Okay, I'll confess that I don't have a child in 7th grade now nor did I teach 7th grade...but I DID teach college-level freshman English (among other courses) at a Big-10 university.
The VAST majority of these students--a shocking number, actually!--did no writing whatsoever during their senior year of high school, except for a giganormous term paper that they got back with no comments, just a letter grade. And just what are they supposed to learn from that? No clue.
Granted, you're talking about 7th graders and not 12th/13th graders, but I've got to tell you that I'm really glad she's got them writing on a regular basis.
Is it busy work? Maybe. It sort of depends on her approach to it. But the other point I want to make in her defense stems from my efforts as a (budding) novelist. One of the best bits of advice I got as I was trying to figure out how to actually create a book was this: WRITERS WRITE. Every day. Even if what they write is lousy.
Even if Ghost treats the work as busy work and writes slapdash, late-night crud, he's writing. What's more, he's doing it more or less every day. That's how writers improve. I know from personal experience.
Actually, my criticism would be on the reading side: she's not giving them reading they can sink their teeth into. It sounds like she's assuming that the majority don't like to read, and that those who do will find their own way to good literature. In a 7th grade class, these are not great assumptions...
