In high school my teacher preferred that to distinguish it from the multiplication symbol. These days I write it as a times with a hook at the top-left to distinguish (a la most cursive styles, but disjointed), with the added bonus that I write uvwxyz all with the same top-left hook that helps visually group them together, matching their typical role in mathematical writing.

Do you grade that lack of distinction and teach the student a better orthography? Obviously x is a single symbol that's joined in the middle, so with proper orthography it would seem to be better than using a × as an x?

What's your subject?