Opinion please

I have a 7th grade daughter just like yours. Last year she wrote the story part for a social studies group project and when they acted it out, it was way too long so they got marked down. She felt really bad.

I have mixed feelings. I certainly don’t think she should get a zero but neither should she get full credit—marked down one grade, perhaps. My daughter has sorta learned the hard way (last year and some stories too) that she has to also conform to the guidelines, not only produce something really creative.

She still spends way too long on certain kinds of assignments because she loves them but now she gets them done (and her other work too).

I wouldn’t think such an event would hamper recommendations very much. She clearly is a creative child who hasn’t quite learned to manage the real world part. I think that this is very typical for her age—my daughter had all sorts of organizational issues last year that seemed to have mostly resolved themselves with age.

Beth

I agree I don’t think she should get full credit either-but a zero I think is kind of harsh. There are kids who just plain did not do the assignment who of course received the same score. Yes this year has been a nightmare for her as far as organizing and prioritizing go. She has gone from a strong straight A student to a mix of A’s and B’s (good grades but not her standard). She has difficulty with the transitions, getting use to more then 1 teacher, managing time, prioritizing, ect. It does not help that she will be 12 in March and is going through a period of time where she is very sensative. Thanks for the advice, it is nice to know they get through it. Good luck to you and your children.

Big question: did she hand the story in on time, finished or not? If she did, she should get at least partial credit for the part that is finished, which should come out to at least a B-. OR, if the teacher sees that the work has been done and is continuing to be done appropriately, the teacher can put the mark on hold until the work is completed. But if the due date comes and you hand in nothing and make no arrangements to hand it in, you do get a failing grade. Try to make this clear to your daughter; it is an important thing to learn.
Then go to the school and fight. When I was working in schools a lot of parents went to the principal and screamed over a lot of things that were much more foolish than this, like whether or not I was allowed to give pop quizzes or timed tests or closed-book tests in class, or whether I was allowed to correct spelling *without* taking off marks (apparently not), and the principal always backed down. No, she cannot demand an A+ (or she shouldn’t — some of my students did) but she should get recognition for the work she did do.

Hang in there—my daughter was just like that last year. She’s doing much better this year. I really didn’t do anything either. I figured it was sixth grade and she should be allowed some space. While she had some F’s even on individual papers, her report card grades were all A’s and B’s. This year she is having a much easier time, often getting the top grade in her class, so I think some of it is simply developmental.

My daughter’s best friend was going through the same thing last year. Her mother was having fits. I kept telling her “it’s sixth grade, not Harvard.”

Beth

BTW, I usually allow my kids to suffer the consequences but like Victoria I would intervene if she got a zero. We had one situation like that last year. My daughter got a zero on a report because she didn’t put her name on it. I called up the teacher. She danced a bit but didn’t even penalize her in the end. I think she was in a very bad mood that day (according to my daughter), overreacted and knew it. When called to account for it, she couldn’t justify her position of having her do the whole thing over. I actually had proposed that she be marked one grade down but she told me that all she meant was for Sarah to put her name on it and turn it in. Now I didn’t believe that for a minute but I let her save face…

Beth

Yes, she turned in what she completd. She even put a cover on it with an illistration on the front. It had the required title page and about the author page. She had a very ambitious idea for the story and only got half way through what she wanted to say. The story was about how we have a tendancy to judge each other based on outward appearance and how this leads to misreadings. The main character is a cat who no one like because he has one eye bigger then the other. One day one of the other animals gives this cat a chance and finds he is truly someone you want as a friend. This whole set up takes along time and involves many characters. I have never had to intervene on her part before, I realize her difficulties this year are typical of this age. What I did not agree with though is giving a zero. I will talk with her teacher and get her thoughts. I just posted here because I wanted to make sure I was not being unreasonable. Thanks for all the help.

I just HAVE to join in…here we have a (possible) someday novelist-in-embryo…yet, in the interests of having her conform to standards, the teacher is pulling her down to the level of ‘average’…JUST because she has not yet matured enough to ‘apply bottom to chair and WRITE’ when inspiration has moved on. ARGGGHHH…but to give them their due, unless a child is destined to be an elementary school teacher (of the standard version, not the dream-teachers), the average elementary teacher is likely to have NO idea how to motivate or teach them.

My son has the same problem. Luckily, his first love is cartooning. Now I have him write ‘To be continued…’ at the end, if inspiration has moved on or if I must (NOOOO!) interrupt inspiration for bedtime, schooltime, homework time, etc. Since this is often found in comic books, it goes over quite well. Of course, he gets no marks for illustrations at school and is solidly a ‘D’ student for language, so I can’t help you there…just felt the need to reach out to a child who is, I am sure, ‘kindred’ to mine!

