Engaging Grammar by Amy Benjamin (Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2007) is conversational, practical, and has an audience of K-12 teachers. It seems that all the best stuff (that I've looked at, anyway) has this audience in mind. I was chatting with a couple of elementary school teachers this evening, though (who teach second and sixth grades), and when I asked them what they talk about regarding grammar, they said the same things...parts of speech, sentence construction, etc. So four years after the second graders learn it, they get it again in sixth grade, and if they wind up in my developmental classes, they get a version of it again in college. Clearly these are concepts that need to be reinforced throughout schooling, and books with a elementary/middle/high school audience are appropriate for college faculty if those faculty are teaching the same things.
What attracts me most to this book is the practicality of it. Theory is important, of course, but teaching ideas are what the busy instructor needs. Chapter 4, "Natural Expertise about Grammar," talks about the fact that native English speakers have innate knowledge about grammar (something reinforced by a variety of sources discussed on this very blog) and that, to get at this innate knowledge, we utilize the start of "Jabberwocky" (61):
"T'was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy was the borogrove,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Now, I have to say that as a casual reader, this sort of thing makes my head spin (I try to translate it into actual words), but I have a newfound appreciation for it based on what is suggested (and expanded upon) in the chapter: asking students to identify the meaning of this passage, such as what parts of speech the different words are. The words are nonsense, of course, but students WILL be able to do it, which kind of blows my mind. I can't wait to try it out myself.
Benjamin also suggests in this chapter that we utilize metaphors that make sense to the students and that, by doing this, they'll be more apt to remember the concepts. I have used the house metaphor for essays (the different rooms being paragraphs, the doorways the transitions, the foundation the thesis, the roof the conclusion that makes sure the meaning doesn't get rained on by other ideas), but not for grammar. It makes sense, for example, to talk about adjectives as spices in cooking and coordinating conjunctions as the links in a chain (66). I also like the metaphor that Benjamin cites from Pamela Dykstra's Rhythms of Writing for the independent clause as a bicycle. The wheels (subject and verb) are key to a bicycle. All the other stuff is extra(adjectives, appositives, prepositional phrases, etc.) (67). She also says that a dependent clause is like a wagon, capable of work but only when hitched up to a vehicle (like a bicycle!) (68). I love it. Simple, yet effective.
The final nugget of wisdom that I liked was having students add tag questions to test whether they have a complete sentence or not. For example,
I can't sit at this computer and stare at the screen any longer, can I?
It sounds good, so it's a complete sentence. Something like,
Since I can't sit here any longer, can I?
...isn't going to make a whole lot of sense if the student thinks about it (71).
In Chapter 5, "Usage and Mechanics in Formal and Informal English," Benjamin talks a great deal about how critical audience and purpose are to student writing and correctness. She mentions Maxine Hairston's 1981 article called "Not all Errors Are Created Equal." She found that the most grievous errors to professionals in non-educational fields were those that resulted from the writer's inability to code-switch and "the use of nonstandard verb forms in irregular verbs (brung, brang), double negatives, subject-verb mismatch (he don't), and, of course, the despised use of ain't" (82).
This idea of getting students to understand the value of code-switching based on their purpose and audience, then, is basis for a reframing of the conversation about the rules from the negative to the positive. Don't use poor examples in class; use great ones. Show students what good writers do rather than punishing "bad" writing. Benjamin lists nine "Rules and Guidelines for Clear and Accurate Writing" which, despite its academic title (which is therefore perhaps a bit threatening to students), talks about rules in a way that would be easy to use as a guideline to teach students some of the basic rules for writing, like agreement and commas (83-5).
The Bottom Line:
The practicality of this book makes it worth the effort of perusal. I'll be using it to help guide my instruction. Get thyself to your local/virtual bookstore or library and check it out.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
In case there was any question...
This is a (long) exact quote from the book Engaging Grammar by Amy Benjamin, which has given me some great teaching ideas (that will be discussed in a later post) and also makes a pretty strong statement about what I've been doing in my classes regarding grammar instruction. This is from pages 80 and 81:
Usage is about context (audience and purpose). Effective language is language that is well suited to the context. The traditional way to "teach" usage (and it's usually ineffective) is this: The teacher gives a rule of Standard English, such as Subjects and verbs must agree with each other in number. The teacher then explains what this concept means, giving examples. Students then are given an exercise in which two verbs, one agreeing with the subject and one not agreeing, are enclosed in parentheses. Students need to identify the preferred verb. This done, the teacher "goes over" the exercise, and this experience is replicated under testing circumstances. Students get the grades they get, and the class moves on to pronoun-antecedent agreement matters.
What is accomplished? Not much. In the fluency of writing and speaking, students will not remember and apply the rule. There will be a maddening discrepancy between performance on the exercise or test and that which we see in the natural use of language.
I'm loving this book.
Error as Negotiation: a classroom model
After reading Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations and Hartwell’s “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar,” I’m left wondering what I should be doing in my classroom. I’m concerned about having the time to be able to figure out individual patterns in my students’ writing, as Shaughnessy suggests, and I’m also concerned about Hartwell’s extensive debunking of the value of teaching formal grammar. What is a teacher to think and do?
Enter two chapters from Bruce Horner and Min-Zhan Lu’s Representing the “Other”: Basic Writers and the Teaching of Basic Writing. The first, Lu’s “Redefining the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy: a Critique of the Politics of Linguistic Innocence,” challenges the premise that we edit and proofread as a final step to the writing process; doing so implies that meaning comes before and is separate from language. Language reflects who we are and what we present to the world, and there are a variety of competing linguistic discourses that we need to be aware of that effect how different readers may respond to our writing (105). Lu notes that, though Shaughnessy challenges students to become familiar with conventions, gain confidence, and respond to conflict between academic and “home” conventions, most ignore that final problem (106).
Shaughnessy also assumes that “linguistic codes” should be taught separately from creating meaning and grappling with different discourses, which is problematic because it doesn’t allow for meaning to change as a result of using language (107-8). For example, when Shaughnessy suggests that a passage by a basic writing student be improved grammatically by removing “filler” phrases (like “I think that…”), she doesn’t take into account how that changes the original meaning the student may have had in mind (108). When discussing these sorts of changes with students, it’s important to talk about how changes in wording, sentence structure, or even punctuation might change the meaning (109).
The key here is that, when teachers show students that they can be a part of the shaping of language (which assumes that Standard English is not, indeed, static but is malleable based on a variety of social and political factors), the conflict between home and academic discourses is less threatening (113).
Bruce Horner’s “Rethinking the ‘Sociality’ of Error: Teaching Editing as Negotiation” offers some more practical advice about how to shift the conversation about error from right and wrong to a negotiation. He discusses the concept of error as a social construction, “…representing flawed social transactions, instances of a failure on the part of both the writer and reader…” (141). As teachers, we are trained to see error, to put on our Standard English “hats” and look for deviations. What happens if we could detach from that, though, so that “we could make the ordinary kind of contract with those texts that we make with other kids of texts”? The answer is that “…we could find many fewer errors” (Lees qtd. in Horner 143). Ultimately, Horner suggests that we need to avoid the right/wrong dichotomy with error because students then are in a position of not having any power over their own writing, “…a position which…also relieves them of responsibility” (150).
To that end, Horner offers several practical suggestions for activities that will get students to pay attention to writing codes and grapple with those codes. First, though, it’s important to give students the power to make decisions about their writing. This means that students could choose to stick with their “errors,” but they generally don’t, not because they feel like they don’t have a choice, but because, if we’ve set it up correctly in our classrooms, they want to communicate in a specific way for their chosen audiences (157).
The first suggestion is to have class discussions that talk about error—what they think about different types of errors, the fact that there are conflicting opinions on what constitutes errors, and ideas about how various types of errors are viewed (158). Having this conversation gets students to think about errors and their ability to be negotiated. We may have our own “systems” for correcting error, but maybe we should give some of those decisions up to the students. Horner suggests asking students about how they want us to respond to their writing. This changes our role from teacher to mediator, “…offering informed guidance to what might well be acceptable outside the course, in different writings or in various contexts” (159).
The second suggestion is to have individual conferences in which we talk to our students about “meaning, purpose, and relationship as much as they involve ‘code’” (159). We need to avoid the teacher role and instead ask questions about what students mean. Pointing out those parts in the writing that are unclear or reading aloud the part that is difficult and then asking the student to talk more about it maintains the students’ power over their writing (160).
