Today I had to teach a student how to write on a piece of lined notebook paper
. I never once thought my job would come to this. Once upon a long time ago, I taught college composition and the MLA-formatted research paper.Now, I'm teaching students "your" and "you're," subject/verb agreement, adverb usage, pronoun reference and...margins (?)
"What is this -- 'margin'?" I was asked. "Do we write inside the pink line?"
(Do We Write "Inside" The Pink Line...????)
I may now actually have to write my instructions so that they include the following:
- Write your text on the RIGHT side of the vertical (up-and-down) pink line. Do not write on the left side of the vertical pink line.
- Write in-between the horizontal (side-to-side) blue lines as well. Do not write outside of those horizontal blue lines unless you're writing in cursive
, in which case, your formatting for letters such as "q," "y," "f" and "g" may fall to the space directly below the blue line you're writing upon.
- When your text reaches the end of the horizontal blue line, continue your text on the next horizontal blue line below it.
- To signify the start of a new paragraph, begin a new line of text on the next horizontal blue line but have a four to five-letter word's worth of empty space between your text and the right side of the vertical pink line. We call that "indenting."
- When you reach the bottom of your piece of notebook paper, do not write any text on the very bottom of the page because there is no horizontal blue line there. Instead, continue your text in-between the first two horizontal blue lines of the next page.
- Again, do not write on the left side of the vertical pink line.