Basic Skills 4

 

Brown M&M's (Revisited)

I sometimes have conversations with students that go something like this:

"Mr. Hall, why did I get such a low score on this writing assignment?"

"Hmm . . . let's have a look. Oh, I see. You didn't follow the number rule. You wrote "I have 2 cats," instead of writing "I have two cats."

"Is that the only mistake?"

"Yes."

"But why did you take away so many points? That's just one tiny mistake!"

"That's not a tiny mistake. That's a big mistake. Failing to proofread your work is always a big mistake!"




Get it? The Number Rule is a brown M&M! It might seem insignificant to you, but to me, the Arabic numeral "2" in the middle of a sentence tells me that you didn't actually follow my instructions. You didn't proofread your work.

The Number Rule is not the most important thing you will learn in this class. Not even close. But here, right now, I will tell you the most important lesson that I hope you'll learn from this class:

Instructions for the Quiz

Answer the questions.

Quiz