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Sofia Hibbs, 8th Grade English Taking a Stand Essay |
Topic of the Week
Who is responsible for children's health? Target Words |
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- Videographer asks student to share essay draft. - Student and videographer briefly discuss topic. - Student meets with teacher for writing conference. - Teacher uses rubric to evaluate the progress of the draft.
[clip length—7:41] STUDENT: Okay. Read it? CREW: Yeah. STUDENT: “I believe that parents and schools should be responsible for kids’ health. Parents are responsible for what their kid eats at home and outside of school, so they should restrict their kids from eating unhealthy foods, because that’s when the parents have the most power. Otherwise, the schools should be responsible, because they should provide healthy breakfast, snack, lunch— and lunch to prevent obesity. I also think that schools should emphasize how important exercise is. Schools should be responsible because that’s where kids spend most of their time. So I think it’s fair for both the school and the parents to be responsible.” CREW: Thanks so much. STUDENT: You’re welcome. TEACHER: Ladies and gentlemen, a quick reminder… CREW: What do you think about this topic? TEACHER: …we are working silently. STUDENT: I like it. CREW: [whispers] Do you think it’s an interesting topic? STUDENT: Yeah. CREW: Why? STUDENT: Because a lotta kids eat, like, hot Cheetos and junk food. CREW: Yeah. STUDENT: And like, they don’t even like vegetables. CREW: Oh. And does this— does this school make a deal about that kind of thing? STUDENT: Yeah. CREW: Is that— does that work? Does it help you? STUDENT: It helps, but it would help more if the food was good. [laughs] CREW: Oh, I see. So you feel like— STUDENT: It’s— it’s really healthy for— for them. CREW: But is there a problem with the food? STUDENT: Yeah. Like, people don’t like it, so they don’t— They would rather not eat at all… CREW: Mm-hm. STUDENT: …than eat the lunch. Than eat the healthy stuff. CREW: Yeah? So that they— they go hungry? STUDENT: Yeah. CREW: Wow. STUDENT: I mean, they don’t be really hungry, like, they like… Like their parents will, like, bring them something to eat if they don’t eat or something. CREW: Really? STUDENT: Yeah. CREW: So the whole i— STUDENT: Or they’ll wait until snack time for Ihop. CREW: Is there any way, you think, that you can solve the problem? STUDENT: Uh, to, like, write— like write something to, like, the principal or the school board or something, to… CREW: What would you say? STUDENT: …ask for better food. CREW: What would you— STUDENT: Better, healthy food. CREW: Your suggestion would be to stay with the healthy stuff? STUDENT: Stay with it, but like, make it so that people will actually eat it. CREW: Mm-hm. Yeah. Great. STUDENT: ’Cause they give us healthy food, but it’s not healthy for us not to eat the food. CREW: Exactly. So it’s interesting. That’s a— that’s— the problem is more complicated than I thought, huh? STUDENT: Yeah. CREW: Thank you very much. STUDENT: You’re welcome. TEACHER: Alright, BJ, you are next on my list to conference. Come on down. STUDENT: No. Teachers. No. Yes TEACHER: Parents and— parents and schools. I’m sorry. I apologies. Yes. “I believe that parents and schools are responsible for kids’ health.” That is a strong thesis sentence. I know what you’re paragraph’s gonna be about. You’re gonna tell me why parents and schools are responsible for kids’ health. Fantastic. That would be a four. Okay? “Parents are responsible for what their kid eats.” STUDENT: [a student laughs] He does have a funny laugh. TEACHER: Ladies and gentlemen, just a quick reminder that we are in silent writing time. Thank you. If you need help, let me know. You can sign up. Okay? STUDENT: I thought you said you would turn the lights off? TEACHER: Uh, I didn’t yet, because I’m afraid that it’s gonna hurt what we’re doing right now. “Parents are responsible for what their kid eats at home.” What their kids? STUDENT: Yeah. TEACHER: Kids, maybe? What their kids eat? What if they have more than one child? STUDENT: What if they only have one, though? TEACHER: Okay. But if we’re talking in general, we’re speaking about kids in general, then kids makes a little more sense. So we get rid’a the S here and just put it there, yeah? STUDENT: Yeah. TEACHER: Is that alright with you? Okay. “Parents are responsible for what their kids eat at home and outside of school. So they should restrict their kids from unhealthy foods, because that’s when the parents have the most power.” Okay. This sentence is really long. STUDENT: Yeah. TEACHER: To me, I think we could edit it down a little bit. What could we get rid of? STUDENT: Because, uh… TEACHER: This part? STUDENT: Yeah. TEACHER: Now, if you wanna make that into a new sentence, I think that you could. When do parents have the most power? STUDENT: when they are home TEACHER: Okay. But you’ve said here parents are responsible for what their kids eat at home and outside of school. STUDENT: Yeah. ’Cause if they’re not at school, so its not their responsibility. TEACHER: Say that again? STUDENT: I said because they’re not at school so it’s not the school’s responsibility. TEACHER: Okay. So saying that’s when parents have the most power? Because— STUDENT: Well, they control the kid, too, outside of school. TEACHER: Okay, so they control their kids outside of school… STUDENT: Yeah. TEACHER: …and at home. Okay. I see what you’re saying. STUDENT: I just put it backwards. TEACHER: No, I see what you’re saying now. “Otherwise, the school should be responsible, because the school should provide healthy breakfast, snack and lunch to prevent obesity.” Nice use of the word obesity. Good. Um, “Otherwise,” comma, “The school should be responsible because—” How about responsible for…? ’Cause I don’t think you can say the school should be responsible because schools should provide… Schools should be responsible for what? Doing what? STUDENT: Providing? TEACHER: Providing. Good, BJ. I knew you would get that. Providing healthy breakfast, snack and lunch to prevent obesity. Good. “I also think that schools should emphasize how important…” It’s okay, a little double writing. How important, how important? STUDENT: Oh, yeah. TEACHER: Must be really important. “How important exercise is.” Nice. Excellent use of the word emphasize. Okay? That’s correct. And if you’re gonna underline your vocabulary words… STUDENT: I forgot that one. TEACHER: That’s okay. STUDENT: I was looking for it; I didn’t see it. TEACHER: That’s okay. “Schools should be responsible because that’s where kids spend most of their time.” Okay. Schools should be responsible, but they really share the responsibility with who? STUDENT: The parents? TEACHER: So what if we said— STUDENT: We said that in the last sentence. TEACHER: Okay. “Schools should be responsible because that’s where kids spend most of their time. So I think it’s fair for both the school and parents…” Not should be responsible. STUDENT: to TEACHER: To be responsible, yeah. You know sometimes how you read it out loud and you hear just those little words that need to be shifted? And you have a good ear for that. So right now, you’ve got an outstanding… Let’s see. This is what I would say. You have an outstanding— Oh, no, no, no, I’m sorry. I thought it was thesis. You’ve used two of the vocabulary words correctly. STUDENT: No, I used three. TEACHER: Where’s the third one? STUDENT: One, two, three. TEACHER: Oh, my bad. No, you’re here. You’re here, you’re here. So you’ve used three of the words, and you’ve used them correctly. You’ve got a thesis sentence that tells me exactly what the paragraph’s gonna be about. You’ve got a body paragraph that gives me three reasons why. Let’s double check that. One, two, three. Absolutely. And even four. “Schools, spend—” Okay. So we get a check here. Your conclusion restates your thesis. Parents and schools, schools and parents. And now that you’re gonna— I can’t give you a grad here because you’ve gotta go through now and make the edits. But so far, this is looking fantastic. Really nice work. There you go. Michaela, come on up.
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