{She Said} That's What I Like to See

I assigned a project yesterday where students are pretending that while cleaning out their attic, they find an old box with letters, journals, etc from the Frontier Wars in Texas. I told them that they could type the letters and journals if they used a font that looked like handwriting.

As an aside- any of you that may want to gasp in horror at the lack of authenticity in my allowing them to type, consider for a second a few things. First, what is the point of the project- them learning about the Frontier Wars - typing doesn’t take away from that goal. Second, cursive isn’t taught in school so I would be getting some pretty funky looking papers with kindergarten print on them which aren’t authentic either. Third, when you have to read ATLEAST 100 items in this project alone, you start to make some concessions to make up for the ridiculousness of 7th grade handwriting. And finally, I am also charged with encouraging students to make use of technology in class activities as well.

Back to the story- so today, I noticed one group laboring over a sheet of paper and engaged in some very serious discussion. When I went over to see what could possibly be capturing their attention so intensely, I saw that one student had gone home and made a font sample sheet of all of the fonts that looked like handwriting and they were all deciding which font they would use for each of their parts of the assignments. The brilliance brought a tear to my eye. I hope I have a son just like him some day. Atta boy!