Fourth graders from Children's Day School came in for a field trip this morning. Andre and Beverly are their teachers.

The students brought in their drafts of an essay about a dream they have had OR about a life long dream they hope to achieve. We welcomed the students in and introduced ourselves. We had a conversation about how to give honest, but kind, feedback to other people's writing and then they were off. They got into groups of two or three students with one or two tutors and they worked diligently on improving their essays. The teachers asked that the tutors focus on sentence structure and incorporating specific details into the story. Each student recieved feedback and personal attention to their work. The room buzzed with activity.

After the teams finished tutoring their session we asked everyone to write an anonymous note answering the following three questions:

1. What you like about 826?
2. What do you want next time you come?
3. Do you think your story is better?

Some of the quotes from the students' questionnaire include:

They liked . . . .

• "How nice the tutors were."
• "Hearing other people's stories."
• "Being able to work with someone new on my writing."
• "The intelligence of my tutor."
• "How my tutor helped me out and corrected my words."
• "Everything!!!"

The tutors also had a blast:

They liked . . . .

• "The creativity of the stories and the openness and collaboration of the kids in an effort to improve their stories."
• "Loved how clear and articulate these kids are. The incredible thing was that not only do they have vivid imaginations, they also have the capacity to convey them in detail."

100% of the students told us that they thought their story had been improved! The students will work on all the submissions to the anthology, but will also design the cover and help to assemble the compilation. The students asked if they could sign the books that are being sold in the store. We said of course and then told them that their signatures would actually raise the value of the work. They were thrilled.

Thank you to the tutors who joined us: Natalie Linden, Jeni Paltiel, Ken Reisman, Adrian Kudler, Jason Roberts, Gail Jardine, Jen Park, Ryan Miller, Abner Morales, and Sam Silverstein.

We will meet with this group again on October 16th and November 13th. Keep an eye out for Children's Day School's fourth grade anthology.