Anyone who is good with literacy...what do you make of this homework please?

[BigFatLegsInWoolyTIghts]

DD is 8 in year 4.

She's been given some homework where she has to edit a piece of text which has, I think been doctored by the teacher.

She has to "Get Rid of AND" and use better connectives.

She's been given a list of "useful Connectives".

Fine...all well and good... except it's not! Here is the passage as it appears on the sheet.

Mr Twit led Mrs Twit outside and he had everything ready for the great stretching and he had one hundred balloons with lots of strings and he had fixed an iron ring into the ground and he tied Mrs Twit's ankles to the iron ring and when that was done, he began filling the balloons with gas and each balloon was on a long string and when it was filled with gas, the balloon pulled up on its string and Mr Twit tied the ends of the strings to Mrs Twit's body.

The list of connectives is not compatible...it has words such as

However, nevertheless, though, yet, besides, anyway, after all, for instance, secondly, firstly, to begin with, therefore, as a result, then, meanwhile, later, afterwards.

DD can't seem to find words suitable...she has adjusted the text by dint of using different punctuation....adding full stops and commas where there were none along with the odd "then".

What have I missed? It seems difficult to add new connectives to this particular passage! I just let DD do it but it's not great.

[Soz8]

I am a year 5 teacher and l think that they should have been given connectives which replace 'and' such as in addition, also etc. This would make more sense. The teacher doesn't seem to have thought it through!

[suebfg]

I do agree with you - it's not easy.

You could add 'then' to 'he tied Mrs Twit's ankles' or before 'when that was done'. You could also add 'as a result' before 'when it was filled with gas'

[Itchyandscratchy]

Better really to finish each sentence after the 'ands'; start new sentences with the suggested connectives which makes them better suited as they are temporal.

[Lifeissweet]

No. I agree. That is not a very good task, really. I might give a passage like that if I wanted the children to work on varying sentence length and using interesting openers as well as putting in a range of connectives, but as a passage for replacing 'and' it is not the best.

It sounds as though your DD has done her best with it. That's all you can ask for.