In the past 3 weeks, I have read over 4,000 essays written by Ohio fourth graders, on the subject of the life cycle of plants. I've learned a few things, including the fact that half of young Ohio can not spell the word "first." I have no idea how many times I read the phrase "Frist the seed is planted." I've also learned that far too many of these kids completely disregard the part of the instructions that say "Be sure to include an introduction and conclusion to your report." Note to any fourth graders around here... that's a BIG part of the scoring!
But, the project did result in a few memorable quotes from student papers (spelling left as found in the papers)...
"Without plants animals would probibly eat humans."
"That is so sweet how plants decompose!"
"Plants are very colorful, and they don't fly."
"When your plant dies you can burry it, but not out where grandpa is."
"Plants can die just like people can but plants go in the trash."
"And you make it die because if you have the music up loud."
"You can also sing to your plant. They like that."
"I hope to rite mor reports like this in the fucher. I enjoyed riting this report. So I think you will be estounded by my report. Becaus of the extensiv detal."
"Some plants are vicouse cold-blooded predators."
"I'm glad I'm not a plant. I wouldn't want to decompose."
...and the favorite of our group of scorers...
"The lifecycle of a plant has 12 steps, but not like the steps dad has at his meetings."
Gotta say, I'm not at all sorry to have finished up this project this afternoon. Should hopefully find some better writing with the ACT college entrance exams we start scoring tomorrow.
