Every school exposes students to those writing mechanics topics
from the earliest grades. They use textbooks and workbooks and
downloadable exercises. They give special tutoring to prepare
students for the SATs.
Still, when students get into my first year college composition
class, most are deficient in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and
usage. Many are so deficient they don't even make it to my classroom.
Nationally 1 in 4 students has to take remedial ("bonehead")
English.
Why does this happen?
The answer is often that the English grammar teacher relies on
textbooks and workbooks and downloadable worksheets instead of
a simpler, faster, less-hassle teaching tool: informal
writing.
If you are not familiar with informal writing, you will find
several pages on this site about what
it is and ways to use it. You may also want to check out my
ebook Shape Learning, Reshape Teaching: An English Teacher's
Guide to Using Informal Writing with Teens and Adults,available
on this site.
Where exercises miss the mark
Typically the grammar exercises present a rule, give one or two
examples of it in use, and then ask students to "demonstrate
their learning."
The problem is that the students have rarely learned anything.
In most cases, they haven't even been taught anything.
They have only been presented with or exposed to
information.
On some of the demonstration activities, students only have to
guess at answers. They select the correct sentence or darken the
bubble for the best answer. A good test taker can score well without
knowing much of anything. (I speak from experience; I'm a very
good test taker and know very little.)
Constructed response isn't authentic
Exercises that require students to write a sentence are better,
but even they are not authentic writing situations.
People instinctively "dumb down" when asked to write
an example sentence. They construct something whose writing
mechanics they are sure they can handle.
If you ask me for an example sentence, chances are my illustration
is going to be on some topic suitable for a children's picture
book rather than on a topic that I write about professionally.
You'd do the same thing — and so would your students.
What novice writers need
What writers need — especially beginning writers —
is help to identify and repair
the writing
mechanics errors they make in paragraph writing. If you aren't
giving that kind of help, you are not meeting your obligations
as an English grammar teacher.
Paragraph writing requires students to use a writing
processthat entails dozens of choices.
The mechanical aspects of writing are just one of many things
to think about. That's why writing a sentence correctly within
a paragraph is far harder for Joshua than writing an isolated
sentence.
Students need to have the distraction of all the other elements
of writing before they produce something that gives a picture of
how well they perform in real-world writing situations.
There is nothing wrong with using textbook exercises, or workbooks,
or worksheets you downloaded from the Internet — as long
as you don't fool yourself into thinking that because students
did exercises, you taught and they learned.
Formal writing alone isn't enough
Most remedial writing classes have students do exercises and
then display their new found expertise in their formal writing
assignments.
The results are usually disappointing, to put it mildly.
The time between English grammar teacher's presentation and the
students' demonstration is typically way too long. By the time
the teacher finds out the students didn't get it, it is already
too late to do the lesson over.
Hey, folks, it's time to teach smarter.
You need authentic formative assessment long
before students have to write the big, high-stakes papers.
ab-shape-reshape
A better way to use exercises
Here's a way for you and every other English grammar teacher
to use those exercises and other familiar tools so you can see
whether you are getting through to students or not:
Present one rule of writing mechanics, starting with
the basics.
Give 2-3 examples of the rule being applied correctly.
Give 1-2 examples of the rule being applied incorrectly.
Have students do a few (5-10) exercises
using publisher-created examples.
Give them the correct answers right away. Explain
why answers are correct or incorrect.
Have students do an informal writing activity in
which they discuss the rule.
If their informal writing reveals they don't understand the
rule, do the process again.
You must keep teaching and reteaching until
allstudents in your class can apply the rule correctly
in their own writing.
If the rule isn't worth that
amount of effort, it isn't worth teaching in the first place.
Informal writing is key
The critical step is the informal
writing activity. A well-constructed informal prompt lets
students tell you what they understand the rule to mean.
It's been my observation that students
do not make mechanical mistakes deliberately. If you knew
a particular mechanical error had a negative effect on your grade,
would you make that error if you knew how to avoid it? I don't
think so.
When students make mechanical mistakes, they typically
Do not know the rule that applies.
Know the rule but misunderstand what it means.
Were careless.
As the English grammar teacher, it's your job to see that none
of those things happen. (Please note there is a huge difference
between being careful and being perfect. Your responsibility
is to teach students to take care.)
The informal writing prompt acts as a formative
assessment. It lets you see if students know and understand
a particular rule of writing mechanics before they run up against
a situation in their writing that requires them to apply that
rule.
To do a good job as a writing teacher, you also have to do a
good job as an English grammar teacher. You can't do one without
the other.
Oddly enough, our colleagues in math and the sciences are heavy
users of informal prompts as formative assessment vehicles. Let's
get with the program!
