Teacher certification courses-Anyone?

@abc00, hopefully tehmina will respond soon, but giving it a shot meanwhile. Looks like there are two essay prompts, one is a personal experience (narrative) and another is opinion (argumentative).

There are many places that give practice prompts, but not many with sample responses. There is some no-nonsense advice in a few sites like wyzant.com. Like the sites say, the aim is to get a passing score overall, not to entertain, inform or overly impress the reader.

You mention word doc, so you must be planning to take the computer version. I would suggest Google Docs as you can share it easily with others for comments, and view revisions easily.

"Who will grade practice essays?" Have you checked out test-prep forums? In general, the options are find someone offering writing instruction/tutoring (maybe check craigslist), or a high school student in 11th or 12th grade who has completed at least one AP English course and/or maybe World History AP. You could also contact the TA manager/coordinator at nearby community colleges. They will have a list of their TA's who are helping students with English courses in the community college. The coordinator will pass on your email request to the TA's and interested ones will get in touch with you.

The essays can be intimidating at first, but once you have finalized a method and structure that works for you, it becomes almost mechanical to churn out a reasonably good essay. Amazon does not show any books with in-depth CBEST essay writing instruction. I would suggest trying Essay Becomes Easy by EssayShark (part 1, part2). It seems a bit weird on first read, but for people like us, whose essay writing skills are based on what we learnt in India, it is a good, basic, less-fluff set of instructions to follow to churn out a readable essay.

When practicing essay writing, break it down into clear parts. Such as brainstorm main idea, outline, introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion. Don't feel compelled to complete all parts of each essay in practice. You can look at a series of narrative prompts, and try to come up with main ideas for each. You will notice a pattern in the main ideas, such as you prefer to write about life in India, about being an immigrant, etc.

Another good source of how to write essay could be a good handout from middle school or high school. Some teachers have essay writing guides that work well with reluctant writers. They have opening hook ideas, impressive conclusion suggestions, and most common mistakes.

Good Luck. It is mostly about practice... and doing well enough to pass the test.

If you are comfortable with the idea, I can take a look at 2-3 essays of each type. You could use a gmail like abc00112233 @ gmail : ) Maybe, prolific IL writers like @Ouroboros and @Amulet won't mind taking a break from their Never Mind tête-à-tête to help here.