As students are getting farther into the year, the English SOL is quickly approaching. The English SOL is 4 days in total, two days in March and another two in April. Juniors are required to pass the SOL in order to graduate.
The initial goal of the English SOL is to teach students to communicate, read, and show the students progress throughout their school years. The first two days of the SOL is the writing portion and there are 47 writing prompts, one out of those 47 will be randomly chosen for the student to write an essay on.
The introduction paragraph is the most important part of the essay because of the thesis. The thesis statement is a three party summary of what your essay will be about.
Senior Megan Plank has taken the SOL, and gives some advice on how to pass.
“If you have issues with figuring out how to start your essays, consider writing the body paragraphs first then usually the introduction paragraph will come to you,” said Plank.
11th grade English teacher Michelle Steiner shares how she is preparing her students.
“In my English 11 classes, we started ‘SOL Boot Camp’ as soon as we returned from Winter Break. We are also deep into our formal writing assignment for this quarter, which is an argumentative essay backed with scholarly research, said Steiner. “ We are working through the writing process one step at a time to prepare for the essay portion of the EOC Writing SOL. Boot Camp activities include reviews of grammar topics that students have been learning and fine-tuning throughout their academic careers, thesis statement practice, and essay writing “fire drills.”
Finally, here is some advice shared by Steiner for passing the test.
“One piece of advice that I would give to all juniors as they prepare is to take the time to read every one of the possible essay prompts, think about how you would answer each one, and ask your teachers about any that you don’t understand. We have a lot of great writers in this year’s group, and I know they will work hard and do their best on the exams!”
