A new student, Steven Zhang (P1), recently joined one of my classes for P1 Critical Reading and Writing. I was immediately impressed by his ideas and the expressiveness of his writing. He shows great potential as a writer! You can read a sample of his work below. In this particular lesson we were looking at the fable of the Sun and the Wind, who have a contest to see who can make an old man take off his coat. The students were then asked to do some writing of their own using this fable as their inspiration – here is what Steven wrote:

Once upon a time, the Jade Emperor ruled the sun and the moon, the rain and the wind.
He said, “I don’t want the wind to blow,” so the wind didn’t blow every day. Now, in the city,
wind-powered things couldn’t move anymore. The people prayed and prayed, but the Jade
Emperor said no.

Then, one day four dragons came. They were the powerful dragons of China (the Red Dragon,
Yellow Dragon, Long Dragon and the Black Dragon). They asked the Jade Emperor if he could
let the wind blow again, but the Jade Emperor bellowed to them – “I don’t want to make the
wind blow!” he said. Then the dragons flew away.

The next day, the dragons went to the city and blew. Then the Jade Emperor bellowed to them,
“I will punish you!”