Thank you note
Dear Bogart Family,
Thank you for the money. I would most like to thank you for the help with my college (application) essay. With my grades and ACT scores, it may be all that got me to college.
Sincerely,
Dan
This “graduation gift thank you” note cracked me up so much, I saved it in my “favorite notes from former students” file. Dan was a wonderful student with good grades and more than adequate ACT scores. But I sure appreciated his enthusiasm for his essay. It turned out to be a favorite with me. He wrote about how his experience on a high school football team taught him, a white kid in a majority black school, the importance of diversity and the power of friendship to transcend racial differences. Terrific little essay that I had the privilege of coaxing and editing.
[…] I never get tired of hearing how Brave Writer students fare in college composition classes. Just yesterday, I ran into one of my local friends. I helped her son write his college entrance exam. He also took Kidswrite Basic back in junior high when I taught it. This is not a kid who I remember for his writing. He struck me as a typical boy writer who simply needed some coaxing to discover that the thoughts in his head deserved to be recorded in writing. He is more than able to tell a good story about himself and his experiences given the right set of questions and time to develop his thoughts. In working with him on the admissions essay, it was very enjoyable for me to see him develop insight into his experiences (more than merely reporting them). […]