Way to go, Sam!!

Total parent brag post!!!

For a class at school, Sam had to write a one page essay to an author of his choice, telling that author how one of their books changed his life.  Sam wrote to J.K. Rowlings about Harry Potter...Harry Potter?  How could that change your life?  Well, read Sam's essay below to find out!

The real exciting news is all the "letters" written to authors, where entered into a national contest, Letters About Literacy. We just found out that Sam's letter was actually one of the three honorable mentions, in Iowa, at his level (Level 1)!  He was super excited and we were so proud of him!!

This explains the process:

There were 47,000 entries from across the country. The national Letters About Literature office read all these entries and returned the top letters to each state. A panel of Iowa judges for each of the three levels met to discuss the finalist entries and select Iowa’s first, second and third place winners and three honorable mentions in each level.

 

Earning finalist is outstanding given the number of students nationally and from Iowa.



Here is Sam's letter to J.K.Rowlings:

Dear J.K. Rowling,

                I was never really fond of reading long books with many chapters and rarely finished a book I had started to read. The books I choose were usually easy books with maybe 100 pages or less. But that all changed in third grade. My mom suggested a book for me to read, your first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. After I read the first chapter there was no stopping me!

                When I started to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone I decided to set a goal, which I had never attempted before.  I knew the last Harry Potter movie was coming out the following summer so I set a big goal for myself:  To read the whole series of Harry Potter before the last movie came out. This was an enormous goal due to the fact this it was over 5,000 pages of reading! In order not to be overwhelmed with reading 5,000 pages, I decided to set  smaller goals for myself or I might stop reading the books. My first mini-goal, as I call them, was once I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone I would get to watch the first movie. That mini-goal kept me reading until I finished the entire book! Not only did I read an ENTIRE book, but I had reached a goal that I had set and boy did that feel awesome!

                Two main themes in I picked up your books, especially in the first Harry Potter book, was meeting new people, making new friends and being accepted for who you are.  I’ve had this struggle many times in my life for I have been to four different elementary schools in six years. This year in fifth grade I worried so much about who I was going to hang out with or even have a friend because I left my best friend back at my old school. I now realize that attending many different elementary schools I have actually gotten to meet many new people and make many new friends. I am slowly becoming more confident when meeting new people and making new friends, which is a life skill that will help me throughout my life.

                In fifth grade, at my fourth new school, I met one of my best friends, Luke. For the first week of school, I knew people, but didn’t have a good friend to hang out with.  I knew Luke from football, so I decided to ask him if we could sit beside each other for lunch. He said, “Sure!” Ever since then, Luke and I have hung out every day at school, during recess, at lunch and during class. I have gotten to know him even better when I was asked to be on a basketball team called the Sonix.  My parents showed me the team roster I was pumped! My best friend Luke was on the same team! I also was excited to see that I knew other people on the team because of all the schools I’ve attended. In turn, I’ve set many goals for myself in basketball, just like I did for reading. I’m very happy to say that I’ve accomplished a lot of my goals so far!

                 I enjoy setting goals for myself, after being inspired by completing your books,  and I don’t think that it’s possible to stop setting goals to improve my life. All of these goals I’ve set, and a lot of my accomplishments so far  started with reading a book in third grade. For that, thank you J.K. Rowling for inspiring me to begin setting goals for myself, following them through and being the new kids isn’t so bad.

Sam Belding