Writing+Sample


 * Writing Sample ** :

It is such an awesome convenience that my tutor student works at my school. I have very close relationships with his teachers and his family. After speaking with his teachers, I was informed that he had been lackadaisical recently and wasn't putting that much effort into his school work. I thought it was the perfect opportunity for him to use a writing prompt given to my students in previous years. His task was to write a persuasive letter to his parents or guardians that convinces them that he will take an active role in his own education and how he will set his goals high to do well in life. I told him that we would use the same writing prompts, and rubrics used in his 7th grade Language Arts Class. He was actually intrigued to write it because he got the chance to talk to his parents and also "he couldn't get this wrong". We used the FAT-P graphic organizer which is used school wide at Sandtown Middle School. This graphic organizer focuses on format, audience, topic, and purpose. He knew what he wanted to write, but one thing that I noticed was that he didn't want to do a rough draft. He wanted to go straight to writing, because he felt like his pre-writing page was good enough. In 7th grade they encourage them to write according to the 8th grade writing rubric because they take the 8th grade writing assessment, the following year.

Overall he scored 12 out of 20 using the 8th grade rubric. His hook was not clear, nor was his letter clearly organized. He had really good ideas, he just struggled with organization and style. His spelling was an issue. I noticed that the spelling were issues with suffixes and root changes such as getting (geeting), doing (dueing), listening (listning). It was very off to me because he could spell words better that had more challenging blends. I also noticed that he needs organization with developing 5 clear paragraphs (intro, 3 body paragraphs, and a closing), and his topic sentences did not match what he outlined in his thesis statement.

Desmond did a great job overall, he was very convincing with his letter. We pulled out key points for him to put on his fridge. for his mother to see in order to hold him accountable. It was a great way to concur the writing sample and do goal setting at the same time.