I have taught high school kids how to write various essays, including those preparing for the SAT or AP exam, and I am familiar with how to construct an SAT essay, although I will need to re-familiarize myself with it. I love the internet! I should be able to easily get some sample essay responses as well as practice essay questions, etc., BUT she is just in the eighth grade. She did not do very well on the writing portion of an SAT practice exam. She has a while before she needs to have this nailed, and I am of the belief that it will take most of that time for her to get really good at this, and one of the things she needs to be doing is reading really good writing. Since I am tutoring her, I would prefer it be writing that she actually finds interesting. I will include a bit of poetry, a short story or two to clear the palate so to speak, and also because good writing includes some of the same elements, whatever genre or type it is, some short non-fiction articles, and some regular essays. We will look at what makes each of them "good"; we will look at implication, openings, closings, themes, ideas, arguments, logic (I might touch on logos, pathos, etc. as she'll probably get into that next year anyway). The thing is, to be a good writer for a test, you actually need to be performing beyond what the test is asking you to do, and also because you can't, you simply can't write a good essay without having some ideas, and those you get from wide reading.

Her mother is interested in her improving her vocabulary. I just hope she doesn't think I can come in and turn this around in just a few short weeks. I suspect she does, which will mean a lot of rote work. That goes against my belief system, but it's also something I've done for years, so we'll see how it goes.

The main thing I'm concerned about is that I've mostly worked with kids who read slightly or considerable below grade level who also had considerable second language issues, and who frankly, were in general not interested much in school, reading, or writing. I'm also not used to this age, and I don't know what her strengths and weaknesses are. She's probably in a private school; I know her mother is ambitious. So this might be something we can do very easily. It's just been my experience that younger kids have a dearth of ideas. A rather painful dearth. But we shall see. We shall see.

Thanks for your input, Sea. I appreciate it, 'cause I can't do this all on my own. I'm no superman.

Oh and quizlet! I love quizlet!

**qimissung** · 02-16-2013, 01:59 AM

I ended up using "Fish Cheeks" by Amy Tan. It came with a packet and a student response essay. I had an SAT prompt that worked with it. I think it actually fit all the criteria you mentioned in your post, Sea, but next week I hope to have some student responses for her to look at.

**Sea** · 02-17-2013, 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by qimissung

I ended up using "Fish Cheeks" by Amy Tan. It came with a packet and a student response essay. I had an SAT prompt that worked with it. I think it actually fit all the criteria you mentioned in your post, Sea, but next week I hope to have some student responses for her to look at.

I've never tutored, or even seen someone tutor, an eighth grader for the SAT. Ambitious might be an understatement! You're right; you need a lot of ideas in general and a lot of "personal experiences," ideally of impersonal things, which an eighth grader, let alone juniors or seniors in high school, will either likely be lacking in or not know how to address and develop in his or her essay.

What I used to do was give a student a prompt, tell them to select two or three experiences, observations, examples, etc., within a few minutes, and then we would discuss how he or she could develop the arguments in the essay. I found this to be a very useful exercise since it taught how to quickly find good examples and how to appropriately elaborate on them.