Zachary sent me his first drafts of his large college essay, as well as one of the smaller prompts, via email. I read, made comments, and printed out some resources to help him to revise for his second draft. We had a meaningful conference. Zach's essay was fabulous for a first draft. My suggestions included adding more details and elements of narrative style to characterize him more. These include strategies such as "show don't tell", figurative language, imagery, colorful adjectives and action verbs. In addition, we discussed Nancy Atwell's strategy "The Rule of Writing about a Pebble" so that Zach could add some more specific characterization of himself. Zach is working on his second draft and we will meet again next week.