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Elizabeth Breau
Jun 8, 20232 min read
Summer Is for Reading, and Reading Should Be Fun!
In Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, school superintendent Thomas Gradgrind praises a boy named Bitzer for defining a horse as a “Quadruped. ...
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Elizabeth Breau
Jun 2, 20233 min read
Systemic Education Failures Threaten American Democracy
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports that American eighth graders have scored an all-time low in history and...
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Elizabeth Breau
May 9, 20233 min read
5 Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block
I currently have several students who can sit through an hour-long writing class without writing one word. One boy, when asked to list...
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Elizabeth Breau
Apr 27, 20233 min read
Pity the Poor Graders! 4 Tips for Acing AP Essays
When I coach students in essay writing for AP History and English exams, I tell them to imagine that their readers are really sorry that...
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Elizabeth Breau
Apr 25, 20233 min read
“The Writer Uses Diction”: Tips for Writing Rhetorical Analysis Essays
The Advanced Placement English tests--AP Literature and AP Language and Composition--both ask students to write a synthesis essay, a...
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Elizabeth Breau
Apr 13, 20233 min read
Who's Moses? Are Bible Stories Important?
I used to tutor “Anand,” an Indian American boy. He’s in college now, but back when he was in second grade, he taught me a valuable...
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Elizabeth Breau
Mar 31, 20232 min read
Too Much Tutoring?
Many of my elementary school tutoring students also see other tutors. They play musical instruments and participate in organized sports....
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Elizabeth Breau
Mar 14, 20233 min read
You're Not Wrong: How to Find Humor and Irony on Standardized Tests
Wit. Badinage. Banter. No one expects humor on tests like SAT, AP Literature, or AP Language and Composition because they are big serious...
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Elizabeth Breau
Feb 19, 20232 min read
The Price of Ignorance
One of my students, “Sara,” is studying for her AP Language and Composition exam in May, so I wanted to start having her write practice...
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Elizabeth Breau
Feb 9, 20233 min read
#SATSoWhite??
When I was writing my book, History According to SAT, I drew on my memories of all the SAT passages I had read since I began teaching SAT...
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Elizabeth Breau
Jan 19, 20233 min read
Pointers for Acing Literature Passages on Standardized Tests
Recently, I wrote about how to read science passages on SAT and ACT (https://www.historyaccordingtosat.com/post/reading-science-a-formula...
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Elizabeth Breau
Jan 12, 20232 min read
Racist Plant Names, Part 2
A few days ago, I wrote about my dismay at finding racist language in Jack London’s Call of the Wild after I assigned it to a...
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Elizabeth Breau
Jan 8, 20232 min read
Jack London's Racist Plant Names
I recently assigned Call of the Wild, Jack London’s 1903 masterpiece, to a sixth grader without having recently reread it. I remembered a...
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Elizabeth Breau
Jan 5, 20234 min read
The Practice of Reading
I teach a number of bilingual students who, as first generation Americans, face additional hurdles in English because the adults in their...
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Elizabeth Breau
Jan 1, 20232 min read
Reading Science: A Formula
In high school, I struggled to read nonfiction and avoided science whenever possible. Reading a science textbook was like being sucked...
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Elizabeth Breau
Dec 22, 20222 min read
The Gift of Reading
The Gift of Reading Parents often ask me what they can do to encourage their children to read, and my answer is simple: be a reader...
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Elizabeth Breau
Nov 25, 20222 min read
"Listen my children, and you will hear..."
“This year, for the first time since the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests began tracking student achievement in the...
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