October 15, 2008
A publication of You-Can-Teach-Writing.com
Vol. 1 No. 6, October 15, 2008
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In This Issue:
Hard work doesn’t pay off in skillLick the grading problem, Lollipop
Hard work doesn’t pay off in skill
The best way to learn a skill like golf, trumpet, or writing, is through regular, consistent practice over a long period of time. No one can learn a skill by cramming.It is better to require more frequent short pieces of writing over a longer period of time than to try cramming writing into a unit. Consider substituting
- A 3-paragraph essay for a 5-paragraph essay.
- A “paragraph essay” for 3-paragraph essay.
Students, especially those who struggle with school in general and writing in particular, will do much better if their writing assignments are spread out on a regular basis over the school year.
Lick the grading problem, Lollipop
When students are just beginning to learn to write, they write poorly and deserve poor grades. Getting poor grades may discourage them from learning to write well enough to get better grades. On the other hand, a high grade for effort may be misunderstood as a grade for skill.What’s a teacher to do?
The least unsatisfactory solution I’ve found is this:
- Maintain a consistent grading standard for the year, so students are always aiming at the same target.
- Track progress toward a goal of competence.
- Give students plenty of opportunities to write so a few poor grades don’t count heavily.
- Raise the total point value of writing assignments as you go through the year, while giving the same proportional weight to various writing element. Papers might be worth 50 points in October, 200 points in May, but content would always count for x% of those points.
- Give some non-grade rewards for improved work.
I used to staple penny lollipops papers to recognize improvement. Word got around. When other instructors saw a students with a lollipop, they made comments like “doing better in English?” The comments, not the lollipop, were the reward.
Computer assisted editing
Spelling and grammar checkers can cause more problems than they solve.If you have your students keep a list of their personal writing mechanics errors, they can use find-and-replace to help them identify places in their papers where they may have made that error. Click to see the details on this cool trick.
A note from Linda
Earlier this month, a reporter asked Sarah Palin what she reads. If that's an appropriate question to as a vice presidential candidate, surely it is an appropriate to ask writing teachers.I thought it would be interesting to write down what I read professionally. I omitted all my casual reading and ongoing study that's not work-related.
On weekdays, I read
- Between 11 and 14 newspapers
- A homeschool-highschool blog
- Inside Higher Ed
- About a dozen blogs on teaching writing
- At least one novel. I read Franz Werfel's 800+-page novel The 40 Days of Musa Dagh and reread an old favorite, Trollope's The Little House at Allington. This week I'm reading Europa by Robert Briffault.
- INBOX, the online newsletter of the National Council of Teachers of English
- A print news magazine
- Two SBI! ezines
Besides that routine reading, I read to research topics about which I'm writing. This week that reading includes
- Two books related to teaching writing: Jane Healy's Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Don''t Think and Rei R. Noguchi's Grammar and the Teaching of Writing
- A couple dozen news articles a day on the international crisis in public employee pensions.
I usually end up spending a few hours a week pulling my hair over information about some software or website issue, like photo manipulation or cascading style sheets.
What's on your list of professional reading?
You can share your list through my website contact form if this is your first message to me. After I know you are not some dreadful spammer, I will "white list" you so we can exchange e-mails without going through the site.
The next issue of Writing Points will be published Nov. 15, no providence preventing.
Until then, keep your pencil sharp!
Linda
PS - The best link to the Writing Points archive is the one from my web site. Unfortunately, I cannot modify or delete the default link below.