This course continues punctuation and grammar instruction and practice exercises — taking your student to college-level understanding. Students will move beyond common writing to mastering advanced sentence construction skills. If you want your teen to never struggle with punctuation and grammar and be able to be skillful in upper-level, college-prep punctuation and grammar, then this is the course for you.

Class 1: The power of punctuation; what punctuation does (and doesn’t do) for your writing, and how you can harness that power
Class 2: Complete comma understanding and practice: identification of commas with multiple clause sentences (the sentence/non-sentence trick)
Class 3: Complete comma understanding and practice: typical comma errors and editors’ choices with commas
Class 4: Common, unusual, and rare comma placement in common, unusual, and rare places
Class 5: Semicolons, colons, and commas used together correctly
Class 6: End punctuation issues, quotation mark errors, and quotes within quotes issues
Class 7: Citations, references, footnotes, and research-centric punctuation
Class 8: Mastering punctuation in the SAT and ACT exams

Total Number of Classes: Eight (8)
Prerequisites: High School Writing Essentials 1: Essential Punctuation and Grammar I and High School Simplified Writing 1: All-Encompassing Foundational High School Writing Skills. Take the prerequisite courses LIVE or through Unlimited Access. Students who have tested out of the prerequisite skills via the Aquinas Writing Advantage Program’s Assessment are welcome to join the course.
Required Materials:

Document Creation
All documents are turned in as Microsoft Word documents. If you do not own
Microsoft Word 2007 or a later version, you can use a system such as Google Docs that converts to Word documents FREE.

Suggested Credit: One-half (½) semester of writing and English or literature and writing.

Recorded, Independent-Learning Course

When you sign up for Unlimited Access and take this recorded course, your instructor is the designer and Director of Aquinas Writing Advantage, Erin M. Brown, MA, MFA (aka author EB Conroy/Erin Brown Conroy).

Master in-class essay tests with this how-to course with practical, prescriptive, clear direction on how to decipher a prompt, think and process the instructions clearly, quickly brainstorm an answer, and write an essay in a linear narrative format with few errors — to “show the teacher what you know” with style. Learn essay writing secrets from Professor Brown’s 20 years of college-level teaching and college writing course curriculum development at three universities. Come prepared to write — and to enjoy writing!

Class 1: The Timed Essay Writing Process: The Goal of an Essay, Types of Essays, and What’s So Special About Timed Essays?
Class 2: Analyzing and Using the Prompt: The Set-Up, Question, and Action
Class 3: Analyzing and Using the Prompt: Using Keywords and “Diamond Words”
Class 4: The Writing Process: Brainstorming with “The Big 10” When You Have to Work Fast (How to Brainstorm Quality Content)
Class 5: The Writing Process: Arranging and Ordering Content for Clarity and Power
Class 6: Writing Essays about Course Content (texts, readings, class materials, and experiences); Tips on Studying and Remembering Content for Essay Questions
Class 7: Writing Essay About (and With) New Ideas: Synthesis
Class 8: Must-Do Essay Tips for Success

Total Number of Classes: 8

Prerequisite: Required: High School Essential Writing 1-4 (HS 9-1, 9-2, 9-3, & 9-4).

Because this is an advanced course that assumes your student has key writing foundations and the advanced writing how-to’s in place that are specifically taught at Aquinas Writing Advantage (AWA), 9-1 through 9-4 writing courses are required prerequisites.

Students may take the prerequisites in Unlimited Access recording or LIVE.  An alternative to the prerequisite: a passing assessment from the Aquinas Writing Advantage Assessment service. Please contact [email protected] for any questions on permissions.

Suggested Grade Level: 9th to 12th grade

Duration: 55 minutes

Suggested Credit: One (1) full semester’s credit for Writing or English

Course Materials: All materials are provided FREE by the instructor. Students must have the ability to turn in assignments in Microsoft Word format (either through purchasing Word or using Google Docs or another format, then downloading the document into Word format before uploading it into the grading system).

Homework: Written assignments are given each week. The average weekly time estimate for homework (including both brainstorming and writing time) is two (2) to five (5) hours, depending on the student’s abilities.