Horner also finds that having peer reviews can be useful. Teachers might be reticent to this because they see basic writing students as not having the skills to be able to comment effectively on writing, and the students themselves may also lack this confidence. Remember, though, that what’s happening is a discussion about meaning and a negotiation about the presentation of that meaning. Anyone who can read can respond to writing in this way (161).
Finally, Horner suggests that editing be a part of the whole process, even composing, because it helps create meaning; therefore, we should purposely include writing assignments and activities that ask students to respond to their own and others’ writing. Writing responses to professional writing allows them to think not just about their own writing but what they think about the professional writing AND how their writing relates to the text that they’re responding to (163). What could make for a better negotiation?
Reading these essays reinforced the idea of letting students have power over their own writing. I am especially fascinated by the idea of peer review—I’ve been dissatisfied with my peer reviews for a while now. It’s been a long time since I have tried small group peer reviews in which I meet with the groups, but it might be worth considering. I’m also excited to set up an environment of inquiry in my classroom, talking about language and texts, how texts are created and how students can create them to say what they want to say, how they want to say it.
Enter two chapters from Bruce Horner and Min-Zhan Lu’s Representing the “Other”: Basic Writers and the Teaching of Basic Writing. The first, Lu’s “Redefining the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy: a Critique of the Politics of Linguistic Innocence,” challenges the premise that we edit and proofread as a final step to the writing process; doing so implies that meaning comes before and is separate from language. Language reflects who we are and what we present to the world, and there are a variety of competing linguistic discourses that we need to be aware of that effect how different readers may respond to our writing (105). Lu notes that, though Shaughnessy challenges students to become familiar with conventions, gain confidence, and respond to conflict between academic and “home” conventions, most ignore that final problem (106).
Shaughnessy also assumes that “linguistic codes” should be taught separately from creating meaning and grappling with different discourses, which is problematic because it doesn’t allow for meaning to change as a result of using language (107-8). For example, when Shaughnessy suggests that a passage by a basic writing student be improved grammatically by removing “filler” phrases (like “I think that…”), she doesn’t take into account how that changes the original meaning the student may have had in mind (108). When discussing these sorts of changes with students, it’s important to talk about how changes in wording, sentence structure, or even punctuation might change the meaning (109).
The key here is that, when teachers show students that they can be a part of the shaping of language (which assumes that Standard English is not, indeed, static but is malleable based on a variety of social and political factors), the conflict between home and academic discourses is less threatening (113).
Bruce Horner’s “Rethinking the ‘Sociality’ of Error: Teaching Editing as Negotiation” offers some more practical advice about how to shift the conversation about error from right and wrong to a negotiation. He discusses the concept of error as a social construction, “…representing flawed social transactions, instances of a failure on the part of both the writer and reader…” (141). As teachers, we are trained to see error, to put on our Standard English “hats” and look for deviations. What happens if we could detach from that, though, so that “we could make the ordinary kind of contract with those texts that we make with other kids of texts”? The answer is that “…we could find many fewer errors” (Lees qtd. in Horner 143). Ultimately, Horner suggests that we need to avoid the right/wrong dichotomy with error because students then are in a position of not having any power over their own writing, “…a position which…also relieves them of responsibility” (150).
To that end, Horner offers several practical suggestions for activities that will get students to pay attention to writing codes and grapple with those codes. First, though, it’s important to give students the power to make decisions about their writing. This means that students could choose to stick with their “errors,” but they generally don’t, not because they feel like they don’t have a choice, but because, if we’ve set it up correctly in our classrooms, they want to communicate in a specific way for their chosen audiences (157).
The first suggestion is to have class discussions that talk about error—what they think about different types of errors, the fact that there are conflicting opinions on what constitutes errors, and ideas about how various types of errors are viewed (158). Having this conversation gets students to think about errors and their ability to be negotiated. We may have our own “systems” for correcting error, but maybe we should give some of those decisions up to the students. Horner suggests asking students about how they want us to respond to their writing. This changes our role from teacher to mediator, “…offering informed guidance to what might well be acceptable outside the course, in different writings or in various contexts” (159).
The second suggestion is to have individual conferences in which we talk to our students about “meaning, purpose, and relationship as much as they involve ‘code’” (159). We need to avoid the teacher role and instead ask questions about what students mean. Pointing out those parts in the writing that are unclear or reading aloud the part that is difficult and then asking the student to talk more about it maintains the students’ power over their writing (160).
Horner also finds that having peer reviews can be useful. Teachers might be reticent to this because they see basic writing students as not having the skills to be able to comment effectively on writing, and the students themselves may also lack this confidence. Remember, though, that what’s happening is a discussion about meaning and a negotiation about the presentation of that meaning. Anyone who can read can respond to writing in this way (161).
Finally, Horner suggests that editing be a part of the whole process, even composing, because it helps create meaning; therefore, we should purposely include writing assignments and activities that ask students to respond to their own and others’ writing. Writing responses to professional writing allows them to think not just about their own writing but what they think about the professional writing AND how their writing relates to the text that they’re responding to (163). What could make for a better negotiation?
Reading these essays reinforced the idea of letting students have power over their own writing. I am especially fascinated by the idea of peer review—I’ve been dissatisfied with my peer reviews for a while now. It’s been a long time since I have tried small group peer reviews in which I meet with the groups, but it might be worth considering. I’m also excited to set up an environment of inquiry in my classroom, talking about language and texts, how texts are created and how students can create them to say what they want to say, how they want to say it.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Playing with Grammar: Website Review
A recurring theme in my research that's been resonating with me regarding my basic writing students is getting them to "play" with the language. This means coming up with their own sample sentences, using grammar in context and using real-world examples to ultimately mine their own innate knowledge as native English speakers to figure out the rules. This seems simply more fun to me than what I have been doing (skill and drill out of the book).
In that vein, I'm going to take a look at some online sources about grammar and see what might assist in this guided playing with grammar. To make my life easier, I'm going to be looking for sources that address sentence errors specifically: run-ons, comma splices, and fragments.
The Classics
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL):
For those of you who have used the OWL before (if you haven't, I suggest you head over and check it out: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/), you know that it has a whole lot of information about a range of writing concerns. That information tends to be in a worksheet format, such as this page on independent and dependent clauses: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/598/01/
This information is similar to what you might find in a textbook, so that's not helpful in terms of getting students to play with grammar in the sense I mean here. They do, however, have some useful PowerPoints, such as this one called "Conquering the Comma:" http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/692/01/
PowerPoints are only as useful as the instructor makes them, but the alternative format could be interesting for students.
Literacy Education Online (LEO):
LEO (http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/) is a resource through St. Cloud State University that is similar to the OWL in that it has a variety of resources that are similar to what might be found in a textbook, like this source on comma splices, fused sentences, and run-ons: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/punct/csfsro.html
The last time LEO was updated was in 2004, but what's nice about the site is that it presents the website information based on questions the writer may have, like, "I want to make sure my ideas are logical." The "ideas are logical" part of the sentence is a link to a resource on logical fallacies. Again, though this source may be a good enhancement to or replacement of a textbook, it doesn't directly support playing with grammar.
Grammar Girl:
I like the conversational tone this website (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/) takes on, making grammar more accessible and interesting for the readers. It offers a listing of the most recent tips and a search box for particular issues. I typed "run on sentences" into the search box, and several intriguing results came up, including this explanation of run-ons, written in the Grammar Girl’s signature quirky and fun style. Students might enjoy reading this source more than a textbook because it is conversational: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/run-on-sentences.aspx
Something else that tells me this is a good source for playing with grammar, though, and is that the source talks specifically about “Run-On Sentences and Your Writing Style.” Under this heading, the Grammar Girl talks about the effect on the reader of making two short, complete sentences set apart by a period and how that sounds versus adding a semicolon, conjunctive adverb or comma. Though this section is short, it goes beyond the rule and options and delves into the effect those options have on the meaning the writer is trying to convey, which is a sure sign of a resource that understands the value of playing with language.
I also found a link to audio, video, and quiz files: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/staticcontent/teaching-with-technology.aspx
I listened to the audio about fragments, and after a 50-second commercial, Mignon Fogarty (she's the Grammar Girl, by the way), reads what is written below...kind of a buzzkill. It is, however, nice to hear the Grammar Girl's voice, and I can see the value of having students listen to the audio while following along with the webpage.