Good luck with your talk with teacher…I hope she will understand how de-motivating this is, and how she risks teaching this GIFTED writer that she is “NOT GOOD ENOUGH”…will be waiting to hear how you get on.

Welp, if she didn’t have a climax and resolution, she didn’t fulfill the assignment requirements. If I were her, I would do that — for personal satisfaction as well as to show that I could do it.
Now, that doesn’t address the real question… whether everybody should have to do this.
But… doing part of an assignmnet extremely well is still just doing part of the assignment, which sounds as if it were very well defined.

You say that “since sdhe did not finish she will get a zero.” If that was part of the asisgnmnet, then that’s the part I would have argued about from the get go, since if you don’t do the last 10 problems on a test, you still get credit for the ones you did. I might lose that argument, since there is value in asking to have something done… but I’d certainly hand in what I had done — actually, what *I* would do would be change colors of font or pen and add an arbitrary climax and conclusion — “Then Scooby-Doo charged into the room and gave everybody dog biscuits and they decided to run away to Hollywood. Boy, it was a tough decision! Very toiugh and difficult to resolve! But they did. They were chosen to be in a new series and they are there now, working very hard. “
See? Only took five minutes to create and maybe not the stuff of A’s…

I agree with you… it’s worth going in and discussing — trying ot keep things positive. But if this is a rigid teacher, a good lesson to learn is that sometimes learning has to be more important than your grades, because sometimes you simply will not be *graded* fairly. The learning will last much longer than the grades — and more importantly its’ the part she can do something about. n

Thanks to everyone who offered up advice and support. I talked to the teacher, turns out a number of students had difficulty finishing so she gave the kids until Monday to finish their stories. She looked at all the kids stories and saw they were working really hard on them and making progress. She was pleased to see the well developed stories and was eager to see them through to the end. I let my daughter know that in the future she would just have to buckle down and write her assignments to completion whether she was motiviated to or not. Hopefully she will make her adjustments now why she is in 6th grade and 7th grade will go better for her. Elizabeth, I think I have 2 expiring writers in my house. My 14 year old also enjoys writing and illistrating. Things are interesting at my house with 3 right brained children, never a dole moment!!!! Good luck to you and your son. Keep on encouraging him, we can use some good cartoonist. Thanks again all.

As a teacher(high school learning disabled and emotionally disturbed), I highly respect your daughter’s creativity and being true to her own expectations in developing this essay. It sounds like she is a talented and creative young lady who is eager to develop and utilize those talents. Such talent utilization does require time to “get it right”, to develop a product that one believes reflects one’s abilties.

However, with all due respect to Elvis Presley, “doing it my way” in the real word often requires some compromise. No matter how good our intentions are,
sometimes doing something the way we want it done and fullfilling requirements expected of us are at odds. Consequently, when this happens, we must make adjustments and adapt to the realities set before us. Sure, she would prefer to get in the “mood” to tap her most creative abilities. I too would like time to get in the “mood” to plan more creative lessons on a daily basis, but the reality is that a weekend is simply not enough time to arrive at a totally creative lesson for each day of the week. I often settle for a totally creative lesson for about 3 days of the week. In the ideal world, we would like to set our own pace, create our own guidelines, even if though our intentions are most honorable.
Unfortunately, life is not that way. It is now a good time for your daughter to learn this lesson.

I always teach my students that the most valuable skill/quality they can acquire and develop is that of adaptibility. Life throws curveballs at us: games get rained out, people change their minds about plans concerning us, the bureaucracy makes rules that are ludricous, folks don’t respond the way we want them to. This is simply how life is. Rather than insist that life change to meet our expectations, we will be much happier if we simply learn to adapt to the circumstances while still putting our own unique signature on life.

Your daughter could still have come up with a creative story that she could have scores quite well on, since grades seem to be a major concern here. You both knew the guidelines and the deadlines. As a teacher, I simply cannot extend a deadline because someone needed more “creative time”. Illness, death, extenuating circumstances, most certainly. But if I give even one student an extension because they needed more time to develop their creative thought processes, I’d be opening a Pandora’s box that I would have an awful time closing.

Deadlines are a part of life. She knew them, you knew them, and she did not meet it. The only potential unfairness I see here is if the teacher didn’t warn ahead of time that there would be a zero. Personally, I would have taken 10 points off for each day it was late. A zero seems harsh. Nevertheless, we must deal with the realities of life. I’m sorry you were not able to meet the deadline.
Hopefully, she can learn a lesson about adaptation from this. Perhaps you can too.

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NT

I”m pretty sure we sang it with a bunch of other songs Elvis did ;)
Franky’s the one it usually gets attached to, ghouth.