T
TeDo
Guest
A little background first. difficult child 1 had to write a "Newspaper Article" rough draft last week for his English class. He wrote it on the Boston Tea Party. Nice little, short article but he remembered to include quotes and details like he was supposed to. He included a sentence about how the Sons of Liberty passed information like meeting times along to each other in code.
The teacher's only comments for revisions for the final draft were to expand on the "codes" the rebels used. OOOOOKKKKKKAAAAAAYYYYYY then. This morning, I sit down with difficult child 1 to add some more details about the code "system". To help steer his thinking in the right direction, I ask him "Why might the Sons of Liberty talked in code?" .......Blank stare....Ok, guess I need to start out more basic. "Why would they talk to each other in code instead of just coming right out and saying it?".....more blank stare....ok, realign MY thinking more in his direction WITH a detailed description of a setting. I describe two rebels in a store, one a customer and one a worker. There are all kinds of people also in the store, British soldiers AND settlers, some loyalists and some not. "Why wouldn't the worker just come right out and tell the customer in a normal voice with normal words about what time their meeting was that night?"
difficult child 1's response....drumroll please.... "I have no idea why they would talk in CODE. I can't figure out why they didn't just whisper to each other." UGH!!
There was no way to redirect his thinking to wrap his head around such a "foreign" concept so I just sent a note off to the teacher that this was the best it was gonna get and explained IN DETAIL his thinking pattern and rigidity. Hopefully, he won't get docked too many points for not being ABLE to expand more on that ONE thing. I am happy that he did a good job on the article itself.
The teacher's only comments for revisions for the final draft were to expand on the "codes" the rebels used. OOOOOKKKKKKAAAAAAYYYYYY then. This morning, I sit down with difficult child 1 to add some more details about the code "system". To help steer his thinking in the right direction, I ask him "Why might the Sons of Liberty talked in code?" .......Blank stare....Ok, guess I need to start out more basic. "Why would they talk to each other in code instead of just coming right out and saying it?".....more blank stare....ok, realign MY thinking more in his direction WITH a detailed description of a setting. I describe two rebels in a store, one a customer and one a worker. There are all kinds of people also in the store, British soldiers AND settlers, some loyalists and some not. "Why wouldn't the worker just come right out and tell the customer in a normal voice with normal words about what time their meeting was that night?"
difficult child 1's response....drumroll please.... "I have no idea why they would talk in CODE. I can't figure out why they didn't just whisper to each other." UGH!!
There was no way to redirect his thinking to wrap his head around such a "foreign" concept so I just sent a note off to the teacher that this was the best it was gonna get and explained IN DETAIL his thinking pattern and rigidity. Hopefully, he won't get docked too many points for not being ABLE to expand more on that ONE thing. I am happy that he did a good job on the article itself.
