The Girl is to write a research-based biographical report about Amelia Earhart. As with all homework, I’m willing (and sometimes insistent) to help her, at least to check her work. But this is a big assignment. We’ve needed to pace ourselves, so last week, we set up a schedule on Google Calendar to make sure L completed everything in a timely fashion and didn’t simply let everything pile up at the end.

She completed the book, she finished the planning, and today, it was time to begin the report.

It’s a fine line, though, between helping and doing for the Girl. As a writing teacher, I have experience in guiding students to see the problems with their writing and helping them improve it. But in the back of my mind, I say to myself, “This needs to look like a second-grader wrote it.” Should I teach her to transition between ideas within a paragraph? Should I show her how to turn her one-sentence opening, her thesis, into a full paragraph?

I’ve decided simply to guide her as minimally as possible, then ask her to read the finished product. If she feels it’s clumsy, if she comments on the short introductory paragraph, we’ll get to work fixing it.