essays - teachers help please!!

[lemonysnicket]

Hi, sorry I feel about dense asking this but...! my DS has to write a 200 word homework on a particular subject he's learning about in history at the moment - it's just a piece of h/w as opposed to a project, but does he have to stick to 200 words exactly (or rather, are they expected to), or can he go over (in this case to around 250)! THANK YOU.

As a teacher who often sets homework with word limits I would say that the word count is a guide. The teacher is unlikely to actually count the words.

The reason I set homework with word limits is because, otherwise, I end up having some children present me with a real essay or a book or something that they have worked on for ages because they are fascinated with the subject.

It also encourages other students to produce something near the word limit - instead of the two sentences they would other wise try to get away with!

As for what I expect - if typed then usually about half a page (worked on the average of 15 words per line then something like 12-15 lines) and if handwritten then it would normally fit on a page of a normal exercise book (worked on an average of 10 words per line so about 20 lines).

Hope this helps.

at idea of teacher counting the number of words.

It's would be guide to how much to write, as some pupils will write a single sentence or just answer "Yes" and others will produce 5 calligraphied pages.

It's about half to 3/4 of an A4 page.

Dysgu - thank you so much for your reply - it was extremely helpful - and thank you Dinah for yours - he has typed out around 1 and a quarter pages - do you think this will be alright? Thank you again...My husband says I worry too much as some kids won't do it at all! I wish I was as laid back as him but I know that my DS wants to get it right (don't know where he gets it from...)

Speaking from bitter experience, if he's typed it, get him to print it in 1 1/2 line spacing so that the teacher can annotate where necessary.

I hate getting pieces of work which are so densely typed that you can't add anything meaningful. Many don't even leave a line between paragraphs.

I'm sure that a teacher won't complain about getting more than the amount requested!

I do complain about getting much more than the amount requested (and much less). Depends on the age, though. Some exam answers are designed to be compressed into 200 words so I wouldn't want them going over that - it's missing the point rather!

Equally I'm not going to count the words.

Make sure every word he's written counts, though. Often students who write too much are putting in excess words (and, so etc) or repeating large chunks of text where a pronoun would do.

Tell me about it - GCSE examining at the moment, and it's how many ways can we repeat the one point we've made in some responses.