Grammar Bytes:
...specifically, exercises at Grammar Bytes: http://www.chompchomp.com/exercises.htm This website has a simple, easy-to-use format and presents the concepts in a clear, readable way. I'm looking at the link for comma splices and fused sentences, and it gives a set of directions along with a quick review of the concept. There are also links to a more extensive explanation of the rule and a handout that the students can use to keep track of their answers in a print format.
Once the student reviews the rules, it's time to do the activity. The first question asks the student to read a sentence and determine if there is a comma splice or a fused sentence within it. Picking a door leads to either a cool prize or a lame prize. I chose the wrong answer (on purpose, of course), and got the message "You lose! The sentence did not contain a comma splice" with a picture of a cow. The "You lose" part stung, but the cow made me laugh, so I guess things balanced out. Underneath the cow is an option to get an explanation or to go on to the next sentence. The explanation not only gives the correct answer (the sentence contained a fused sentence), but why and how to fix it. (By the way, by answering a question correctly, I got a picture of a wad of twenty dollar bills held together by a rubber band. Too bad they're only virtual!)
This is a fun way to get the students engaging with the rules, and I think it would definitely hold their attention. I'm not entirely sure, however, that these activities, though playful, would get at the more hands-on version of play that I'm talking about here.
The Videos
Ahh, YouTube. What do you have that will help me get students to play with grammar? I did a search for "comma splices" and I have to say, the results that popped up didn't look all that interesting. I found several that were clearly projects done by students for their English classes. These aren't useful sources, really, but they do show students who are having fun with the concept. One video that I loved was by an English teacher, called the "Comma Splice Rap:" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jfSE7y31ig&feature=related
What's great about this is not necessarily its hard educational value, but that it shows that grammar isn't some boring, annoying thing. It's playfulness demonstrated not by students (who WANT to be playful), but by the same teachers who have the power to address the concepts in ways that might be more boring for the students. I mean, honestly. What student wouldn't want this lady as their teacher? She's so cool!
I also dig this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rzt37kO-Qg&feature=related because it gives the rule and shows several real-world examples of comma splices and how they might be fixed.
There are also a variety of videos like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIwYeNnmcuQ, called "How to Fix a Comma Splice." These videos are explanations of the rule, very much in the same way I would explain the rule in my class. On first blush, I want to dismiss these videos because they do what I already do. On second thought, though, for those students who find value in hearing the rules explained to them, these videos give the opportunity to hear the rules after the class is over.
YouTube shouldn't be underestimated. I can see pulling up fun videos to get the students thinking and perhaps even asking students who struggle with grammatical issues to check out some of the videos for further practice.
The Blogs
I'm not convinced that sending students to grammar blogs (like the gorgeously-titled "Throw Grammar from the Train" at http://throwgrammarfromthetrain.blogspot.com/) is the wisest choice, given the often-cerebral musings of some of the blogs that don't arrive at the down-and-dirty usage information that we're trying to deliver to our students. If we're talking about playing with language, though, these sources certainly do look at language from different angles which could be useful to the right student. A caveat is that the writing tends to be at a high level, and basic writers may struggle with that.
Some blogs, like "The Grammarphobia Blog" (http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/) have search boxes that make the job of finding the topic you're looking for easier.
The best way to go about searching for blog postings about grammar issues is to head over to the Google blog search (http://www.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en) and type in what you want to find. A search for comma splices yielded a factual, yet somewhat condescending blog posting called "The #$%@! Comma Splice" by a college student addressed to other students. A friendlier explanation is the posting "What a Comma Splice is and How to Fix It," found here: http://blog.writeathome.com/index.php/2012/02/what-a-comma-splice-is-and-how-to-fix-it/.
The Bottom Line: The internet is a beautiful thing, and resources abound to assist with the teaching of these concepts. Though I know I can explain concepts, I would much rather spend my time in the classroom getting students to play around with those concepts. If someone else can explain it on the web, why not let 'em do it? If nothing else, it's another source reinforcing the ideas we're talking about, and reinforcement is valuable. Students being able to view sources repeatedly if necessary is also good--I can't be there to answer questions all the time, especially when some students do their homework at wacky hours. Finally, the conversational (read: fun) tone of some of these sources may inspire students to pay closer attention to material they may otherwise find dull. It's a win-win--it helps out with instruction and certainly cannot hurt the students.
Ultimately, if we're talking about getting students to play with language, I may need to rely on my own powers as a teacher to make that happen in my classroom.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Should we teach grammar at all?
Well, that's quite a question to ask now that I'm getting close to the end of my project, but it's a question that has been haunting me ever since I started my research. Does formalized grammar instruction really improve writing? According to Patrick Hartwell's February 1985 article in College English called "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar," the answer is NO.
Hartwell wrote this in 1985, responding to years of research reports and essays that explore this question. The question, as Hartwell puts it, is this: "What does experimental research tell us about the value of teahing formal grammar?" (106). The problem, though, is that over the 75 years this question has been asked, this "experimental research has for all practical purposes told us nothing" (106). It would seem that research is done and conclusions are drawn, but then that same research is interpreted by others who draw different conclusions. Therefore, research doesn't solve the debate (107).
Hartwell then goes on to describe the different types of "grammar" that are taught:
1. Patterns of language that convey meaning
2. Description and anaysis of formal patters (linguistic science)
3. Usage
4. What we learn in school
5. Stylistic grammar (like the Strunk and White version) (109-110)
Grammar 1 is the grammar that we all, as native English speakers, have in our heads already. We know how things should be in the sentence, but we're don't know the specific rule for it (111). If we learn Grammar 2, it does not impact Grammar 1. Grammar 1 is quite abstract and can be difficult to explain. We can try to come up with rules to explain Grammar 1 (what is, actually, Grammar 4), but as we know, the rules that we teach our students often have one, if not many, exceptions (112).
An interesting study done in 1967 by Arthur S. Reber showed that "mere exposure to grammatical sentences produced tacit learning: subjects who copied several grammatical sentences performed far above chance in judging the grammaticality of other letter strings" (117). Hartwell also notes that people performed much worse when given specific rules to follow, like flow charts, to make decisions about what was "correct" in their writing (117). On the other hand, Herbert W. Seliger, another researcher, suggests that the rules themselves aren't all that useful, but when people think they are and internalize them, it allows people "to access the internal rules they actually use" (119). The reality is that the rules we are taught in school (Grammar 4), are COIK--Clear Only If Known; basically, if you already know the rule, the rule will make sense. If not, the rule is useless (119). It's also noteworthy that an application of a compicated set of rules is NOT what a maure writer does and relies far too much on rote memorization (120).
So, what are we to do? First, students tend to correct their errors when they read their work aloud (121). Second, "A broad range of cross-cultural studies suggest that metalinguistic awareness is a defining feature of print literacy" (122); or, we should get our students thinking about their thinking about language. This means that we should talk about the different types of literacies that are used for a variety of purposes in our culture (123).
Stylistic grammar (Grammar 5) allows us to teach about language's use in a variety of contexts as well as the "active manipulation of language with conscious attention to surface form" (125). When we approach the teaching of Grammar 5, it's all about playing with the language.
Ultimately, Hartwell notes, "The thrust of current research and theory is to take power from the teacher and give that power to the learner" (127). If that's true, then it would make sense to have students play with sentences and to direct that play so that the students internalize the rules through this play rather than giving them a list of rules to memorize. Should we teach grammar at all? Sure, but maybe not in the traditional way that was presented to us in school.
Hartwell wrote this in 1985, responding to years of research reports and essays that explore this question. The question, as Hartwell puts it, is this: "What does experimental research tell us about the value of teahing formal grammar?" (106). The problem, though, is that over the 75 years this question has been asked, this "experimental research has for all practical purposes told us nothing" (106). It would seem that research is done and conclusions are drawn, but then that same research is interpreted by others who draw different conclusions. Therefore, research doesn't solve the debate (107).
