Teachers should phrase their standards of proper grammar so students
can decide whether they applied the rule correctly in a specific
sentence in their own writing.
Unfortunately, there are so many grammar rules, it's hard to know
which are essential for writing and which are proper grammar topics
for bubble tests.
Connors & Lunsford's errors list
An easy way to define essential grammar for writing is to use the
list of 20 student writing mistakes (other than spelling errors)
published by Connors
and Lunsford in 1988.
The researchers looked at writing samples from college students.
They identified the most common grammar mistakes, punctuation mistakes,
and usage mistakes. Then they ranked those mistakes order of frequency.
The list
-
Identifies authentic writing problems in students'
writing.
-
Identifiesspecific rules of proper grammar.
-
Phrasez rules so violations can be counted.
-
Identifies rules needed for clear written communication.
-
Identifiesrules most teachers and employers are likely
to know and to expect high school graduates to follow.
You could adopt the grammar and punctuation items from the Connors
and Lunsford list as the rules of proper grammar that your students
must master.
However, you can simplify your work even more.
Sentence identification errors
When you examine the Connors and Lunsford list carefully, you will
find some common threads.
Three mistakes are what the English ed people call boundary
errors. They are errors that occur because writers do not know
what is a sentence and what is not a sentence. These boundary errors
are:
-
Using a sentence fragment as if it were a whole sentence.
-
Running two sentences together as one, creating fused
sentences, which some teachers call a "run-on sentence."
- Putting a comma between two sentences instead of making
two separate sentences.
You may not notice right away that avoiding two other errors on
the Connors and Lunsford list also requires understanding what constitutes
a complete sentence.
Students who do not recognize a complete sentence are likely
to
If you teach students how to determine whether what they have
written is a sentence or not, you teach them how to eliminate
one quarter of the most common errors from their writing.
Pronoun problems
Three additional errors on the Connors and Lunsford list deal
with pronouns. The three errors are:
A writer zipping along composing a draft can easily make each
of those errors. I make them regularly myself. However, by applying
just one rule, I can catch most of those errors before anyone
sees them.
If you teach your students the rule governing pronoun reference
and help them learn to apply it to their own work, you will eliminate
another three of the 20 errors from student work. That rule is
Are you keeping track? Teaching two rules of proper grammar eliminates
40% of common grammar and punctuation errors.
That's not too shabby, is it?
