In this activity, Zackary Worked on a variety of topics. These included Linear and quadratic functions, along with adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing rational equations.

Zach and I met and did a final edit on all of the essay pieces he wrote so far. We then worked on some of the smaller supplementary pieces that he is writing for various other colleges. Each one has a different prompt with different angles. We are working with several of the ideas that he has already tailored them to the specific prompts and purposes of each piece. This is a work in progress.

Today, Zach and I worked on two short essay prompts. He wrote rough drafts for both and we finished them both today. Each was 150 words. We worked on organization of ideas and sticking with the focus while characterizing him for the college.

Zachary and I worked on the final draft of his big college essay. It came out fabulous! He has learned some writing skills along the way. Today we made the essay more concise getting it down to 650 words from over 850. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I'm so proud of him.

Zach finished his main essay today. It is amazing. He should be super proud. We are working on his smaller pieces right now. I think he learned some great writing tips during this experience. :) We will meet again on Tuesday.

We worked on Draft 5 today! I love the "almost" final product! Today, we worked more on organization and reducing the wording from 860 to 650. Zachary has applied everything we spoke about. Great job. We still have some final editing to do and Zach is working on some of his smaller pieces for our next session which is next Thursday.

Today, we worked on Zach's Draft 2 of the big essay. He sent it to me a few days ago. He did a great job in adding more of his story with details, etc. Now we have all of the information we need and are working on organizing his thoughts and condensing repetitive words and ideas. He is working on Draft 3 for next week. We also finished his "Why UCF" essay. Yay! It came out wonderfully.

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.