Rose is not very good at research. I think this is kind of shock to her and frustrating because she is very very good at most aspects of writing. She does not have trouble writing a sentence with style and energy. Her paragraph cohesion is heavenly, but all aspects of research--managing the technology, finding key terms, using databases, assessing the quality of the research, focusing her search with guiding questions, citing, references, and paraphrasing (actually she's very good at paraphrasing, but she's been asking me to check every one of her paraphrases)--throw her into a tizzy. She's spends way too much time complaining, snipping, crying, and throwing herself on the floor.

Oy.

John is trying to help me help her less. Because it's a Catch-22. If she thinks I'm helping too much, she gets guilt ridden and worried her teacher will accuse her of cheating. If I help too little, she sits in front of MY computer crying about Sargon the Great.

Our first step is just less. We are only allowed to do half an hour of English homework a day.

It was pretty darn ironic when she cheerfully suggested to David that he come up with guide questions, so he could sift through his research better. This is something I did for her that she found extremely helpful. . .after throwing a fit.

I fully acknowledge how complex this problem is and even getting more adept at which button to press to get to the library databases as opposed to google will make the actual thinking work much easier. I also acknowledge how much her teacher is asking of her. Rose is in 6th grade, in an advanced level program that has her doing 8th grade work. No Wikipedia for them. I think learning the approaches and gaining the emotional equilibrium to face something you don't know how to do or that doesn't come easily to you is a life skill. I saw her struggle towards it in piano, and I am with her on the journey now.