the subtleties of kid counting

When I sat down a couple weeks ago to grade papers for the college writing class I teach, I was struck with a good, illustrative example of my kid counting fascination. I approached the stack of 18 in-class writing assignments on my desk in a post-teaching, post-lunch, long-after-the-coffee-has-worn-off, I'd- be-napping-if-I-was-home-right-now haze. And although I wasn't reading them with as close an eye as I might read some of their more significant essays for class, I still managed to uncover this lovely kid counting gem.

There weren't a lot of mechanical problems to fix in this particular piece--the author is a stand out in my class, albeit a young man with a persistent, quirky smile who I've had a hard time reading this semester--so I found myself fixating on a minor detail he'd added to bolster his argument: he's the youngest of five siblings, and at least one of these siblings has children of her own.

So there I was trying to get through the rest of the surprisingly insightful responses on how texting is or isn't impacting the intellectual and social skills of teenagers today and all I could think about was this student's family--his older sister and her phantom family, where he grew up, what his house might be like, his parents...

The next week, this student happened to be in my office for a meeting, and I've got this internal dialogue batting around in my brain, like: "Do I ask him about his family?" "No, he'll think it's creepy" "No he won't. He'll be impressed you retain so much from his writing." "No he won't. He'll think it's weird. He'll think YOU are weird." Did I say anything? Of course not. But I'm still curious as all get out.