I'm going to have to disagree, if only because I think more context is needed. 'Said is Dead' is the kind of catchy title my english teachers would use; it didn't always mean a forever thing, but it was to knock us in the noggin and get us to try something new.

Then again, I did get the "no use of said for a one-page story" assignment. We had to use all the other verbs normally ignored. I also got the "write in present tense" assignment, and the one that drove me absolutely batshit, the "everything concrete" -- no metaphor, no simile, all concrete details. (I think I still have that last one, somewhere.) We had the various "write in so-and-so's style" assignments: Hemingway, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Dillard, even Nabokov and if you ever wave Nabokov near me I'll hurt you. I hated that one.

Anyway, the point is that while English teachers may do some damage, I think they do a great deal more good, and they're fighting an uphill battle. Most teachers I've had have pushed us to expand our tiny minds, even if that means trying some ridiculous experiments that make us gnash our teeth and hang little effigies of them in our hallway lockers. So without a context of what other assignments the teacher's offered, and how the teacher approaches and explains the assignment, I can't just write off such a thing as being Obviously Bad For The Children. It just might not be.

(Hey, I even had a one-page story assignment called something like Zero Period, in which you weren't allowed to use any punctuation. At all. Now that was a mindwarp, trying to read our table's assignments!)

The thing is that they don't present this -- or at least they didn't when I encountered it, what, twenty years ago -- as an experiment. We were told flat out: Don't use said. What the teacher meant, I'm sure, because she wasn't an idiot, was don't overuse "said". But we were told not to use it, not just for one project but in all our writing, and it stuck in so many of our heads that our high-school sophomore honors English teacher (who really should have been teaching at a college somewhere, but that's another post) nearly pulled out what was left of his hair every year trying to beat the notion out of the students' heads.

And there goes your "passing fad" idea, too, Rosina -- unless it's on a twenty-year cycle. :)

I'm going away now, where I can contemplate how stupid it is that the fact that fourth grade was twenty years ago makes me feel old.

sG-- more context would be useful, I agree. On the other hand, I was responding to the specific explanations/excuses for this said is dead business that I've read here and on other weblogs.

Rachel: I graduate from high school thirty (30) years ago. I feel ancient.

Yes, I think that teachers should present an assignment like this as an experiment rather than some unbreakable rule. My husband is an English teacher and he says that he can see why the teacher has done it because "teachers just get so sick of reading, he said, she said, said, said, said". Though like me, he feels that its not appropriate to use the slogan "said is dead" and in his words "Americans tend to go overboard with their slogans and mantras". Along a similar vein, yesterday I was getting a kid to try and think up lots of different ways that he could describe moving from one place to another besides the word "walk". Then we made up lots of silly sentences like "the elephant tip-toed" etc. Its a useful exercise but not when presented as a "rule".

Oh and I don't think reading is on the way out. Most little kids love books and most parents that I know are pretty diligent about reading to their kids. Perhaps another important thing that parents have to do besides read TO their kids is to read themselves ... there is nothing like modelling to encourage a certain behaviour.

When I was in middle school (about 10 years ago), there was a whole wall dedicated to the words to use instead of said. Whenever I write, it is in the back of my head to not use "said", and while I wouldn't exactly say that I have to overcome it, it is a bit difficult for me to use without being worried that I am boring my reader. I am for teaching the spirit of "said is dead", but in practice, it isn't realistic.

iNTeRESTiNG... when my son was in the third grade, i overheard a parent having a discussion with the teacher about the hand writing grades, she was telling the teacher that handwriting was out, that most kids used computers to write with... that was almost ten years ago... her husband is one of the main journalist in my city. Since then, i have been waiting for someone to say math is out also... most people use calculators... or math software for the more difficult calculations. (handwriting was one of my best subjects...)

Though i have always told my children that i want them to be able to do it all from scratch in case the electricity or batteries go out...

i think a lot of kids probably are repetitive in their earlier writing, all being a comfort zone. English was one of my worst subjects but i loved literature.

Thankfully my children take after their father in their English skills and are always correcting me.

I am also from the old school of 35 years ago... that still sounds unbelievable to my own ears... where has all the time gone?