My child gets marked down for grammar but says they don't understand the corrections. Can this help?

Yes — sessions can work directly from a returned essay. Most 9th and 10th grade grammar marks cluster around a handful of issues (comma splices, fragments, pronoun reference, tense consistency), and the aim is to have the student name the rule and fix the sentence themselves rather than just accept an edit.

Can we work on an essay that's due tomorrow?

You can, though the session works better as coaching than as a rewrite. Evelyn will ask questions about your claim, evidence, and paragraph order and prompt you to make the changes; it won't dictate sentences for you to copy down.

How is this different from the Literature or Persuasive Writing topics?

Those focus on reading a genre or building an argument for a specific purpose. This topic covers the writing craft and language conventions common to all of them — thesis construction, quotation integration, sentence structure, and revision.

Does it help with timed in-class essays?

Yes. Sessions can practise the planning stage under a clock — reading the prompt, deciding on a claim, and sketching two or three paragraph points in a few minutes — which is usually where timed essays go wrong rather than at the sentence level.

HS English

High School (9-10) · English Language Arts

HS English at the 9th–10th grade level is where reading and writing skills get combined: students are expected to read a text closely, build an arguable claim about it, and support that claim in clean, controlled prose. This topic covers the general writing and language craft that sits underneath every English assignment — sentence and paragraph construction, embedding evidence, revising a draft, and handling grammar conventions that teachers actually mark down for. Genre-specific work (analysing fiction or nonfiction, argument construction, research process, vocabulary study) lives in the neighbouring topics; this one is about the mechanics and habits that carry across all of them.

Start a session on HS English

What this covers

Building a thesis that makes a debatable claim about a text rather than restating the plot or the prompt
Writing body paragraphs with a topic sentence, embedded evidence, and two or more sentences of commentary that explain how the evidence works
Introducing and punctuating quotations correctly, including partial quotes woven into your own sentence and bracketed changes for grammar
Sentence-level control: independent vs. dependent clauses, fixing comma splices and run-ons, subordination, and varying sentence length deliberately
Revising a draft for the things graders notice — vague pronouns, tense shifts, filler openers, and paragraphs that drift off their topic sentence
Writing to a time limit: planning in five minutes, drafting in order, and leaving space to check conventions

Where learners get stuck

Comma splices — joining two complete sentences with only a comma ('The narrator is unreliable, he contradicts himself twice.'): Students are taught early that a comma marks a pause, and both halves do sound like one breath. The fix is structural, not aural: you have to test whether each side could stand alone, then choose a period, semicolon, or coordinating conjunction.
Dropped quotations — a quoted line sitting alone as its own sentence with no signal phrase and no follow-up analysis: Rubrics ask for 'textual evidence,' so students supply the quote and assume it speaks for itself. They need practice with the three-part move: set it up, quote it, then explain what the specific wording does.
Slipping out of the literary present tense, or mixing tenses inside one paragraph: Events in a story happened in the past from the reader's point of view, so past tense feels natural. Convention says analysis of a text stays in present tense ('Gatsby reaches for the light'), with past tense reserved for events that precede the narrative.

What a session looks like

Sessions run by voice. You bring the assignment, the passage, or a draft paragraph you've written. Evelyn asks what the prompt is and what you've argued so far, then works through it in pieces — testing whether your claim is actually arguable, reading a sentence back to you and asking where the second independent clause starts, or having you say aloud what a quotation proves before you write the commentary. Expect to be asked to rephrase and try again rather than be given a corrected version.

Helpful to know first

Comfort writing a multi-paragraph essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion
Ability to identify the subject and verb in a sentence
Familiarity with basic literary terms such as tone, imagery, symbol, and narrator
Some experience quoting a text in your own writing, even if the punctuation isn't yet reliable

Questions

My child gets marked down for grammar but says they don't understand the corrections. Can this help?: Yes — sessions can work directly from a returned essay. Most 9th and 10th grade grammar marks cluster around a handful of issues (comma splices, fragments, pronoun reference, tense consistency), and the aim is to have the student name the rule and fix the sentence themselves rather than just accept an edit.
Can we work on an essay that's due tomorrow?: You can, though the session works better as coaching than as a rewrite. Evelyn will ask questions about your claim, evidence, and paragraph order and prompt you to make the changes; it won't dictate sentences for you to copy down.
How is this different from the Literature or Persuasive Writing topics?: Those focus on reading a genre or building an argument for a specific purpose. This topic covers the writing craft and language conventions common to all of them — thesis construction, quotation integration, sentence structure, and revision.
Does it help with timed in-class essays?: Yes. Sessions can practise the planning stage under a clock — reading the prompt, deciding on a claim, and sketching two or three paragraph points in a few minutes — which is usually where timed essays go wrong rather than at the sentence level.