Oh, acs! I completely misunderstood the question. I assumed that it was a list of items that would be covered for the day, which is more along the lines of what Kriston suggested. I was picturing something along the lines of:

Math assignment, pages 294-303
LA: Aida, compare and contrast
etc....

All of those extra words seem quite pointless. Maybe the teacher should also have them write how they feel about each assignment too. <snicker!>
And she is assigning a grade to this?

This should not be for the parent's benefit. If she wants to communicate with the parents, then she should post it on her web site, instead of making the kids write it down. Our DS's teachers post daily assignment on their web sites. Kids should be focused instead on activities that activity contribute to their learning.

I think you're right. And I don't have any other suggestions that haven't already been made.

Maybe he is misunderstanding? Or perhaps the teacher would be more flexible if you approached her. Has it been determined whether or not it's a physical problem or an "I don't want to do it because it doesn't make sense for me" issue?

If it's a physical difficulty I don't see why the teacher and you couldn't come to an agreement on how to accomplish this in reasonable way, given his situation.

If's purely not wanting to do it and you allow for natural consequences, ie. poor grade, will that be a deterent? Sometimes our view of a consequence isn't seen as a consequence at all by the child.

Good questions, Neato. I don't really have good answers.

In previous years, he has told me that it has to be exactly as written, but there have been no actual consequences for not doing it. So I don't really know what was said. He never got nervous before this year.

This is the first year where he has said that it is part of the grade and that has him nervous. I am hoping that the small amount of anxiety it is causing him might actually make this a teachable moment, a chance for him to try new approaches (like summarizing if they let him or copying without looking down!). Maybe he has matured to the point where it isn't as hard as before. I do want him to try!

We do not have any formal diagnosis, but I suspect there might be some physical or learning issue. He is a really good kid who tries to do whatever is asked of him. But he doesn't just roll over and play dead if there is a problem. He is really good at negotiating whatever he needs from the teachers without involving me. So when he comes home saying that he is having trouble with something, I tend to take it seriously. But I just have my mom-instint and not an actual diagnosis.

Well I say trust your mom instinct. I don't always trust mine, but I'm learning. DD6 kept telling people at school, I can't do that. Well I was getting mad cause I saw how smart she was and I thought she was just taking advantage of her cuteness factor to get out of stuff she didn't want to do.

I was always gentle with her but I did ask her not to tell the school she couldn't do something that we both knew she could and inside I WAS frustrated.

Now it all makes sense after seeing the Dr. for developmental optometry. We find out she needs glasses, is farsighted and was doing that convergence thing you and Doodlebug mentioned. Plus she does have a visual discrepency. In fact in two areas she is in the .2%. That's right, I put a period in front of that 2! OUCH!

Super bright kids are SUCH HIGH COMPENSATORS, it's SO easy to miss stuff. Realistically, the kid shouldn't have been able to read much at all! And she was reading well, she just didn't like to(Wow, I wouldn't have either!) So from now on if something doesn't smell right, I'm probably going to check it out. I don't see the harm.
And the good news is the prognosis is great with the visual therapy.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to check in with teacher and make sure you know the real deal.

Moms know! They just do!

(Except when denial--GT or otherwise--keeps them from admitting something, of course...)

DS, DH, and I were discussing the problem some more today. It seems that the problem is DS's working memory. The working memory is what holds the info as it is moved from the board to the paper.

The two solutions--writing while still looking at the board, and paraphrasing--by pass the working memory. The disrepency between DS's VCI and WM was something like 50 points on the WISC! (Although on the SB5 which has a more "intersting" WM task, he ceilinged the WM.) But for boring tasks his
WM is not very good and this is a boring task.

DS was feeling more optimistic today, that summarizing would be acceptable. So he may not have to decide about "consequences."