Writing Papers

I have some students who love to write. Classic papers (which used to be called "reports") are called that because the kids no longer write reports, they write PAPERS.

The first real paper I received was from NC year ago when she wrote eleven pages on The Odyssey. An impressive number of pages on an impressive book for a 5th grader to read. But that was just the start. I've since gotten papers which numbered in the thirties and forties page-wise, and it has become the norm instead of the exception for the 5th graders.

EP presented Friday on Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, and her paper was thirty-one pages long. Of course, these are read aloud, so sometimes we have to take a stretch break mid-paper. EP's paper was of very high quality, but she is still just a child and every now and then something she said or had written gave away her age.

For example, when asked about her summary section and why she stopped when she did (it had had the kids quite riveted and, despite its length, they wanted to hear even more), she said, "I had to tell myself to stop."

Wow. The idea of a student enjoying her writing so much that she realized she really needed to quit writing that section and move onto the next gives me goosebumps. Every teacher's dream!

But what really made me smile was the discussion we had on the high vocabulary in the book. EP was asked about her decision to read Kidnapped,  and she replied,

"I knew this book would higher my vocabulary."

I had to hide my smile at the wrong choice of words from a child who had just used (correctly) a whole bunch of high level words only to have her youth peek out in her choice of words here.