Middle Sister is working on a school report for music class–a biography of Billie Holiday.

Since my degree is in English, my children take advantage of Mom’s Editing Service before turning in their reports. I show them where they need to fix spelling, punctuation or sentence fragments, and sometimes point out spots where something seems to be missing.

Last night she left a draft of her report at my desk, and this morning she looked at it and complained.

“Why can’t I say it this way?”

“It’s a sentence fragment if you say it that way. Read it out loud.”

“….Oh, yeah. It is. But I don’t like it the way you fixed it. It’s more boring that way!”

Apparently sentence fragments give sixth-grade papers that little extra something. I hope her literature teacher doesn’t introduce e. e. cummings to the class anytime soon, or she’ll stop using capital letters too.