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Dmmetler
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DD9 wrote this today. She's working on a state history unit and diverged into state animals, then into national ones. Unedited, except for removing her name. Writing is something that we haven't worked on much formally, and I'm thinking we need to do more work, but not quite sure where to start.

 

 

Dear President Obama:

 

 

I have noticed that the United States of America do not yet have a national reptile or amphibian. For this reason, I, (name), a 9-year-old in Tennessee who loves reptiles and amphibians, nominate the Timber Rattlesnake and American Bullfrog as reptile and amphibian for America. Even our famous Ben Franklin nominates the rattlesnake as a United States symbol.

 

 

Furthermore, the "Don't Tread On Me" flag is one of the many symbols of American pride and rattlesnakes are only found in the New World, and in their wild habitat, they cannot be controlled just like the United States could not be controlled by Britain. Therefore, the rattlesnake represents the spirit of America. And the rattlesnake was one of our favorite symbols even before the Revolution, and therefore represents us.

 

 

As for the nomination of the bullfrog, this frog can devour almost anything, and is the largest found in North America, with its incredible power for such a seemingly defenceless creature. It can swallow even the objects we are afraid of, at its grand size. The celebrated author Mark Twain even wrote a short story surrounding the bullfrog known as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

 

 

Frogs are some of the most known and beloved animals of the world, but they possess incredible power, with that long tongue which can secure even disease-carrying insects in the amphibian's mouth, representing the power that can be within even the most unexpected places, which is found greatly in the States, truly making the bullfrog an appropriate national amphibian.

 

 

 

Reasons for my choosing the rattlesnake and bullfrog

1. The rattlesnake is only found in the New World and shows extreme significance in United States history.

2. The bullfrog is the largest frog in North America and has incredible power.

3. Rattlesnakes somewhat contributed to the Revolution and early America with the "Don't Tread On Me" flag and various other objects symbolic of American pride.

4. Frogs are important for many reasons such as medicine, pest control, and various other applications that are vital to both America and the modern world in general.

5. The rattlesnake is one of the most misunderstood, yet splendid creatures found in these beautiful States.

 

 

I hope you will take this letter into consideration as the choice of our national reptile and amphibian can be made.

 

 

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That's very good! :) I'm not a good editor yet, but the one thing that jumped out at me was the word "even" was used a lot. Something my friend suggested I do for words that are overused in my son's writing (often "And" in his case) was to have him highlight or underline each instance of it. She used the word 6 times in the piece, and that caught my eye as I was reading. That seems like a word that wouldn't be used quite so much.

 

I have nothing else, and I really do like it quite a bit! I hope she sends it after editing. :D I love that she was able to cite authors and such. Well done!

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I think the letter is extremely well done for a 9 year old.

She has the phrasing, vocabulary, and background knowledge of someone much older.

 

The one question that I had while reading the letter was

"Why should we have a national reptile or amphibian at all?"

Do other countries have national reptiles or amphibians? Do the states?

What purpose would having a national reptile or amphibian serve?

 

 

As for progressing writing skills, I think she could work on sentence and paragraph skills.

 

Many of her sentences are quite long and would be better separated into

multiple sentences. (They aren't necessarily grammatically run-ons, but they are

still too long.) All the clauses in a sentence should be directly related to each other.

 

She already has the basic idea to group related sentences into paragraphs.

How about teaching her about topic sentences, supporting details, opening hooks,

and closings?

 

There are also several grammatical errors in the piece.

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I believe most states do at this point. California just picked a state amphibian (and already had a state reptile), so I think that was what started her checking on others.

 

Some of her wording comes out sounding a bit stilted to me. She reads a lot of journal articles, and I'm guessing that this may be creeping in a bit.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for a writing program? We've done MCT Island and Town, but haven't moved on to Voyage because the schedule got busy enough that we needed something less teacher intensive. She'll be doing Lightning Literature this year, but while it has writing prompts, it doesn't have writing instruction.

 

 

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I believe most states do at this point. California just picked a state amphibian (and already had a state reptile), so I think that was what started her checking on others.

If she is going to mail this letter, I recommend adding something explaining why the US should have a national amphibian and reptile.

"I have noticed that the USA does not have a national amphibian among its symbols. As most of the states do ... the US should have one too. I would like to nominate ..."

 

If you want to revise this piece to practice writing skills, I suggest redoing it focusing on only one animal, and making sure to have a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. In this piece she is trying to juggle both animals, making it difficult to focus on other skils.

 

Some of her wording comes out sounding a bit stilted to me. She reads a lot of journal articles, and I'm guessing that this may be creeping in a bit.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for a writing program? We've done MCT Island and Town, but haven't moved on to Voyage because the schedule got busy enough that we needed something less teacher intensive. She'll be doing Lightning Literature this year, but while it has writing prompts, it doesn't have writing instruction.

How about trying some Killgallon? Don't just imitate the sentences. Examine the parts and see how they work together. How do the ideas support each other? How does putting an idea in different places in the sentence affect the meaning or emphasis? It will also give her a better idea of reasonable sentence length.

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