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Emily Branigan
ENG 315 WI
April 10, 2018
Project 3, Part 3: Assessment Memo
To: Jackson’s Parents
From: Ms. Emily Branigan
Date: April 14, 2018
RE: Jackson’s Writing Progress

Hello!

Despite the crazy weather this mid-April, I hope all is well! My name is Ms. Emily

Branigan, and I am Jackson’s classroom writing teacher. Throughout the 3rd grade school year,

Jackson has been working on using paragraphs in writing, such as essays and narratives. Since

February, Jackson has been working one-on-one with me on indenting paragraphs, punctuation,

and staying consistent with the writing idea. I am very excited to share some of his progress with

you. Without further delay, here is a first draft of Jackson’s personal narrative titled part one

snow ball war II.

Description of Findings

Jackson’s part one snow ball war II is a fictional personal narrative that he wrote to

answer the prompt “Write about a time you did something you did not want to do at first, but

later, you liked doing it.” Jackson split his story into four paragraphs. Three of his four

paragraphs have indentation, which is spacing at the beginning of the first sentence of a new

paragraph. He wrote this story with a green pen, fixing mistakes by crossing them out and jotting

down what he meant to say. In the second paragraph, he added the descriptor “reluctantly” to add

to his sentence about putting on his snow gear. There are a few spelling errors, such as “teamate”
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for teammate and “distroy” for destroy. Jackson’s letters are large and take up the entire space

between notebook lines. Jackson correctly uses quotation marks where they belong, placing them

around the words he yells within the story, including “Attake” and “A teammate has been hit

take him back to bace.” Since the title part one snow ball war II hints that there will be a sequel,

he finishes the story with “to be continyoud.”

Interpretations

Jackson’s creativity and passion for storytelling shined through his personal narrative

about the snowball fight he did not want to join, but later enjoyed. He created suspense for his

readers in the first paragraph by stating “a knock at my door could end with a war beginning.” In

his second paragraph, Jackson strategically used the word “reluctantly” to emphasize that he did

not want to go outside for the snowball fight. “Reluctantly” is a word he learned in a recent class

discussion. It’s super cool to see Jackson utilizing new words he learns in class inside his paper!

He also describes “I dash outside like it’s the end of the world.” Not only does he paint a picture

for his readers by explaining how fast he runs, but he replaces the word “run” with a better verb,

“dash.” Later in the story, he continues to paint pictures for his reader with descriptive details

such as “A snowball flies over [our] heads like a plane”

Jackson and I have worked together specifically on indentation, punctuation, and staying

consistent with the writing idea. Jackson’s idea of indentation has improved immensely. Before

our writing conferences, he would never indent his paragraph. In this piece, he indented 75% of

the time, which is awesome! In some instances, throughout the writing, it is easy to tell where

Jackson wrote uppercase or lowercase letters where they don’t belong. For example, the

lowercase i in “I knew i shouldn’t have opnd that door,” and the uppercase J and P in “I’m Just

Playin but the war is begining…”. In addition, Jackson’s use of punctuation (which includes
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commas and periods) is still very shaky. In this story, he used periods more often than he did

before working with me. However, he did not put periods in every place that needed a period,

and he did not use commas when he could have.

The final thing that Jackson and I have been focusing on is being consistent with the main

idea of the paper. Before, Jackson would often write things that were not related to the main idea

of a story or essay. In his story part one snow ball war II, he remained consistent with the topic

given by his teacher, which was “Write about a time you did something you did not want to do at

first, but later, you liked doing it” which is a huge step of improvement for Jackson!

Next Steps for Learning

Jackson is a very smart and creative student. When he writes, his pencil becomes a

paintbrush as he paints detailed pictures to his readers through his story part one snow ball war

II. My plan of action for Jackson is to take this story and edit it, one chunk at a time. I was very

excited to see him use the word “reluctantly” in his paper, because it is a very descriptive word

he had just recently learned! Now I know that Jackson has the potential to find “meaty and

imaginative” words, I will help him to incorporate other descriptive words he learns in class,

either from his teacher or from books he read, into his paper.

