Growth mindset: writing to inform; editing 4

Jackie Chan

1. Jackie Chan is a very successful kung fu actor. Jackie has starred in more than 110 films. Jackie’s success didn’t come easy. He faced many things. His childhood was rough. In addition, many of his movies were total failures. Jackie didn’t give up though, because he was determined to be a success.

Early Life

2. Jackie Chan was born in Hong Kong on April 7, 1954, to a poor family. He had a lot of energy as a kid, so his dad would wake him up early to do kung fu. Kung fu is a kind of Chinese martial art. Jackie loved it so much and was very good at it. Jackie didn’t do very well which he first started school. He had a dificult learning. Later in his life he was diagnosed with dyslexia, but at the time, he didn’t know it. Because Jackie didn’t do well in a normal school, his dad took him to the chinese Opera research Institute. Jackie was only seven years old. Jackie’s mom and dad took jobs in Australia so that they could pay for Jackie’s new boarding school. The school taught Jackie drama, singing, martial arts, and acrobatics. But the school was very difficult, and the teachers were mean. Jackie had to work at his studies 18–19 hours a day! If he did bad at something, he was punished. Through it all, Jackie worked hard and gave all of his time and energy to becoming an excellent kung fu fighter.

Challenges and Achievements

3. Jackie was in his first movie, where he was eight. He there did a bunch more. Many of them flopped. It made Jackie sad. He kept working at it, but he wasn’t getting the results he wanted and he spent many days being frustrated. Following graduation, he starred in movies that featured stunts that thrilled audiences. He did hard stunts—things other actors wouldn’t even think of. However, he still didn’t have the success he wanted. Many of his movies got bad reviews. One director even called him “useless.” Which is when he decided to try a different approach. The kung fu movies of the time were serious. Jackie had the idea too make them funny. He did, silly tricks, to make the audience laugh. People loved it.

4. Jackie became a success because he had grit and didn’t give up. He tried things in new ways. One of Jackie’s famous quotes is: “Don’t let circumstances control you. You change your circumstances.”

“Jackie was in his first movie, where he was eight.”