Hartwell then goes on to describe the different types of "grammar" that are taught:
1. Patterns of language that convey meaning
2. Description and anaysis of formal patters (linguistic science)
3. Usage
4. What we learn in school
5. Stylistic grammar (like the Strunk and White version) (109-110)
Grammar 1 is the grammar that we all, as native English speakers, have in our heads already. We know how things should be in the sentence, but we're don't know the specific rule for it (111). If we learn Grammar 2, it does not impact Grammar 1. Grammar 1 is quite abstract and can be difficult to explain. We can try to come up with rules to explain Grammar 1 (what is, actually, Grammar 4), but as we know, the rules that we teach our students often have one, if not many, exceptions (112).
An interesting study done in 1967 by Arthur S. Reber showed that "mere exposure to grammatical sentences produced tacit learning: subjects who copied several grammatical sentences performed far above chance in judging the grammaticality of other letter strings" (117). Hartwell also notes that people performed much worse when given specific rules to follow, like flow charts, to make decisions about what was "correct" in their writing (117). On the other hand, Herbert W. Seliger, another researcher, suggests that the rules themselves aren't all that useful, but when people think they are and internalize them, it allows people "to access the internal rules they actually use" (119). The reality is that the rules we are taught in school (Grammar 4), are COIK--Clear Only If Known; basically, if you already know the rule, the rule will make sense. If not, the rule is useless (119). It's also noteworthy that an application of a compicated set of rules is NOT what a maure writer does and relies far too much on rote memorization (120).
So, what are we to do? First, students tend to correct their errors when they read their work aloud (121). Second, "A broad range of cross-cultural studies suggest that metalinguistic awareness is a defining feature of print literacy" (122); or, we should get our students thinking about their thinking about language. This means that we should talk about the different types of literacies that are used for a variety of purposes in our culture (123).
Stylistic grammar (Grammar 5) allows us to teach about language's use in a variety of contexts as well as the "active manipulation of language with conscious attention to surface form" (125). When we approach the teaching of Grammar 5, it's all about playing with the language.
Ultimately, Hartwell notes, "The thrust of current research and theory is to take power from the teacher and give that power to the learner" (127). If that's true, then it would make sense to have students play with sentences and to direct that play so that the students internalize the rules through this play rather than giving them a list of rules to memorize. Should we teach grammar at all? Sure, but maybe not in the traditional way that was presented to us in school.
Errors and Expectations: Chapter 8
Expectations
"Writing is something writers are always learning to do" (276).
We come now to the end of the book, where Shaughnessy discusses the realities of teaching basic writers in the college setting. First, based on her research, she has found some reassuring evidence that "…we can expect within a semester of instruction a clear indication of control over errors in punctuation and grammar, provided this is a feature of instruction either in the class or in conferences. Errors will remain, but for most students the errors should begin to appear residual rather than dominant" (276). This is in direct contrast, however, to some of the experiences we may have had in our classrooms, experiences where we leave the semester wondering if our students learned anything at all about grammar. Something to note in this case, though, is that even for those students who have become more comfortable dealing with objective sentence-level errors (but maybe have not made huge strides in eradicating these errors), the tone of their writing often becomes more confident (278). There are also students who may not appear to improve markedly over the course of the semester, but they may experience a positive overall shift in attitude towards writing (280).
Shaughnessy notes that it’s important for students to have continuous experience with writing courses beyond the developmental along with further writing opportunities in other classes. Unfortunately, "…should their fragile competence go unattended and unpracticed for a semester or two, the students would most likely be back almost where they had started" (283). Some of us have seen this in students who have been in our developmental classes, passed, and then show up in a class like Composition I a year later, seeming to have forgotten everything they were doing well in their developmental course (indeed, for some students, this forgetting can happen over the three-week winter break!). The idea here is basic: students who struggle with writing must keep practicing to build on and retain their skills.
Remember, there is no One Answer when it comes to the question of what works best to teach developmental students because of the myriad variables in student, student error, reasons behind error, teachers, teaching styles and pedagogies, institutional expectations, and the difficulty of the language itself. Because of these variables, we should look forward to learning as many strategies as possible and be kind to ourselves, recognizing the limitation of time that can work against our teaching (284).
When we think about what material we are going to cover in our classes, Shaughnessy suggests that we look at those concepts from four perspectives:
1. What is the goal of instruction? Is it awareness, improvement, or mastery? (286)
2. What is the best method of instruction? (287)
3. What is the best mode of instruction—the most effective social organization and the best technology? (287)
4. How do the individual items of instruction relate to one another? Where do they come in a sequence of instruction and how much time can be allowed for each? (287)
She ends on a positive note about the types of students we can expect in our classes:
"Capable because of their maturity of observing the processes they are going through as learners, they can alert us easily and swiftly to the effects of instruction. They work, in this sense, collaboratively with teachers in ways that are impossible with child learners. In a hurry, also, to learn what we have to teach them, they press us to discover the most efficient ways of presenting what we would have them understand" (291).
Our students want us to be better teachers, and through their experiences, we are also forced to examine and be critical of our academic institution as well as those from which they have come (292). The key is to look at our developmental students as being capable of learning to be more effective writers, and if we do that, we will be forced to become better teachers (292).
"Writing is something writers are always learning to do" (276).
We come now to the end of the book, where Shaughnessy discusses the realities of teaching basic writers in the college setting. First, based on her research, she has found some reassuring evidence that "…we can expect within a semester of instruction a clear indication of control over errors in punctuation and grammar, provided this is a feature of instruction either in the class or in conferences. Errors will remain, but for most students the errors should begin to appear residual rather than dominant" (276). This is in direct contrast, however, to some of the experiences we may have had in our classrooms, experiences where we leave the semester wondering if our students learned anything at all about grammar. Something to note in this case, though, is that even for those students who have become more comfortable dealing with objective sentence-level errors (but maybe have not made huge strides in eradicating these errors), the tone of their writing often becomes more confident (278). There are also students who may not appear to improve markedly over the course of the semester, but they may experience a positive overall shift in attitude towards writing (280).
Shaughnessy notes that it’s important for students to have continuous experience with writing courses beyond the developmental along with further writing opportunities in other classes. Unfortunately, "…should their fragile competence go unattended and unpracticed for a semester or two, the students would most likely be back almost where they had started" (283). Some of us have seen this in students who have been in our developmental classes, passed, and then show up in a class like Composition I a year later, seeming to have forgotten everything they were doing well in their developmental course (indeed, for some students, this forgetting can happen over the three-week winter break!). The idea here is basic: students who struggle with writing must keep practicing to build on and retain their skills.
Remember, there is no One Answer when it comes to the question of what works best to teach developmental students because of the myriad variables in student, student error, reasons behind error, teachers, teaching styles and pedagogies, institutional expectations, and the difficulty of the language itself. Because of these variables, we should look forward to learning as many strategies as possible and be kind to ourselves, recognizing the limitation of time that can work against our teaching (284).
When we think about what material we are going to cover in our classes, Shaughnessy suggests that we look at those concepts from four perspectives:
1. What is the goal of instruction? Is it awareness, improvement, or mastery? (286)
2. What is the best method of instruction? (287)
3. What is the best mode of instruction—the most effective social organization and the best technology? (287)
4. How do the individual items of instruction relate to one another? Where do they come in a sequence of instruction and how much time can be allowed for each? (287)
She ends on a positive note about the types of students we can expect in our classes:
"Capable because of their maturity of observing the processes they are going through as learners, they can alert us easily and swiftly to the effects of instruction. They work, in this sense, collaboratively with teachers in ways that are impossible with child learners. In a hurry, also, to learn what we have to teach them, they press us to discover the most efficient ways of presenting what we would have them understand" (291).
Our students want us to be better teachers, and through their experiences, we are also forced to examine and be critical of our academic institution as well as those from which they have come (292). The key is to look at our developmental students as being capable of learning to be more effective writers, and if we do that, we will be forced to become better teachers (292).
Errors and Expectations: Chapter 7
Beyond the Sentence
I don’t think that anyone reading this would be surprised when I suggest that grammar goes beyond the sentence level, so I’m going to go there with the help of Mina Shaughnessy (even though, yes, the title of this blog would suggest that I should stick with sentences). The reality is that our students struggle not just with fragments and subject/verb agreement and spelling, but they also struggle with getting a piece of writing to form a coherent whole. In this chapter, Shaughnessy talks about the "beyond the sentence" struggles our basic writing students have.
The first difficulty is students being able to make a "point." Sometimes teachers complain that BW students don’t have a "point," but they actually make many points. The problem is that these points are often not expanded on, and the style may not be as academic as is required in Standard English (226).