Asking Jackson to fix the errors in his paper all at once would be very overwhelming for

him. Therefore, to help him tackle the mistakes in his story, we will look at them one “lens” at a

time. As reading glasses and sunglasses have different purposes, the “lenses” I will use with

Jackson will have different purposes, too. For example, I will first work with Jackson on

indenting all of his paragraphs. He will look at his paper with an “indentation” lens to see if all of

his paragraphs are indented as they should be. Since Jackson is a visual learner, I taught him the
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“two-finger rule” to help him better understand how indentation works. Before Jackson writes a

new paragraph, he will take two fingers and place them on the left margin of his paper. Then, he

will write his first word on the other side of his fingers. When he lifts his fingers, the indent of

his new paragraph is made for him! After all of his paragraphs are indented, he can now look at

his paper through the “uppercase and lowercase” lens. Jackson will now look through his paper

and see where he needs to fix his uppercase and lowercase letters. After he is complete with that,

he can put on his “punctuation” lens and read through his story to see what punctuation he can

add. Before he will know it, he will have revised his entire paper chunk by chunk, with me

sitting by his side for guidance!

Jackson is a visual and kinesthetic learner, which means he learns best by looking and

moving around. When I continue to work with him on writing, I will make sure that he has

opportunities to look at the classroom posters and books to find new words and to remind him to

indent his paragraphs and use proper punctuation. I will also make sure to give him opportunities

to move around as he continues to learn how to revise his writing. Jackson is a fantastic writer. I

know that with practice, Jackson will be able to quickly increase his writing skills!

It has been a pleasure working with Jackson! He is a very smart and creative writer with a

passion for storytelling. I will encourage him to practice his writing during his upcoming

summer break so that he is ready for 4th grade. He is going to continue to be an awesome writer

in the next school year! Thank you very much for reading this memo about Jackson’s writing

progress! Stay safe in this snowy spring weather.

Sincerely,

Ms. Emily Branigan

Writing Teacher
ABC Elementary School
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References

Heard, G. (2014). The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques That Work (2nd ed.).

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Michigan Department of Education. M-STEP Narrative Rubric Grades 3-8:

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/G5_G8_Narrative_PT_Rubric_540189_7.pdf

Ray, K. W., & Laminack, L. L. (2001). The Writing workshop: Working through the hards parts

(and theyre all hard parts). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers.
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Part one snow ball war II (Original)

On a cold winter day it was about 2:42 a knock on my

door could end with a war begining. A snow ball has been
thrown in my face a war has begun. I hate snow ball fights but
a war is a war.

I reluctantly throw on my snow stuff, hat, mittens and

boots. I dash outside like it’s the end of the world. And my
house is the first to go down. I make my small snowfort and I
make a team. All my buddys vs all my foes.

The war bens is like a battlefield no ones safe I yell “attake”

and everone throws snow ball after snow ball. A snow ball
flyies over heads like a plane.

“A teammate has been hit take him back to bace” I yell a

snow ball almost hits me and by bestfriend wemake a huge
snowball. useing all are snowballs. We all throw it and we
distroy there bace the still have a bace but we still have snow
balls and we could have and advantage to be continyoud. Im
Just playin but this war is begining I knew i shouldent have
opend that door but this war is fun. I might like snowball
fights now. You might think this war is scary its not when you
know what to do. back to the war we make a supply of food
and snow balls to be continyoud
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Part One: Snowball War II (Edited)

On a cold winter day, it was about 2:42. A knock on my

door could end with a war beginning. A snowball has been
thrown in my face. A war has begun. I hate snowball fights,
but a war is a war.

I reluctantly throw on my snow stuff, hats, mittens and

boots. I dash outside like it’s the end of the world. And my
house is the first to go down. I make my small snow fort and I
make a team. All of my buddies vs all of my foes.

The war is like a battlefield. No one’s safe. I yell “attack”

and everyone throws snowball after snowball. A snowball flies
over (our) heads like a plane.

“A teammate has been hit. Take him back to base” I yell.

A snowball almost hits me and my best friend. We make a huge
snowball using all our snowballs. We all throw it and we
destroy their base. They still have a base, but we still have
snowballs and we could have an advantage to be continued. I’m
just playin’, but this war is beginning. I knew I shouldn’t have
opened that door, but this war is fun. I might like snowball
fights now. You might think this war is scary. It’s not when
you know what to do. Back to the war – we make a supply of
food and snowballs. To be continued…
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