TOG rhetoric government question

[momee]

To those of you with rhetoric students going for a government credit...
in week two the kids are assigned a four paragraph paper on the strengths/weaknesses.
My guy did it, but it's about 200 words.
This is our first attempt at credited work.
Should I require it to be longer, improved vocabulary etc. at this early point of the game - or should I be rejoicing he included all of the information required even though his "boy style" of using as few words as possible has once again prevailed?
BTW, he has done a ton of work this week for history and I'm really struggling to determine how much is enough. He completed, with me the history chart as well as the government chart.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Stephanie

[Karenciavo]

What year of TOG is this for?

[momee]

The assignment is for week 2 of Year 1 government.

I read on the lower elementary boards you have a boy who's a "man of few words".
My 13 year old is also but as we're attempting to do year 1 for credit (including 1/2 gov't credit) I wanted to be sure I'm requiring grade level work.
We do IEW and TOG writing and I was considering having him watch the appropriate IEW disk and see if he couldn't make some content improvements based on what "dress ups" he receives from that. We've also finished our discussion so maybe that jogged his memory for some more info to add in to the paper.

Writing is one area I wish had clear answer keys but I know it's just not possible with so many variables. Thanks in advance for any input you can offer. If I remember correctly, your boys were dialectic when doing year 1 right? So we're not too far apart age wise when discussing ability.

We're taking year 1 slowly because he is on the younger side. That's why I asked how long his paper should be. I'm not sure a government teacher would accept a three sentence concluding paragraph as sufficient. Or maybe she would??? Help~?
Stephanie