OMG.

[conuly]

Ana had a writing assignment, "A Special Member of My Family". She was supposed to write about a member of her family, somebody she'd, say, like to spend a whole day with.

She was SUPPOSED to do this on Thursday, but that didn't happen. This wasn't solely the fault of the blackout, let's be honest here, but that was a big factor in this.

She could've done it Friday morning, but she was too busy not-doing her math homework. So she really ought to have done it over the weekend, but I'm guessing her mother didn't remember to tell her father, and Ana sure wasn't gonna bring it up!

So on Monday, in the library, when I see it's still. not. done I told her we HAD to do it that night. No more dawdling. No more delays. And she actually, with a lot of work and effort (and a small break while I was picking rosemary to pour nail polish all over the table, ye gods, she's seven!), did manage to put out about a page of work (she skips lines, though, so it's not as much as all that) before dinner. Except that she completely forgot the focus of her composition ("It's NOT a composition!" she tells me this morning. Ana, honey, you're being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. You don't even know what a composition is, but if you think arguing the point will get you out of doing your work you are sadly mistaken) and went off on a wild tangent about being adopted by her teacher in Scotland and having Audrey (of the Outback, a book she's totally reading all by herself*) as her REAL sister.

So I forcibly dragged her back to her subject this morning, forbade her from erasing any of it except those last two crazy sentences, and gave her very strict instructions: Write WHY you picked your sister. Not why we're all mean. Not why you hate me. WHY. YOU. PICKED. YOUR. SISTER.

The drama! The angst! Three sentences telling us that her sister is funny and not mean like the rest of the family doesn't yell is the only nice one besides Mommy TELLS JOKES?

I might as well have asked her to write a dissertation on the meaning of friendship. In Greek.

She finally, finally, FINALLY managed to get out a few chunkily written sentences, pencil grasped firmly in the fist of doom so I could know how much she hates this. At this point we were late, so I grabbed everybody, threw them out the door, and ran to school, arriving JUST in time.

As writing assignments go, this is much improved over "Write about your day. Every day. FOREVER!!!!" and none of this would've happened if she hadn't refused to do it when it was assigned.

*Last year's teacher, of course, told me outright that she couldn't put Ana in a higher reading group because she wouldn't write about what she read and therefore maybe she didn't comprehend what she was reading. Yeah. Ana's reading full-on chapter books now and talking about them, so I don't think her comprehension was ever the problem. She just doesn't like to write.

Comments

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I hated writing too when I was a kid. They give us assignments where you had to write about your summer in a 100 words and I always had the hardest time doing it. Yes, I was that kid that wanted to count "The End" as part of the word count.

I think part of it was subject matter, since I never did much on my summers, not being allowed out of the house and all except for the backyard. It doesn't take a 100 words to write, 'read all day, bugged my mom some, drew some pictures'. Part of it was a natural brevity that stayed with me to this day.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Has anyone ever told Ana that she can't go to the higher reading group because she won't write about what she's read?

[conuly]

1. I don't think her teacher told her.
2. I'm not sure it's a rule, just her teacher's idea last year.
3. I'm fairly sure that she doesn't care - she mostly reads her books at home now, and brings them to school in her lunchbox.

[leora.livejournal.com]

From Conuly's descriptions of how much she reads, I don't think it'll have much effect on her education. She'll be way ahead of average on reading and related skills, so she'll likely always have much less to learn from school in that subject. And reading easier books isn't a horrible thing the same way that doing easier math problems usually is, since a lot of easy books are still fun to read and worth the time. As an adult who isn't in school, I read a wide range of "grade levels", since kid's books can still be good stories.

It is rather stupid, but I don't think it'll really hurt her, so that is good. But that is just my opinion, and I've never even met her.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I've never met her either, and I agree that it won't hurt her. One of my other impressions of Ana is that it's important to her to be seen as smart, and I wasn't sure whether that would be a trait that could be used constructively.

[conuly]

God, I wish.

But no, right now she's more of the "OMG! I MUST AVOID THIS SO NOBODY KNOWS I CAN NOT DO IT!" type. It's driving me up the wall.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Holy crap... I still can't get over the idea that kids that age are now given writing assignments. *boggles happily*

At her age I thought a composition was music.

When you ask her why she doesn't like to write what does she say?

[conuly]

She's in the second grade. I still remember some of mine from the first grade.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's the physical act of writing that gives her trouble, or the idea of sitting down and composing. I mean, I hate writing by hand, because it's uncomfortable for me physically, but I'm fine typing. On the other hand, I dislike verbal storytelling for the most part because I can't organize my thoughts quickly enough.

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

Is she just stubborn or does she have some sort of physical problem with writing?

[conuly]

I think she has a non-physical problem with writing, it's hard for her to organize her thoughts and get things down on paper, and writing is still to easy to make mistakes in - she can spell a word wrong by sounding it out wrong, by it having a non-intuitive spelling, or by forgetting to put a letter in; she can put a letter backwards or too big or too small; she can space her words too far apart or too close together; other people might have a better composition than she does.

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

Oh, gee, that does sound hard. For me writing is so natural that it doesn't always occur to me that it isn't that way for some people. My own problem is that while my brain can handle the task of writing, my hands won't always cooperate, so I wondered if that was the problem here.

[pne.livejournal.com]

She's in second grade already? Wow, time flies.

...oh! wait. Ana.

I thought this was Evangeline. Her doing writing assignments was throwing me for a loop, but I had the wrong sister in mind.

[conuly]

That makes sense - indeed, my own handwriting is so bad (difficult, childish, and painful - but at least I mostly manage legible nowadays!) that once I learned to type I've never looked back, never ever ever.

(Though with that said, the idea that handwriting is obsolete makes me laugh. I avoid writing as much as humanly possible, and I still find myself writing shopping lists, addresses, phone numbers....)