College -
OBS Level 1
(Literacy)

A PROFILE OF JAMIE

Jamie, a single male in his early twenties on social assistance, was referred to the OBS Level 1 Literacy Program for a more detailed assessment after writing the initial college upgrading assessment intake test. He had completed Grade 12 Basic six years before, but felt that his general educational skills needed improvement. This was his first attempt to upgrade.

His long-term goals involved completing OBS Level 4 and getting "a good job." He was confident that he was able to handle all of the personal reading and writing goals listed on the program's goal sheet. His personal writing sample, however, indicated a weak ability in paragraph development. His writing sample was really just a short listing of activities and events with little or no description, and he had difficulty recognizing sentences. Jamie's spelling was accurate, however, and he showed some understanding of basic punctuation and capitalization. Jamie was very eager to move to OBS Level 2, but needed to demonstrate he could write a simple paragraph about personal ideas and experiences. This is one of the foundation Level III outcomes - Write clearly to express ideas.

Jamie and his instructor had reviewed the learning outcomes together so Jamie realized he had to learn much more about the writing process including recognizing and using correct sentence structure. This was reinforced by an OBS Level 2 English instructor whom his instructor had asked to review his work. Jamie also asked his instructor to do a readability check of one of his paragraphs.

Although Jamie took part in many group discussions and activities, his efforts were focused clearly on writing and the elements of grammar that would assist him with this. His writing centered on personal interests and activities that happened during class: for example, the marriage of