Winning Strategies For ACT Essay Writing: With 15 Sample Prompts (2024 Edition)

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B
Beth L. Cato
Great advice on writing for ACT and for building general essay-writing skills

I received this book from the publisher as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.

This is a book that inspires a person to think--and to think in a clear, coherent matter. That is not an easy thing, especially when a person is expected to expound on a controversial topic in a mere 40 minutes. This is what is asked of high school students who take the essay portion of the ACT. Many colleges these days are going test-optional when it comes to the SAT and ACT, but often, good test scores can still make a student's transcript look more appealing to an admissions office.

This is something very much on my mind as my son will be a junior in the fall. He is autistic and more math-inclined. I know he'll be taking ACT later on during this next school year. I read this book, Winning Strategies for ACT Essay Writing, with him in mind: is this a book that I would buy him, to help him prepare?

My whole-hearted answer is YES. I appreciate that this book is about more than developing skills that will help with ACT; the step-by-step advice on organizing thoughts to present an argument is a great life skill, period, to be used when writing or speaking.

The book features 15 prompts. The first prompts include comprehensive write-ups as they present a controversial, current topic along with three possible perspectives on it. From there, the argument is deconstructed. For the actual test, the book encourages students to spend 10 minutes organizing their argument with pros and cons, and then use the remaining 30 minutes to write. These initial examples break down that entire process into outline form followed by a full essay.

As the book goes on, though, more and more of the steps are left out, and the student is asked to fill in the blanks. The book does include literal blank spaces for writing, too, though I think the ebook version would be perfectly serviceable, as the practicing student can simply use a personal notebook. (The text mentions that more planning and answer pages are available on the publisher's website; I checked on this, and a log-in is required to access them. Better to use our own paper and notebooks than to use printer paper in this way, I think.)

By the final few prompts, students are largely expected to do the work on their own. The back of the book includes more examples of completed outlines and essays.

I found myself often taking breaks as I read so that I could ponder the topics myself. What do I think of school uniforms? Is golf a sport or a game? How would I argue on behalf of arts funding in schools? I look forward to discussing these subjects, and more, as my son works his way through his own copy of the book later this school year.

My thanks again to the publisher for a galley of the book!

C
Charity R. B. Howard
Helpful

If you are preparing for the ACT this book is very helpful! It is well designed and well written along with being informational. It gives an idea of a winning essay writing strategy to help take away some of the stress of writing an important essay that is timed. This provides good guidance and interesting prompt ideas that are helpful.