It’s important to note that "An idea…is not a ‘point’ so much as a branching tree of elaboration and demonstration" (226). Many times the BW doesn’t feel comfortable with "…play[ing] upon the topic, to follow out the implications that lie within statements, or to recover the history of the idea as it is developed in the writer’s mind" (228). In other words, they aren’t used to thinking critically about what it is they want to write about.
Basic writers, when confronted with the request to expand on their ideas, see that as a requirement to add fluff. Often basic writers will resort to the "…substitution of common wisdom in the form of platitudes" and the inappropriate inclusion of their personal experience (230-1). These techniques replace the playing out of ideas that is critical to effective written communication (232). The mark of an advanced writer is the ability to write longer and longer pieces while remembering and always connecting to the original purpose. Basic writing students struggle doing this and can veer from their main point (233).
Ideas can also become disconnected and unorganized in basic writing because the students can have a hard time coming up with an initial idea. The essay that a more advanced writer will create is based on an initial idea that has been processed (or, as I call it, "marinated" upon) before starting to write, while the basic writer will process as they write (234). Note, however, that an essay that may seem disorganized may actually have an organizational pattern that is "derived from non-academic models," such as the sermons that they hear Sundays at church (237).
Most of us have encountered students who write with a high degree of self-disclosure, telling stories about their jail time, drug addiction, or unwanted pregnancies. Sometimes we view this reliance on personalization of style and topic as an interesting rhetorical tool. The problem, however, is that it’s not a tool at all—students rely on personal narrative and a "speaking" tone to their writing because they don’t know how to write in an academic style (239).
To properly respond to writing assignments, students need to first understand that the academic audience has specific expectations. "The writer is…expected to make ‘new’ or arguable statements and then develop a case for them…far enough to meet his audience’s criteria for fullness and sound reasoning. The beginning writer is…not prepared to meet these expectations, but his awareness of them helps him make sense out of the conventions that govern academic discourse" (240). Two basic conventions that are important to academic writing (and that basic writers struggle with) are to be able to move between concretions and abstractions and to be able to show the organizational relationships between sentences and paragraphs in an essay (240).
In terms of creating an awareness of moving from the general to the specific, Shaughnessy suggests teaching students about "governing" statements by showing them a group of sentences and having them pick out the sentence that would be a more general topic sentence. From there, we could show students slides of pictures, having them come up with topic or thesis statements based on those pictures (for example, showing a slide of couples: "Old couples sometimes look more like brother and sister than man and wife") (246). From here, students can start mining their own experience for data, and then, to go further, can start looking outside themselves for data (247).
Writers are asked to make the following seven types of statements and develop those statements:
1. This is what happened.
2. This is the look (sound, smell or feel) of something.
3. This is like (or unlike) this.
4. This (may have, probably, certainly) caused this.
5. This is what ought to be done.
6. This is what someone said.
7. This is my opinion (or interpretation) of what someone said (257-269).
Remember, though, that all of these rhetorical modes (narration, cause/effect, etc.) start with the basic organizational structure that is derived from the topic or thesis statement (272). It seems that, above all else, the audience insists on one of these "governing" sentences as the root from which academic writing springs. I like Shaughnessy’s idea of showing pictures and having the students create topic/thesis statements based on those pictures. It would generate some good discussion among the students and has the added benefit of stimulating those students who are visual learners.
I don’t think that anyone reading this would be surprised when I suggest that grammar goes beyond the sentence level, so I’m going to go there with the help of Mina Shaughnessy (even though, yes, the title of this blog would suggest that I should stick with sentences). The reality is that our students struggle not just with fragments and subject/verb agreement and spelling, but they also struggle with getting a piece of writing to form a coherent whole. In this chapter, Shaughnessy talks about the "beyond the sentence" struggles our basic writing students have.
The first difficulty is students being able to make a "point." Sometimes teachers complain that BW students don’t have a "point," but they actually make many points. The problem is that these points are often not expanded on, and the style may not be as academic as is required in Standard English (226).
It’s important to note that "An idea…is not a ‘point’ so much as a branching tree of elaboration and demonstration" (226). Many times the BW doesn’t feel comfortable with "…play[ing] upon the topic, to follow out the implications that lie within statements, or to recover the history of the idea as it is developed in the writer’s mind" (228). In other words, they aren’t used to thinking critically about what it is they want to write about.
Basic writers, when confronted with the request to expand on their ideas, see that as a requirement to add fluff. Often basic writers will resort to the "…substitution of common wisdom in the form of platitudes" and the inappropriate inclusion of their personal experience (230-1). These techniques replace the playing out of ideas that is critical to effective written communication (232). The mark of an advanced writer is the ability to write longer and longer pieces while remembering and always connecting to the original purpose. Basic writing students struggle doing this and can veer from their main point (233).
Ideas can also become disconnected and unorganized in basic writing because the students can have a hard time coming up with an initial idea. The essay that a more advanced writer will create is based on an initial idea that has been processed (or, as I call it, "marinated" upon) before starting to write, while the basic writer will process as they write (234). Note, however, that an essay that may seem disorganized may actually have an organizational pattern that is "derived from non-academic models," such as the sermons that they hear Sundays at church (237).
Most of us have encountered students who write with a high degree of self-disclosure, telling stories about their jail time, drug addiction, or unwanted pregnancies. Sometimes we view this reliance on personalization of style and topic as an interesting rhetorical tool. The problem, however, is that it’s not a tool at all—students rely on personal narrative and a "speaking" tone to their writing because they don’t know how to write in an academic style (239).
To properly respond to writing assignments, students need to first understand that the academic audience has specific expectations. "The writer is…expected to make ‘new’ or arguable statements and then develop a case for them…far enough to meet his audience’s criteria for fullness and sound reasoning. The beginning writer is…not prepared to meet these expectations, but his awareness of them helps him make sense out of the conventions that govern academic discourse" (240). Two basic conventions that are important to academic writing (and that basic writers struggle with) are to be able to move between concretions and abstractions and to be able to show the organizational relationships between sentences and paragraphs in an essay (240).
In terms of creating an awareness of moving from the general to the specific, Shaughnessy suggests teaching students about "governing" statements by showing them a group of sentences and having them pick out the sentence that would be a more general topic sentence. From there, we could show students slides of pictures, having them come up with topic or thesis statements based on those pictures (for example, showing a slide of couples: "Old couples sometimes look more like brother and sister than man and wife") (246). From here, students can start mining their own experience for data, and then, to go further, can start looking outside themselves for data (247).
Writers are asked to make the following seven types of statements and develop those statements:
1. This is what happened.
2. This is the look (sound, smell or feel) of something.
3. This is like (or unlike) this.
4. This (may have, probably, certainly) caused this.
5. This is what ought to be done.
6. This is what someone said.
7. This is my opinion (or interpretation) of what someone said (257-269).
Remember, though, that all of these rhetorical modes (narration, cause/effect, etc.) start with the basic organizational structure that is derived from the topic or thesis statement (272). It seems that, above all else, the audience insists on one of these "governing" sentences as the root from which academic writing springs. I like Shaughnessy’s idea of showing pictures and having the students create topic/thesis statements based on those pictures. It would generate some good discussion among the students and has the added benefit of stimulating those students who are visual learners.
Errors and Expectations: Chapter 6
Vocabulary
Something that basic writers struggle with that didn’t occur to me until I started interviewing my coworkers about what they do with grammar in their courses is vocabulary. Karen Busch, who is one of the senior members of my English department, spent last year in Iceland for her sabbatical, where she taught a variety of classes and age groups. First off, she noticed that grammar was NOT an issue for these students, but she did notice that they worked consistently on learning more and more words to improve their proficiency in English. This got her thinking: if vocabulary to the writer is akin to paint for a painter, it’s pretty important and worth spending some time on. Maybe our native English speakers could also improve on their vocabulary? She came back to the States with an activity she uses, but more on that later.
Chapter 6 in Errors and Expectations speaks to the issue of vocabulary. Vocabulary presents specific challenges for the basic writer because the type of writing that’s done in academia is one for an audience, an audience who carefully considers what is being written and looks at that writing based on a long line of expectations that come from Standard English (187-8). It’s a difficult task: students might have a lot to learn in order to broaden their vocabularies, and that means not just learning the words but also how to use them appropriately (188).
