The Artist (6th grade) Writes....

As promised, here is The Artist's hero paper; the assignment was to give 500 words about who is a hero to him, what characteristics or actions make that person a hero, and how do those actions benefit the student.

We started out with "My dad, because he's good at Resident Evil, is very nice, and makes great apple pie." and spent two hours turning that into almost 500 words. I just kept reading what he wrote, then asking follow up questions that would pull a bit more information from him, and he'd tell me the answers, then write them in sentence format in the paper. We just kept doing that until he reached the correct number of words.

This paper has not yet been graded by his teacher.  UPDATE: As of Monday, Jan 15, it was graded. She gave him a 100 and wrote "You are very lucky to have such a loving dad."  How sweet is that?!  In case you are just joining this blog and this is your first post, he has an outside teacher for this class; grading and course requirements are identical to public schools in Texas.

My Dad, My Hero

My dad is a hero to me; when I grow up I want to be just like him. My dad is a fun-loving guy, who spends time with me doing things that he knows I like to do. I can always tell that my dad loves me because of the way he acts towards me. 

One of the things I like about my dad is that he’s good at video games, and whenever he plays he lets me look up the walkthrough for him. When he plays I watch him to learn the best ways to get through the part of the game that he is playing.  The game that my dad plays is Resident Evil (4); it is all about shooting bad guys and trying to stop the main bad guy. I need his help because it is a hard game for me, and it is kind of scary, but when my dad plays, it is less scary because my dad has got bigger and stronger guns on his file than I do on my file.  Also, with my dad sitting next to me, I don’t get as worried because I know he will always protect me. 

Another thing that I like about my dad is he is kind, and he is nice to me. And he helps me with my school work. Just the other day he helped me with my science by bringing the right things for it, such as a beaker, a scale, some magnets, and some rocks. Then, he did the experiment with me and made it more fun than if I would have done it by myself. 

Probably my favorite thing is that my dad is a very good cook, and he makes delicious apple pies. And his apple pies are very good desserts! Also, sometimes my dad lets me help cook too. A long time ago, we (my whole family) made family soup! The most delicious food in the world, we all work together to choose ingredients, chop them up, and then, after the cooking, we all work together to eat it! Now “Family Soup” is one of our favorite meals to make! 

Sometimes my dad lets me lead, and he helps me. One night, he helped me cook dinner! I decided to make a stir fry, but we forgot to take the meat out so it was frozen. Then my dad decided to marinate it so that it would thaw out faster, so we put it into a bowl with some seasonings and a secret ingredient: beer! It tasted good in the end and we had a great dinner.  

When I grow up, I want to be just like my dad: very good at video games, a good cook, and very loving towards my children. I chose to write about my dad, one of my heroes, because I really like him. 

I'm curious to see how he does on this one. It is not his best writing sample; he has some difficulty getting from a general topic to a fully developed paper. His summaries for class have been very good, as he is able to highlight the key points in what he's read, then put that information into his own words. He has turned in two so far; the first of those he received a 90, the second, a 100. I hope his essay is up to par; we'll see what his teacher thinks! I'll update or post follow-up when we receive his grade.

Tomorrow, a glimpse at quotable moments, good and bad, from The Adventurer's week, and then Monday I will begin the posts about his diagnosis, suggested course of therapy, how that plays out in real life, etc.