Written Proficiency: Based largely upon the English Language Arts Standards, written proficiency is assessed in all classes, even Physical Education. Teachers are encouraged to collaborate with English teachers to emphasize written communication within their courses and in cross-curricular projects.

Strong written communication skills are essential. When you apply for a job you must write a resume and a cover letter BEFORE you even get to talk to an employer.

x If you don't look good on paper it is very hard to succeed.

x Examples of written communication skills include:

  • Writing samples or Assignments from English, History, Poetry, Creative Writing, Cover letters for your Resume, Research projects, etc.
  • Rubrics or other assessments from instructors/reviewers.
  • District writing proficiency exams.

Written Proficiency: In all professional and academic situations, advanced writing skills are essential. You must be able to write effectively.

You must have the ability to organize information, clearly present complex ideas, write with an audience in mind and use correct grammar and spelling.

I have written many papers for school and on my own which demonstrate my abilities.

The following is an essay that I wrote for a creative writing assignment in English. The assignment was to express an emotion with words.

Amour. Liebe.

Amore. Love.

Love is an emotion that is expressed in almost every culture and every language around the world.

Each individual has his own loves. These are his passions for life; the aspects of life that inspire him to strive on. They are people and places and activities that give him a goal to work towards and something to live for.

Every human being is shaped by his loves. The decisions he makes and the actions he takes, whether academically, socially or personally, are all filtered through the eyes of his dreams. This is the story of my dreams; the story of the great loves of my life. These are the aspects of my life that saturate everything I do. I hope that they can become your loves as well, even if just for this short time.

The first love of my life, I met in my early days of high school. It was actually by mere chance. I had been enrolled, like most students at Vallejo High School, in a Spanish class. Unfortunately, the class was terribly overcrowded. A friend and I decided to transfer to a class with fewer people, in a less popular subject. Little did I know that this new class would be the doorway to a love affair that would be lifelong and all embracing.

Her lines were soft and fluid. Her mind seemed to offer unending challenges. Her name, Français, rolled off my tongue like a soothing cube of ice on the hottest day of the year. I was immediately infatuated. Every place that I had stumbled in Spanish, I took off like a rocket with my new companion. My love still burns brightly today, but I had found it to be a love without direction, a pure love, but love without a plan.

This next example is an essay in which I had to use my written communication sills to explain why my group chose a particular historical text, The lords Prayer, in order to make a point on our project.

Text Choice Analysis

The Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father, is a traditional “form letter” for prayer in many Catholic and Christian sects. It is their belief that The Lord’s Prayer is a summation of all of the teachings of Jesus Christ on earth.

To them it is an example of the grace and the confidence in, and reverence for God the Father that was demonstrated in Jesus. Tradition states that Christians/ Catholics should emulate Jesus by reciting this prayer, believing that the spirit of Jesus will become their own when they do.

The origins of this prayer can be found in the bible. In the book of Luke, chapter eleven, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. In response, Jesus tells them a very basic prayer, from which we can easily derive The Lord's Prayer that is commonly used today. The Catholic Church has been the main purveyor of The Lord’s Prayer from the churches institution. Way before the Middle Ages the Pater noster, The Lord’s Prayer in Latin, was common even to the impoverished and uneducated (who did not speak Latin).

The Lord’s Prayer survived the many twists and turns of the Catholic and Christian organized faiths. As “the church” branched off and expanded and changed, The Lord’s Prayer remained the same. It became a staple of many faiths, a purified truth which survived the haggling and bickering of thousands of theologians trying to define their own “true” faith. Therefore it is commonly seen in the church life here in America.

Our group chose The Lord’s Prayer to be our text because we thought it would be a proper juxtaposition to our topic. As we are focusing on the abuses of American citizens who protested for their own civil rights, rights which were guaranteed to them by the constitution. In modern times there is very little combination of the Christian church and state, in fact the church is now legislated out of anything that could be considered close to the state, but in the 1960’s, and certainly upon the founding of the Constitution, there was a much tighter bond.

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