Sometimes the errors basic writers have are blatant ("floormats" versus "formats"), but other times, the word the basic writer uses is actually pretty close to the right word, but it’s not quite right; for example: "Many students portray immature concepts." It can be difficult to explain why these words are incorrect (191-2). There’s also the issue of complicated versus simple writing styles; basic writers often think that the more complicated the writing (using thesaurus words, for example, that they’ve never used before to sound "smart"), the better it is (194-6).
Shaughnessy notes three specific characteristics of the vocabulary of basic writers: "…a preponderance of vague nouns and ambiguous pronouns, a dependence on basic verbs, and an absence of modification" (199). Another word that is used a great deal by basic writers is one that one of my other colleagues notes as a personal pet peeve: "…the favorite word is thing, the all-purpose noun that parallels the all-purpose that of syntax or the all-purpose comma of punctuation" (199). Finally, basic writers lack the vocabulary to be precise, so their ideas are "important" or "interesting" (201-2). I confess that using these words is something I too am guilty of!
Suggestions for improving vocabulary:
1. Learn about words: For example, learning prefixes and suffixes and how they can change words increases knowledge about how words work (212).
2. Learn words: Words can be best learned in context, not just in the developmental writing course, but throughout their college careers (217).
3. Learn a sensitivity to words: Basic writers need to learn how to choose the right words for their purposes. Substitution practice, looking at sample first drafts (that can often have "messy" notes on them), and reading are strategies that might help students become more sensitive to word choices (222). Having students look at a piece of writing from a famous author and then asking them to look at the writing through the lens of the writer—essentially, to get into the mind of the writer, to imagine what she might have been thinking as she was making word choices—can help students be more sensitive to these choices (223).
Shaughnessy points to various issues I’ve seen in my students’ writing, and it appears that vocabulary is another concept that I should consider spending some more time on in my own classes. How to do this, though, when time feels constrained already? I need an exercise that I can do to get the students thinking about their vocabularies and using new words that also isn’t going to be long and complicated. Back to Karen, who has a great exercise she uses in her classes.
Karen uses a website (http://www.academicvocabularyexercises.com) that focuses on academic vocabulary and has a variety of exercises. The 300 words listed on the website are those that are agreed on as the "academic language" words that ESL students should know. The words on the list are frequently those that native English speaking students have heard and may know the meaning of (such as "significant"), but they don’t use them on a regular basis. Karen has students pick 5 words from each sublist (3 sublists at a time), define them and write a sentence using them. Then, students pick out five words and use them to create a dialogue between people in specific roles (like bartender and drunk, teacher and student, or doctor and patient). The results are often funny, and students become more comfortable with the words when using them in an everyday situation.
I love this activity because it asks students to use words in several different ways, gets their creativity going, has them create writing, AND it’s manageable time-wise. I’m going to try this in my Fundamentals of Writing II classes.
Something that basic writers struggle with that didn’t occur to me until I started interviewing my coworkers about what they do with grammar in their courses is vocabulary. Karen Busch, who is one of the senior members of my English department, spent last year in Iceland for her sabbatical, where she taught a variety of classes and age groups. First off, she noticed that grammar was NOT an issue for these students, but she did notice that they worked consistently on learning more and more words to improve their proficiency in English. This got her thinking: if vocabulary to the writer is akin to paint for a painter, it’s pretty important and worth spending some time on. Maybe our native English speakers could also improve on their vocabulary? She came back to the States with an activity she uses, but more on that later.
Chapter 6 in Errors and Expectations speaks to the issue of vocabulary. Vocabulary presents specific challenges for the basic writer because the type of writing that’s done in academia is one for an audience, an audience who carefully considers what is being written and looks at that writing based on a long line of expectations that come from Standard English (187-8). It’s a difficult task: students might have a lot to learn in order to broaden their vocabularies, and that means not just learning the words but also how to use them appropriately (188).
Sometimes the errors basic writers have are blatant ("floormats" versus "formats"), but other times, the word the basic writer uses is actually pretty close to the right word, but it’s not quite right; for example: "Many students portray immature concepts." It can be difficult to explain why these words are incorrect (191-2). There’s also the issue of complicated versus simple writing styles; basic writers often think that the more complicated the writing (using thesaurus words, for example, that they’ve never used before to sound "smart"), the better it is (194-6).
Shaughnessy notes three specific characteristics of the vocabulary of basic writers: "…a preponderance of vague nouns and ambiguous pronouns, a dependence on basic verbs, and an absence of modification" (199). Another word that is used a great deal by basic writers is one that one of my other colleagues notes as a personal pet peeve: "…the favorite word is thing, the all-purpose noun that parallels the all-purpose that of syntax or the all-purpose comma of punctuation" (199). Finally, basic writers lack the vocabulary to be precise, so their ideas are "important" or "interesting" (201-2). I confess that using these words is something I too am guilty of!
Suggestions for improving vocabulary:
1. Learn about words: For example, learning prefixes and suffixes and how they can change words increases knowledge about how words work (212).
2. Learn words: Words can be best learned in context, not just in the developmental writing course, but throughout their college careers (217).
3. Learn a sensitivity to words: Basic writers need to learn how to choose the right words for their purposes. Substitution practice, looking at sample first drafts (that can often have "messy" notes on them), and reading are strategies that might help students become more sensitive to word choices (222). Having students look at a piece of writing from a famous author and then asking them to look at the writing through the lens of the writer—essentially, to get into the mind of the writer, to imagine what she might have been thinking as she was making word choices—can help students be more sensitive to these choices (223).
Shaughnessy points to various issues I’ve seen in my students’ writing, and it appears that vocabulary is another concept that I should consider spending some more time on in my own classes. How to do this, though, when time feels constrained already? I need an exercise that I can do to get the students thinking about their vocabularies and using new words that also isn’t going to be long and complicated. Back to Karen, who has a great exercise she uses in her classes.
Karen uses a website (http://www.academicvocabularyexercises.com) that focuses on academic vocabulary and has a variety of exercises. The 300 words listed on the website are those that are agreed on as the "academic language" words that ESL students should know. The words on the list are frequently those that native English speaking students have heard and may know the meaning of (such as "significant"), but they don’t use them on a regular basis. Karen has students pick 5 words from each sublist (3 sublists at a time), define them and write a sentence using them. Then, students pick out five words and use them to create a dialogue between people in specific roles (like bartender and drunk, teacher and student, or doctor and patient). The results are often funny, and students become more comfortable with the words when using them in an everyday situation.
I love this activity because it asks students to use words in several different ways, gets their creativity going, has them create writing, AND it’s manageable time-wise. I’m going to try this in my Fundamentals of Writing II classes.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Errors and Expectations: Chapter 5
Back to Errors and Expectations!
Spelling
I was curious about what this chapter from a book published in 1977 would say about spelling that would be relevant in today’s world of the spell checker. Auto correct in word processors has also proven to be a useful tool. Of course, these tools won’t help with misused words or words that are grossly misspelled—so much so that the student has no idea how to fix them so the red underlining going away (and, as we know, can result in picking the wrong word: “Defiantly” for “Definitely,” anyone?). Nonetheless, I found some useful information regarding the reasons behind spelling errors and tips to help students become better spellers.
First of all, people learn to spell by hearing words, seeing words, putting the words on the page, and understanding the meaning of the words based on where they are in sentences. Unfortunately, spelling errors resist classification, are difficult to overcome, and aren’t a reflection of the writer’s intelligence (161). “It is the one area of writing where English teachers themselves will admit ineptness” (161). Outside of academia, though, being a good speller is viewed as a direct result of a quality education; therefore, people may judge the education and/or intelligence of poor spellers (161-2).
Shaughnessy presents five main types of misspellings:
1. Misspellings caused by unpredictabilities within English spelling
The fact that our word sounds can be spelled in various different ways (like “ion” being spelled “sun,” “ien,” or “en”) can present a great deal of difficulty for the writer (165). To get used to the spelling of words that could, sound-wise, go in several different directions, students must have experience seeing and spelling the words correctly (167).
2. Misspellings caused by pronunciation
Because spoken English blurs different parts of words (and some of us speak in English variants that blur word sounds more than others), we can’t rely on our experience with speaking words to help us spell those words correctly. This often happens at the ends of words (“tole” for “told”). Sometimes certain letters can be confused in speech, too, like D and T or F and V. Finally, prefixes and suffixes can be left out in the fast pace of spoken English, leading to a great many misspellings (167-9).
