I thought my DS was literal but able to see another way until today, he comes home and says, "that teacher took points off for stuff she didn't even say we had to do. She said 'it would be a good idea to include' but she didn't say to include it."
Funny - we had a dispute over language like this with DD8's teacher. She sent email to parents on a Wednesday about a book report assignment, and said something like "it would be helpful if" kids could bring in their selected book by Friday. Then she gave a Late to everyone who didn't have a book yet on Friday. We couldn't even get a book shipped by Amazon Prime fast enough to have it at school on Friday! And guess what, we don't have lots of Newbery award books laying around that DD hasn't read yet, and the assignment said that it had to be a book they hadn't read before. And most Newbery winners are grossly inappropriate for third graders, in my estimation.
