And to be fair, I'll add that my DD is an anomaly even in her GT magnet (I've seen all the kids' writing when I helped in class, so I know). Only one or two other kids can spell as well. Some had really terrible spelling and mechanics despite writing nice complex sentences with interesting ideas.

I typed some of these papers up, and it was instructive to note how differently some papers read with spelling corrected and with handwriting out of the picture. It made me realize how we are influenced by these not terribly important factors.