The heavens have opened, sunlight is coursing through the gaps in the clouds, and – wait, – is that angels singing? 

Students’ numerous fed-up complaints have been answered! NoRedInk is…well…a little better now than it was before.  

Have you logged onto the website lately?  

I can’t blame you if you haven’t, so just in case you missed the memo… 

“No more three in a row!”  

Now, don’t get too excited.  

If you read further, it says, “Now, in practice, instead of answering 3 in a row correctly when you get one wrong, you only need to answer 2 in a row to get back on track. We hope this makes practicing on NoRedInk a better learning experience for you!” and, of course, don’t forget the lil’ party emoji after. 

IE: now, hopefully you won’t want to slam your laptop on the floor when you get the third question in the sequence wrong and you have to start all over again.  

But will the two in a row work as well as when students did three in a row? 

“I think the more important part [than how many grammar exercises students have to do] is the repetition it provides,” Mrs. Schulte, a sophomore English and AP language teacher, said. “They’re still getting two more hits to try to get it correct, and then they’re gonna have to repeat that again…they’re gonna have another question with that concept later on, so they’re still kind of getting that third hit, it’s just a little more hidden within the program and not so frustrating,” Schulte continued.  

That’s a good point – this new two-in-a-row will be more subtle, so students will be less frustrated with the website.  

Whether or not that makes you feel better about NoRedInk itself, though?  

Well, nobody seems to like the website.  

“They [NoRedInk] don’t teach you anything,” one student said. “They give you problems [and] they don’t tell you how to do it. You just have to find the pattern and figure it out on your own.”  

“I always got stressed on the last question after the three in a row,” she added.   

Hopefully, that’ll change with two in a row.  

So maybe the skies aren’t opening quite yet. There might not be anything that will make students less frustrated to do NoRedInk, but at the very least, we know that the website is taking into consideration students’ feedback and doing something to improve their learning experience with the program. The new two in a row might not make NoRedInk any less rage-inducing, but at least they’re trying. 

In these few months to come, try your best not to slam your laptop on the floor when mucking through NoRedInk.