3. Homophones
These are words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings (to, too, two; they’re, their, there). Students need to learn their own trouble words and work hard to get used to using the correct word (169-70).
4. Misspellings caused by the unfamiliarity with the structure of words
Students are sometimes unfamiliar with the syllables that make up words, adding extra syllables (availiable for available) or omitting them (crated for created). Also, though they may know that “things often have to change when letters are added at the beginnings of ends or words” (171), they may not know the rules for doing so (hence haveing for having) (170-1).
5. Misspellings caused by failure to remember or see words
Basic writers often have little experience with words, either through reading or writing. When writing a word that we’re not sure of, sometimes we’ll stop and check out whether it looks right or not. Basic writers don’t have the knowledge base to be able to accurately judge correctness in this way (172). “…Probably the single largest cause of misspellings among BW students [is]…a habit of seeing which swiftly transforms what is on the page to what is in the mind of the writer… (173). Sometimes the prevalence of these sorts of spelling errors is so great that the teacher may think that the student has a disability, but the reality is that students who have not had that much experience with words “cannot be expected to be able to make visual discriminations of the sort most people learn to make only after years of practice and instruction” (174).
Suggestions:
1. Assume that the spelling problem can be fixed(175).
2. Teach the students to pay special attention to the types of spelling errors that they make. Classifying the errors into types allows students to figure out the root problems rather than viewing each misspelling as its own special case (176).
3. Make sure the student understands relevant technical terms (177).
4. Start with the errors that can be solved by using rules that make sense (177).
5. Get students thinking about the way they pronounce words versus how the word in Standard English is supposed to be pronounced. The goal isn’t to change how the students speak; rather, it’s to get them to be aware of those instances when their pronunciations might trip up their spelling (179).
6. Have students think about how proper pronunciation can assist with spelling (179).
7. If students have trouble with the different spellings of certain sounds (like f and ph), have them look at different words with that same pattern to help absorb and then apply that pattern (181-2).
8. Do exercises that force students to start viewing their writing objectively, looking specifically for their own patterns of error (182-3).
9. Teach students to use a dictionary (185).
Monday, March 12, 2012
Writing and Grammar in the Second Grade
---This is an interruption in your regularly scheduled Mina Shaugnessy Errors and Expectations postings... regularly scheduled Mina postings will resume soon...
When talking about grammar instruction, it makes sense to start at the beginning, and by beginning, I mean elementary school. Dawn Hallsten is a second grade teacher at a mid-sized, rural elementary school in Minnesota, and she shared what her eight-year-olds do with writing.
First, Minnesota has a set of academic standards which the kids must meet by the end of the school year. The Language Benchmarks (2.10.1.1 through 2.10.6.6) speak to grammar specifically, and cover the following topics:
Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, making simple and compound sentences, capitalizing, commas in a list, contractions, spelling, thinking about different contexts for writing (formal and informal), and the expansion of vocabulary.
In her classroom, Mrs. Hallsten focuses on how a sentence should sound and what it should look like to provide a good foundation for future writing. She doesn't stress knowing the grammatical terms, but instead talks about, for example, "jazzing up" sentences with descriptive words. She also spends a lot of time talking about purpose. For example, when writing a personal narrative, they talk about why they're writing this (to connect with the reader, to entertain the reader, etc.). She tries to impart the advice that your writing projects who you are, and that's important to keep in mind when writing.
Students in her class not only work on formal assignments using the writing process of brainstorming, drafting, revising, and proofreading, but they also jounal a lot. She tries to spend at least fifteen minutes of uninterrupted writing time a day, something that, unfortunately, isn't the norm for all classes. Because of this time investment, though, she is able to conference individually with students at the end of the year and talk to them about their progress in writing based on the journal entries.
The approach to grammar concepts with second graders is all about being hands-on. When teaching adjectives, for example, she'll give the students marshmallows and have them use their different senses and write down what they see, taste, feel, etc. When teaching possession, they will go out into the school and label things, like the principal's door or their desks. If the students do a worksheet on sorting words into categories of noun, verb, and adjective, she'll then have them create sentences out of those words to help students make the connection that the words are building blocks to solid writing.
Correcting errors is something all English teachers have to grapple with, and Mrs. Hallsten finds that the best way to work through errors is to talk one-on-one with her students. After they have a draft written, she will talk them through the errors and then will come up with the correct answer together. The students are then expected to fix those errors, though there is some leniency for mistakes in the final, "publishable" version. (They are second graders, after all!)
At the end of the year, students should be comfortable writing a good paragraph, which is considered a topic sentence, three supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence. They work throughout the year on creating great sentences and expanding their vocabulary.
I have to admit that I was amazed at the amount of attention that is given to teaching grammar in second grade, and, more generally, that they teach the entire writing process as well as considering purpose (and, by extension, audience). So if students are being exposed to grammar and sentence structure and are working the writing process as early as second grade, why do so many come to college unprepared to write at the college level?
Part of the answer lies in Mrs. Hallsten's experience. As we all know, just because you cover the concept in class doesn't mean that everyone is going to get it, and even if they do get it, it doesn't mean that the concept will be retained. We try to figure out why and lots of times, their difficult personal lives and histories are contributing factors. Mrs. Hallsten sees kids' lives outside the classroom affecting what they can do in class. She notes that she can tell those students who haven't been exposed to reading and writing at home. Also, when a second grader writes, they write about things that they've done or experienced. It's hard for some students to come up with ideas to write about when they don't do a whole lot at home, and that's tough to see.
These same things show up in our college classes, though. We have students who don't have anything to say, maybe because sharing has been discouraged or they've had bad experiences. We have students who don't read or write at all, and if there's anything that my research has taught me, it's that to learn to communicate in writing, people must read and write a LOT.
I think that we as college instructors can learn a great deal about how to approach grammar and writing in our developmental classrooms from our elementary school colleagues. It's not that we need to be condescending or treat our adult students like children, but there's something to be said for doing hands-on, practical activities or having students apply theoretical concepts to their own writing. Maybe the technical terms aren't important. Maybe it's important to have a sense of humor about all of it and to spend more one-on-one time with our students.
Above all, we should consider where our students come from and to try to cut them a little slack. Now, I'm not saying that we lessen our standards for our classes, because they were exposed to this stuff, even if it was as far back as second grade. But even second graders have to deal with life, and those reverberations can be felt in our own classes. To work with students who have had both positive and negative experiences, we need to know what those experiences are. It seems that it'd be worth asking them...and talking to their teachers.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Errors and Expectations: Chapter Four
Chapter Four: Common Errors
What follows is a description of the most common errors that Shaughnessy discusses in this chapter along with ways to overcome those errors. Halfway through, starting with a section titled On Teaching Students to Avoid Errors, I have noted the practical strategies for working with students on their errors that Shaughnessy speaks about in more general terms. So, if you’re interested in verbs, nouns, etc., read on. If you want to know more about how to work with students generally, skip down.
The most common errors (including errors with verbs, nouns, pronouns, and subject-verb agreement) occur frequently because they have learned a different vernacular outside of school from their families, friends, and communities. Though these errors are "…grammatically less important… [because they] do not seriously impair meaning" (90), too many of them are distracting, at best, for the average reader. These errors can also be difficult to teach because they are surprising (missing –s and –ed endings, for example) and figuring out the logic behind the errors is also complicated (92).
On Verb Errors:
Verbs probably cause the most problems for the BW, mostly because there are so many forms of them—including a myriad of irregularities.
A sampling of verb issues:
1. Inflections (like the –ed or –t) can be lost in speech (94).
2. Adding the –s to a verb is difficult for some students to remember (like "makes" or"finds")—it’s kind of redundant to have the –s, but it’s what we do (96). –ed can also be tough—it’s sometimes redundant, it disappears when spoken, and it’s not always regular (97).
3. Infinitive verb forms are hard to predict because sometimes the "to" is there, and sometimes it’s not (99).
4. The incorrect use of –ing happens because it’s often misused in speech (goin’ to town) (100).
Remember that when students are shifting from the vernacular that they’ve been used to do the vernacular of Standard English, they transition at different rates, applying different rules in different contexts (104). As such, if we are to help students, we need to "…trace the line of reasoning that has led to erroneous choices rather than upon unloading on the student’s memory an indifferent bulk of information about verbs, only part of which relates to his difficulties" (105).
