A Piece of Cake

I recently taught my 4th graders that writing is a piece of cake.

Actually, it’s one of the hardest things in the world. Not until you try to write something completely true do you realize how ignorant you are. But, still, the cake metaphor applies… if only because I am kind of a silly woman.

So often, I struggle when grading assignments because I come across answers that are not wrong, but could be a heck of a lot more right. I was grading an assignment like this recently. The students were tasked with answering the question, “Why does Miss Polly feel curiously helpless when trying to punish Pollyanna?” The answer, essentially, is that Pollyanna always finds something to be glad about, and so, she enjoys the punishments. The answers I got, however, were strange. One student wrote, “Pollyanna likes being punished,” and another wrote, “Miss Polly feels helpless because she can’t punish Pollyanna.”

On the one hand, I can see exactly what these students mean. Technically, yes, Pollyanna finds something to enjoy about the punishments, so she does like them. And, yes, Miss Polly does wonder if punishments are really punishments when they are enjoyed. However, both answers, despite their factual accuracy, miss the point.

So, rather than continue reading the book that day like I had planned, I decided to do what we at my school call “slamming on the brakes.” When we see a fundamental skill that needs review, we stop introducing new content and we review it. I intended to tell them that many of them had missed the point in their answers, give some anonymous examples of their work, and then practice better answers as a class. But, remember: I am a silly woman. So instead, in a moment of inspiration, I drew a picture of a cake on the whiteboard.

With a jokingly incredulous tone, a student asked, “Is that a cake?”

“Yes,” I replied, “and it is going to help us learn a delicious lesson.”

“When we write an answer to a question,” I continued, “it is possible to do so at many different levels, but let’s just talk about three. The first level is a lot like when you stick your fork into a cake, and all you get is frosting. It’s just the sugary stuff on the outside—the most obvious thing. But it’s not the most important part. The second level is when you get some frosting, but also some of the yummy crumbly cake part beneath. And the third, the best level, is when you manage to get to the frosting, the cake, and the filling all together—a little bit of everything.”

We took a look at the question again and drew pictures of a cake, labeled with the concepts that were essential to the answer, and those that were not-so-essential. Then, after discussing the difference between the “frosting” answer and the “filling” answer, I had them try the assignment again.

This time, I received answers like this: “Miss Polly feels helpless when she tries to punish Pollyanna because Pollyanna always finds something to be glad about. So, when Miss Polly tries to make her feel bad about doing something, it doesn’t work. Miss Polly gave a useless punishment when Pollyanna was late for dinner and Miss Polly made her have only bread and milk instead of the hot meal. Because she likes bread and milk, Pollyanna’s punishment made her happy.”

Their answers naturally became longer, more detailed, and more focused on the essential point of Pollyanna’s gladness. We practiced this skill every day for two weeks as we continued to read more chapters from Pollyanna, and now my students are consistently writing beautiful responses to the questions I assign. They now have the image of a cake in their minds, helpfully labeled with different layers of complexity. And, even more usefully, I have the cake terminology to use with them in the future. If I tell them that an answer is mostly frosting, they will understand what they need to do to make it better. If I compliment a student’s work and say that it has a lot of filling, they understand exactly what they did right, and will aim to do more of it in the future.

So, I say that writing is a piece of cake. And all my 4th grade students agree, with the full knowledge of just how challenging it can be.