Not the Write Stuff.

My children are terrible writers. Really, truly. Oh, they can write a quick, down and dirty paper for school. But an essay with a point of view? A creative writing assignment that is supposed to take you to another place and time? A poem? A haiku, for pete's sake? No. Just...no.

I guess I shouldn't be suprised. When I ask my son where he's going, he says "places." When I ask him with who, he says "people." When I ask him what he'll be doing at those places with people, he says "stuff." I know, part of it is a "back off, you're prying," message to Mom. But the other part is that he's just too lazy for good, old fashioned conversation.

That's the boy. Now, the girl...she is full of drama. The facial expressions and the tone of voice I am subjected to on a regular basis are the stuff of Lifetime Television for Women. But when it comes to translating this to a piece of paper...total deer in headlights.

MEAP testing (which I despise, but it does point out areas needing drastic improvement in the school system) indicates my kids' school system is piss-poor when it comes to teaching solid writing skills. My experience with their homework proves this true. But they've also forgotten how to converse in colorful language...too much texting, too much IDK, LOL. I read that the average vocabulary in 1950 for a teenager was 25,000 words. Today...more like 10,000.

Not surprised.