tutoring

11/28/07

Essay Contest 250 words Prompt: "What is an American?"

here are the notes he wrote down as we brainstormed.

1. they use a lot of money 2. the freedom 3. junk food 4. they have a lot of body skin, hear, and eye color 5. they aways like to play football, baskball, and baseball 6. they don't obay there parents 7. some of them are bron in america 8. the like to wasding there own raw meters 9. some of american doesn't use there think

the first thing he said to me was, "they are fat?" he said it with a question mark at the end. i laughed, and he did not write it down. but it must've been still on his mind (#3).

while i'm all for writing off the beaten path, i was a little unsure about how to approach this. when i mentioned American traditions of courage and justice, he just looked at me. you try teaching the customary American hogwash to an eleven-year-old Taiwanese boy. whatever. i'll settle for explaining possessive "their."