Wed, Feb 3

I never realized how lazy people are in 6th grade.

The students are working on a research paper to go along with their science fair projects. Although this is their first research paper, there are still some requirements to follow. One is that their cover page include the name of their topic, their name, their class hour, their pod, and the date. No matter how many instructions or how much guidance the students were given, more than 1/2 of the students (a) did not follow formatting directions (b) used a "readable" font, such as TNR, Times, or Arial; and most frustrating and interesting (c) did not bother to spell out the month in the date of their paper. I asked one student why she did not type out 'January' and instead just used 'Jan'; she asked why she couldn't; I explained that it was against the instructions; to which she replied, "Well, that is a dumb instruction" and did not change her typing. If I were grading her cover sheet, she would lose points for 'Jan', using some twirly font that is difficult to read, and not following the format (by placing her name before the title of the paper). But, that's just me...