Dear Dr. Hartman, When I started writing my first draft, writing it was easy.

Since it was about my personal life I could easily write about it. I enjoyed rethinking about the little moments in my life that has helped make me the person I am today. What I feel like I need some help with is with intros and conclusions in the writing. I also feel like I need help figuring out how to make my writing have more risks. How I feel about my writing draft is that I am able to get the basic idea of what I am needing to write, I just can not figure out how to make my writing standout to become greater than what is required that is why for my choices I have chosen Proficient. I feel my writing is good enough and I read my writing out loud to my friends and did not have any awkward pauses of other things like that. Please enjoy my writing. Sincerely, Jon Marc Wyatt

Criteria PROCESS

Exemplary Process work is present and provides robust evidence that student has participated; Clear evidence of strong idea development; Robust evidence of revision (changes in drafts) is clearly present

Proficient Process work is present and evidence of participation is clear; Evidence of idea development is present; Evidence of effective revision is clearly present

Developing Some evidence of process work; Attempts at idea development, but ideas are lacking in some way; Little evidence of revision is present

Lacking Participation in process work, development of ideas, and/or evidence of revision is incomplete or insufficient

As a working draft, piece shows:

RHETORICAL KNOWLEDGE

As a working draft, piece shows:

Writer has fulfilled the assignment beyond expectations; Exceptionally clear purpose; Excellent attention to audience through word choice and vivid details of ideas

Writer has clearly fulfilled the assignment; Clear purpose; Good attention to audience through word choice and vivid details of ideas

Writer has fulfilled the assignment; Purpose is hard to decipher or not yet clear; Little evidence of attention to audience due to too abstract or nonspecific details

This aspect of the piece is incomplete/ insufficient. Work shows little to no evidence of rhetorical knowledge

CRITICAL THINKING AND WRITING GROWTH

As a working draft, piece shows:

Exceptional use of tone and voice; Robust attempts to be appealing and interesting according to audience and purpose; Writer clearly is taking risks; Reflective letter is included and clearly addresses these aspects of piece

Clear attempts to use tone and voice; Clear attempts to be appealing and interesting according to audience and purpose; Writer is taking some risks; Reflective letter is included and sufficiently addresses these aspects of piece Good wording and phrasing; Little to no issues in readability; Writer displays control over mechanics, grammar, and usage

Writer is struggling to use/understand tone and voice, to create interesting writing, and/or to take risks; Reflective letter is missing or does not clearly addresses these aspects of piece

Write made little to no attempts to present critical thinking or writing growth; No reflective letter included

KNOWLEDGE OF CONVENTIONS

As a working draft, piece shows:

Exceptional and adept wording and phrasing; Little to no issues in readability; Writer displays clear control over mechanics, grammar, and usage

Some or repeated issues with awkward or ineffective wording/phrasing; Writer displays lack of control over mechanics, grammar, and usage, causing issues in readability

Glaring issues/errors in grammar, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and other conventions; Piece is difficult to read; Little to no attention has been given to conventions of writing

8/28/13

-working on rough draft ideas, and narrowing it down to 5 08/30/13 One moment that changed my literacy life was when I was placed in a special education class for English. In 2002 I was placed under tests to find out if my literacy level was lower than expected. The test showed that I was lower than was needed so I was sent to a special class that consisted of two other children. Each day I would go to a different class and we would have spelling tests on easier words such as school and midnight, they would also teach us to knit for it was said to improve our hand eye coordination. As I continued to go to the special class over the years I slowly got better at my reading, writing and memorization skills. Once, I moved to Winston Salem for sixth grade the school system in the United States had me retested and I did not receive any help but, that year did help me improve my reading skills. My English teacher introduced me to a series of books called The Series of Unfortunate Events. I became obsessed and would read the books over the span of two weeks. Before this year I had not liked the idea of reading and this was a giant push forwards into the joys of books. I moved once more after that year to Ottawa, I continued my habits of reading as I moved and would

read a new book every week. As I graduated towards high school I started to read new kinds of books and fell in love with the book genre of Manga. I would read 5 books in a day and whole series, which consisted of more than 60 books, in less than a month. This is how that small special literacy class caused me to improve my literacy skills and changed my life. Jon Marc Wyatt 09/04/13 One moment that changed my literacy life was when I was placed in a special education class for English. In 2002 I was placed under tests to find out if my literacy level was lower than expected. The test showed that my literacy needed extra help, so I was placed in a special class that consisted of two other children. Each day I would go to a different class during English and we would have spelling tests on easier words such as the words school and midnight, we would also be taught how to knit, for it was said to improve our hand eye coordination. I never understood how hand eye co-oration is linked with my literacy skills but over the years I slowly got better with my reading, writing and memorization skills. The summer before grade six I moved from Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Winston Salem, North Carolina. The school system in the United States had me retested and I did not receive any help but, that year did help me improve my reading skills. My English teacher introduced me to a series of books called The Series of Unfortunate Events. Reading those books became all I would do and I would slowly read the books over the span of two weeks. Before grade six I had not liked the idea of reading and this was a giant push forwards into the joys of books. After finishing grade six my family moved once again and ended up in Ottawa, Canada. My habits of reading did not diminish during the transition, but caused me to read more. I would read a new book every week. As I graduated towards high school I started to books in a day and whole series, which consisted of more than 60 books, in less than a month. Public school has affected how I view my life. By taking their time to try and help mine and my friends problems with learning as quickly as the rest. Also by introducing me to the fact that not all books are boring but instead can be a little escape from the troubles of the real world when you really need somewhere to go. Thank you. Jon Marc Wyatt 9/6/13 One moment that changed my literacy life was when I was placed in a special education class for English. In 2002, I was placed under tests to find out if my literacy level was lower than expected. The test showed that my literacy needed extra help, so I was placed in a special class that consisted of two other children. Each day I would go to a different class during English and we would have spelling tests on easier words such as school and midnight, we would also be taught how to knit, for it was said to improve our hand eye coordination. I never understood how hand eye co-oration is linked with my literacy skills but over the years I slowly got better with my reading, writing and

memorization skills. The summer before grade six I moved from Toronto, Ontario to Winston Salem, North Carolina. The school system in the United States had me retested and I did not receive much help but, that year did help me improve my reading skills. My English teacher introduced me to a series of books called The Series of Unfortunate Events. The series became all I would do and I would slowly read every book. Which took me two weeks per book. Before grade six I had not liked the idea of reading and this was a giant push forwards into the joys of books. After finishing grade six my family moved once again and ended up in Ottawa, Canada. My habits of reading did not diminish during the transition, but caused me to read more. I would read a new book every week. As I graduated towards high school I started to read whole books in a day and whole series, which consisted of more than sixty books, in less than a month. Public school has affected how I view my life. By teachers taking their time to try and help fix mine and my friends learning problems. Also by introducing me to the fact that not all books are boring but instead can be a little escape from the troubles of the real world, when you really need somewhere to go. Thank you. Jon Marc Wyatt