Literally

The state high school system seems to have invented it’s own form of pre-remedial grammar and literary deconstruction construction.

The evidence?

By week two of high school I’ve seen a few examples in Lola’s homework.

This weekend’s reiteration quiz asks her to identify an ‘indirect judgement’ in a short story that she was given to read.

Never having heard this term I turned to Google. And they have no record either.

So I read the story, looking for an ‘indirect judgement’ using the common understanding of what these words mean.

Nothing. Five paragraphs later, not a clue as to what they are talking about.

They gave a clue. They sort of implied that an ‘indirect judgement’ is an implication. To me this sort of implies an unnecessary ‘indirect construction’, otherwise known as a complication.

My best guess is that they are referring to the fluff on the right hand side of a semi colon which contains the evidence for the assertion on the left.

“Jesse’s journal entries on his trip show that he found things even in the worst situations which kept his spirits up; dolphins accompanied him through a difficult patch while sailing through the Doldrums and he noted in his journal that the stormy skies highlighted the beauty of a rainbow.”

I’d like to say to them, please construct your sentences with some thought … the left hand side should read;

“Jesse’s journal entries show that even in the worst situations he found things to keep his spirits up”

The right hand side barely passes the credibility test; 12 year old kids can see through bullshit.

Now I don’t have a strong issue with these guys making up their own terminology and deconstruction structure except that;

1. It won’t amount to any useful learning for anyone that intends to pursue any sort of literary career, and

2. It makes it bloody hard for parents to help their kids with their homework.