The Spirit of the Assignment

 It was a mystery.

A student claimed to have written 500 words, and Google word count confirmed it, but there just wasn't enough on the page for it to make sense. "Come over here," I invited the young writer, a squirrely and mischievous sixth grade boy whose angelic appearance belied his naughty behaviour. 

He beamed at me and happily complied.

"Share your document with me, and let's take a look at it," I told him.

Soon I was looking at the loaves and fishes of personal narratives: three short paragraphs that were somehow comprised of exactly 500 words, which happened to be the minimum for the assignment. "Well," I said, "your narrative is not really complete."

"But it has 500 words," he insisted.

"I know," I agreed, "but that's the minimum. If you can't write a whole story with that many words, your narrative will have to be longer."

He slumped in his chair. "I can't think of anything else," he sighed.

"Well, let's work on it together," I offered. "Tell me about this car trip-- what were you doing? What did it look like out the window?"

He gave me a few details, and I showed him how to expand and elaborate on his minimal description, and we took turns adding to his story, he on his iPad and I from my computer. 

"Now let's look at the end," I said and scrolled to where the story abruptly stopped. I noticed that his document went on to the next page, which is not unusual for kids who are learning to type their drafts: they often inadvertently hit return when they are editing and revising. I clicked my cursor to the end and swept it up, intending to delete the extra white space. Imagine my surprise when 200 or so words of gibberish, typed in white, were revealed as I highlighted them.

"What's all that?" he asked innocently.

"I think you know that's how you got your 500 words" I answered. The bell rang then, and he rose to pack his books and rush out of the room, but we weren't finished yet. Let's just say there were tears in his eyes when I handed him the late pass 10 minutes later, and I'd like to believe his remorse was more than invisible words on the page.