I received a fabulously well-written essay recently. And because we're focusing so much on revising and editing of work, I could see that it was a genuinely evolved bit of good writing – meaning the student wasn't just expressing natural talent and/or a strong and advantageous background (e.g. a past opportunity to have lived abroad). Instead, I could see how she developed her idea and then successively refined the ideas and grammar to make the final essay nearly flawless English. I penned in exactly 5 corrections – essentially zero compared to her peers. I've incorporated those corrections here. I admit I liked the essay, also, because of the more creative approach to the topic than most of the students had taken.
About 3 months ago, I had a funny and interesting dream. I'll never forget it. I was sleeping in my bedroom after I finished my school homework. In my dream, I was in a desert. I looked around and I saw a bear standing next to me. It was a polar bear wearing a cowboy suit. The polar bear turned and asked me if I wanted to try a red spotted dried snake. I ate it and it tasted really good. We started punching up all the cactuses in the desert and chased desert foxes. The time went by. Suddenly, the polar bear stopped running. I asked him why and he said this instead of answering, "It's cold, I should go home." I was surprised so much. The polar bear says it's cold in the hot desert? I knew it was a dream but it still didn't make sense. I jumped off the bed, and got out of the dream. And I saw my mom saying to me, "it's cold! So you should put your sweater on!" The polar bear wasn't the one who said it's cold. I just connected my dream and mom's talking. My family all laughed when I told them what was happening in my dream. I think I will never forget this dream.