True tales.

First, I need to set the scene, as the following paragraphs are quite relevant to the story I'm about to tell you.

Yesterday, we were reviewing (it was SUPPOSED to be a review, but many students appeared completely in the dark) line graphs. This particular line graph depicted the U.S. population growth from 1790 to 1990. The x-axis had the years; the y-axis had the population in millions. The information to transfer onto the line graph was on a chart, CLEARLY LABELED "Population of the United States" and featuring columns with the headers "date" and "population."

IN ADDITION TO ALL OF THAT, the instructions were, "Use the data to draw a line graph to show how the population in the U.S. has changed over the past 200 years."

Okay. As a class, we started graphing the points. For their homework, they were to finish the graph and create a title. They had no idea how to come up with a title for this graph.

"What is the graph about?" I asked. "Look at the chart, read the directions and use that information to create a short title that will tell others what the graph is about."

Fast-forward to today, when I'm grading the papers while waiting for my student teaching seminar to start. Most kids came pretty close: "Populations," "U.S Population," "Population Growth," "US Population Growth in the last 200 years" (that one made me delirious with happiness), etc.

TELL ME, THEN, how one student saw fit to title this graph "Favorite sports." (???????????????)

Another student entitled his, "Numbers."

And a third, "Soldiers lost in the war from 1790-1990." (Nowhere on the paper did it mention soldiers OR war. And, mind you, the population was sharply increasing on this chart--the line was CLEARLY going up.)

It's a good thing these kids are cute.