English

Welcome to CAHSEE English Language Arts: Stepping Into Your Future. We know your goal is to pass the CAHSEE. Our goal is to help you do this.

In order to pass the CAHSEE, as well as other English Language Arts tests, and to use what you learn here in your future school or work, you will need to become an active reader, writer, and test taker.

In this course, each module consists of a series of interactive lessons and related activities that will help you learn practices (actions you can take) for being a more active reader, writer, and test taker.

To learn more about what we mean by being an active reader, writer, and test taker, click on the resource below.

Be sure to take the English Language Arts Pre-Assessment first. Click on English Pre-Assessment below. How you do on this assessment will help you to know the areas where you are strongest as well as the areas where you need additional help. When you are done with all of the modules, be sure to take the English Post-Assessment. Then you will be able to see how you have grown as an active test taker in English Language Arts.

Click on Module One, Being an Active Reader, to get started with the course.

1. Being an Active Reader
2. Being an Active Writer - Writing an Essay
3. Being an Active Reader - Strategies for Analyzing Words in Texts

Being an Active Reader - Start here!

MODULE ONE, Being an Active Reader, will help you to be a more active reader, whether you are reading an article, job application, story, or doing a test item. An active reader is someone who thinks while he or she is reading. Active readers make predictions with text as well as ask questions about text. You will learn how all of these active reading strategies will help you to pay attention to and better understand what you are reading. Each of the three lessons in Module One also has a special section on using active reading strategies when taking tests so that you can be an active test taker as well as an active reader.

Being an Active Writer - Writing an Essay

Module Two, Being an Active Writer - Writing an Essay, will help you to be a more active writer, whether you are writing for your job, for school, for pleasure, or for a test. An active writer is someone who thinks about his or her purpose for writing and generates ideas for writing. An active writer is someone who thinks about how to organize the essay, how to know the audience and be aware of who will be reading his or her writing, and how to revise or change ideas and edit the writing so that it will be clear for a reader. An active writer makes predictions, asks questions, notices details, and uses evidence to support what he or she wants to say, just as an active reader does.

In Module Two, the three lessons will help you learn how all of these active writing strategies can help you to write a clear, well-organized essay.

Being an Active Reader - Strategies for Analyzing Words in Texts

Module Three, Being an Active Reader - Strategies for Analyzing Words in Text, will help you to be both a more active reader and an active writer. In these lessons, you will learn more about how to use the practices you have learned to figure out unfamiliar words and language in texts. Active readers and writers know how to use the clues in texts to analyze unfamiliar words. They also know how to look at the structure of words, in order to decide how the parts of words work together to make meaning. Finally, they know how to analyze the way an author uses figurative language to create a special effect in what he or she is writing.