I was talking to someone recently who was saying some things she thought it was unreasonable to expect third-graders to be doing in school, vis-a-vis English composition. I'm not going to repeat what they were because the purpose of this post isn't ragebait about modern parents or modern education; I only bring it up to explain why I'm reminiscing tonight about things we wrote when I was in Grade 3.
In our unit on friendly letters, we all had to write a letter issuing an invitation, a letter accepting an invitation, and a letter refusing an invitation. And since this was decades before "No is a complete sentence," the refusal letter had to include a reason for refusing.
Most of us cited a previous conflict. Some kids got creative and invented a parent's objection to a late hour. But I'll never forget a single word of Tim P.'s blunt reply as long as I live: "I can't come because I hate your guts, not to mention your outsides, too."
The teacher had never explicitly SAID the letters had to be polite. And his spelling, punctuation, and handwriting were perfect. I don't remember exactly what the fallout was, but I don't think it was very severe. I always thought of Tim P. whenever I had to write a business letter and had to be a lot more polite than I wanted to.
