Could the teacher have just made a mistake? It seems possible if she was correcting a lot of papers.
Last year, we had a rigid teacher who marked a correct answer wrong. I put a post-it note on the test paper saying that we tried to rework the solution at home and did not know how else to do it other than the way DS had done it on the test. That evening, the difficult and rigid teacher was waiting for me at the pick up line and profusely apologized for the mistake that she had made and said that she had updated the grades correctly for DS. I expected a lot of abrasiveness from her based on past encounters and I was surprised at how humble and nice she was over her mistake. So, just ask the teacher how to come up with the answer.
I honestly don't want to be negative and automatically accuse a teacher of being so rigid in her grading methods. I usually give teachers the benefit of the doubt. But in this circumstance, based on what I have already witnessed with this teacher I think she's being rigid. I don't see how she accidentally marked it wrong. The answer is in the right spot for the answer. Right next to where dd worked the problem the teacher wrote 'What is this?'. The numbers are legible, I think the reason the teacher marked it wrong is because of how dd wrote out her work, not in the normal sequenced way you would use the algorithm to solve this type of problem.
The story problem required dd to multiply 599 x 59. So dd set it up like this: (I put __ in front of the numbers to line them up correctly for the post)
_4884 <- these are the numbers she carried
__599
___59
Dd ran out of room because she wrote somewhat larger than what room allowed, and so she put her answer to multiplying the ones and tens places directly to the right of the above work she did.
So next to that first part she wrote:
__5391
_2995
And then instead of putting her sum below these numbers (again there wasn't much room) she wrote the answer in the answer blank.
Dd was lazy and didn't put a line under the digits where needed nor a times sign. My dd is notorious for trying to do as little writing as possible and will do problems in her head that she should really write out. That's another issue in itself. I can understand that the teacher may think it's sloppy to do it this way. But dd did show her work, just not in the standard way. The directions don't specify what showing your work entails. To me it seems the teacher is being rather picky and just marked it wrong because dd's 'work' didn't make sense or wasn't the proper way to work the problem despite the fact she got the answer right. I'm pretty certain that if dd knew that that was an expectation when showing her work she would have done it. She is anxious when it comes to making sure she does things the right way "So the teacher won't get mad". This anxiety towards her planner, bringing what she needs to school, getting stuff done, etc.. is what leads me to believe how particular this teacher is. Dd will check she has everything she needs multiple times before leaving for school.
