Sometimes It's Ok Just to Tell a Story

So much gets made out of the "right" way to write the SAT essay: plug in a couple of examples about The Great Gatsby or the Civil Rights movement, throw in a bunch of big SAT words whether or not you really know their definitions, make up a quote or two, stick in some transitions, and presto....! You've just written pretty much the same essay as a hundred thousand other people. So don't be shocked when you get an 8.

Even though I frequently remind my students that if they write a paint-by-numbers essay, they're likely to end up with average score, I'm still a little surprised by just how risk-averse they are. On one hand, I of course understand why: it's the SAT, for crying out loud! One false step and you've ruined your chances at the school you've dreamed about going to since you were five and, by extension, the entire rest of your life. But on the other hand, you're not particularly likely to get a stellar store on the essay if you don't step out of your comfort zone and do something a little more interesting. Something that actually holds your reader's interest and gives them a break from the tedium of reading hundreds if not thousands of essays about MLK and Hitler. This does not, however, mean trying to sound like a 50 year-old and overloading your writing with ten dollar words. Simple does not necessarily equal unsophisticated.

I was reminded of this by Debbie Stier couple of days ago, when she posted her "6" essay (scroll down) about The Things They Carried over at Perfect Score Project. If you're looking for a great example of a relatively un-formulaic top-scoring essay, I would highly suggest that you read it. The first thing that struck me was how utterly easy it was to go through. I dare say I actually enjoyed it. It drew me in, but not because Debbie was trying to grab her reader in an an obvious way: she simply told a story, tying it back into the prompt just often enough that I never lost focus of what the essay was about. It wasn't a perfect piece of writing, but it held my attention far, far more than most SAT essays ever do -- I actually wanted to finish it. (And trust me when I say that I read *lots* of SAT essays, and I usually try to get through them as fast as possible.) Yes, there were some conventional elements, especially in the beginning, but they never felt particularly forced.

And that's the part that I want to insist on here: the best essays often don't feel forced. They don't even always feel as if they were written for the SAT. They don't scream, "Please give me a high score because see, look how much big vocabulary I used and how sophisticated I tried to sound even though I don't really know what half of these words mean." They just tell a story.

Now in all fairness, I know how hard Debbie worked for that 6. In this case, what feels like an artless piece of writing is actually the result an incredible amount of effort. But I remember telling Debbie months ago that if she stopped writing just what she thought, even subconsciously, that the College Board wanted to hear and started writing about things that she had a genuine emotional connection to, the score would follow. I'm not saying that this will always work; 25 minutes is not a long time, and if you get thrown a question you just don't have great examples for, it's easy to flounder. But in general, if you approach the essay from the standpoint of trying to engage your reader, to interest them, not just to impress them, you might do a lot better than you expected.