"Try not to use bias" in your writing...

I am all about writers and authors not showing bias in their writing. I believe that it is important to teach students to tell facts when reporting on facts. However, I do NOT believe you can tell this to a seven year old.


Here's the story.


I sit down to look through graded papers that have been sent home in Kathryn's folder that comes home from school each day. There are lots of smiley faces :) and number grades. There are also standards based grades (Meets, Exceeds, etc...), but there is this one comment that continues to stick with me.


On a timeline report of the changes of the bicycle over time, Kathryn has drawn an early 1900s bicycle. You know the ones that look like this:

She also drew a mid 1900s bicycle and her bicycle that is a couple years old. I'm thinking this is a pretty neat assignment. Under each of her drawings, she has written a caption. The first caption reads, "It looks funny. This bike is from a long time ago and has a big front wheel." Sweet, right?

Wrong. This is what I see instead:

It looks funny.

"Try not to use bias in your writing."

Um... she's 7, and it does look funny!