On Noun Errors:
"…many errors occur with nouns, most of them involving the letter –s" (106). For example, students will often leave s’s out when it seems most obvious, like "holding down three job at a time." In fact, it’s because the number in the sentence indicates a plural noun that the writer may find it redundant to add the –s (106-7). Students are often resistant to what they view as redundancies in the language. They may wonder why it’s important to spend time learning something that doesn’t really matter (110-11). Working through these attitudes is important.
On Pronoun Errors:
We see the same problems with pronouns (the "they" being used as a singular; a shift from "he" or "she" to "you") in our student essays that Shaughnessy notes in this chapter. She states that the "you" shift usually results from an uncomfortable sense of the audience, and by shifting to "you," the writer feels more comfortable with that audience (113).
The third person can cause the most problems because of gender irregularities, so starting off a discussion of pronouns with the third person is logical. Consider also "…giving special lessons on the correct use of that family of generalized pronouns so commonly used in abstract discourse (he, one, everyone, etc.)…" (114). Consider also doing the classic exercise of having students show graphically in sample sentences what nouns the pronouns are referring to (114). This gets the students thinking more about the relationships between the pronouns and antecedents.
On Subject-Verb Agreement: The most difficulty with subject/verb agreement arises because of plurality of the subjects and constructions like this: "There is two openings per year…" Basic writers view "are" as being too formal and tend to avoid it (116).
When teaching subject/verb agreement, consider doing the following:
1. Define what "agreement" means.
2. Explain what "number" means.
3. Show the student how to find subjects and "separate the nucleus of a subject phrase from its surrounding modifiers."
4. Finally, the student needs to be able to look at verbs and be able to tell if they are singular or plural (117).
On Teaching Students to Avoid Errors:
1. "Errors matter but not as much as most English teachers think" (120). Not only are we more sensitive to the "linguistic variety" that presents itself in our classrooms, but the variety of students in our classes who are unable to master the easier concepts can make us wonder if those concepts are, indeed, that easy. This changes how we view our students, and brings about what’s called the "territory of tolerable error." Different types of errors and the numbers of those errors determine whether these errors are tolerable or not (120-2).
2. " The teacher should keep in mind the cost to himself and the student of mastering certain forms and be ready to cut his losses when the investment seems no longer commensurate with the return" (122). Remember: we are getting our students to think about their errors and apply a roadmap to correctness to their writing, not guaranteeing that their writing is going to be error-free right away. All we can do is give the student as many opportunities as possible to apply the roadmap to their own writing (122-3).
On Student Motivation and Correctness:
Because students know that they can communicate reasonably well already, being native English speakers, their motivation to spend a lot of time on what seem to be minor errors is not that great: "…our student knows too much to be patient" (123-4). When students are motivated, it is usually negative motivation: they wish to avoid a bad grade or the perceived social stigma that might go along with error-riddled writing (124).
What might motivate them:
1. Knowing why they should learn the material and that it doesn’t disrespect the social group from which the errors come (125).
2. Students like the challenge of applying rules to their writing. The best way to do this, though, is to allow students to figure out the rules for themselves rather than telling them what the rules are. This can take longer, but is ultimately more fruitful (127).
3. Success breeds motivation. If they "get" something, they’re more likely to want to spend more time figuring other things out (127).
Note: Don’t just ignore the errors. Doing so makes them seem mysterious and threatening rather. Instead, give students the tools that will help them overcome their errors (128).
Shaughnessy Suggests:
1. For the sentence: Have students practice building up simple sentences (without adding a completely new sentence). This gives them the opportunity to understand things like adverbs and prepositional phrases without having to talk about those things as rules. We can also ask students to expand sentences in certain ways, getting them used to the possibilities for their writing. Finally, we can then have other students reduce the longer sentences into their basic parts, giving them practice in understanding subjects and verbs (131-2). "The perception of the sentence as a structure rather than a strong of words is probably the most important insight a student can gain from the study of grammar…that is likely to influence him not only as a proofreader but as a writer" (133).
2. For inflection: Because the –s and –ed endings are often skipped over in speech, the teacher must first discuss why these inflections are important, show the reasoning behind different inflections, and then have students apply that reasoning to their own writing. If the student over-generalizes on a rule, make sure that he understands what the exceptions are (and that exceptions do not overturn the rule) (133).
3. For tense: This is a hard one to teach. The student must practice with the formal system for changing tenses, and he must also "develop an ‘ear’ for tense combinations in a range of situations" (135). Sometimes skill and drill is the best method here, and some teachers have also found that relying on ELL handbooks is helpful (135-6).
4. For agreement: This is another one where skill and drill could work. There are lots of possibilities for error here, and individualizing instruction based on the particular student’s errors is necessary. Sometimes it’s useful to talk about agreement in general, though, and note that agreement is something that spans a variety of other languages (136-7).
What follows is a description of the most common errors that Shaughnessy discusses in this chapter along with ways to overcome those errors. Halfway through, starting with a section titled On Teaching Students to Avoid Errors, I have noted the practical strategies for working with students on their errors that Shaughnessy speaks about in more general terms. So, if you’re interested in verbs, nouns, etc., read on. If you want to know more about how to work with students generally, skip down.
The most common errors (including errors with verbs, nouns, pronouns, and subject-verb agreement) occur frequently because they have learned a different vernacular outside of school from their families, friends, and communities. Though these errors are "…grammatically less important… [because they] do not seriously impair meaning" (90), too many of them are distracting, at best, for the average reader. These errors can also be difficult to teach because they are surprising (missing –s and –ed endings, for example) and figuring out the logic behind the errors is also complicated (92).
On Verb Errors:
Verbs probably cause the most problems for the BW, mostly because there are so many forms of them—including a myriad of irregularities.
A sampling of verb issues:
1. Inflections (like the –ed or –t) can be lost in speech (94).
2. Adding the –s to a verb is difficult for some students to remember (like "makes" or"finds")—it’s kind of redundant to have the –s, but it’s what we do (96). –ed can also be tough—it’s sometimes redundant, it disappears when spoken, and it’s not always regular (97).
3. Infinitive verb forms are hard to predict because sometimes the "to" is there, and sometimes it’s not (99).
4. The incorrect use of –ing happens because it’s often misused in speech (goin’ to town) (100).
Remember that when students are shifting from the vernacular that they’ve been used to do the vernacular of Standard English, they transition at different rates, applying different rules in different contexts (104). As such, if we are to help students, we need to "…trace the line of reasoning that has led to erroneous choices rather than upon unloading on the student’s memory an indifferent bulk of information about verbs, only part of which relates to his difficulties" (105).
On Noun Errors:
"…many errors occur with nouns, most of them involving the letter –s" (106). For example, students will often leave s’s out when it seems most obvious, like "holding down three job at a time." In fact, it’s because the number in the sentence indicates a plural noun that the writer may find it redundant to add the –s (106-7). Students are often resistant to what they view as redundancies in the language. They may wonder why it’s important to spend time learning something that doesn’t really matter (110-11). Working through these attitudes is important.
On Pronoun Errors:
We see the same problems with pronouns (the "they" being used as a singular; a shift from "he" or "she" to "you") in our student essays that Shaughnessy notes in this chapter. She states that the "you" shift usually results from an uncomfortable sense of the audience, and by shifting to "you," the writer feels more comfortable with that audience (113).
The third person can cause the most problems because of gender irregularities, so starting off a discussion of pronouns with the third person is logical. Consider also "…giving special lessons on the correct use of that family of generalized pronouns so commonly used in abstract discourse (he, one, everyone, etc.)…" (114). Consider also doing the classic exercise of having students show graphically in sample sentences what nouns the pronouns are referring to (114). This gets the students thinking more about the relationships between the pronouns and antecedents.
On Subject-Verb Agreement: The most difficulty with subject/verb agreement arises because of plurality of the subjects and constructions like this: "There is two openings per year…" Basic writers view "are" as being too formal and tend to avoid it (116).
When teaching subject/verb agreement, consider doing the following:
1. Define what "agreement" means.
2. Explain what "number" means.
3. Show the student how to find subjects and "separate the nucleus of a subject phrase from its surrounding modifiers."
4. Finally, the student needs to be able to look at verbs and be able to tell if they are singular or plural (117).
On Teaching Students to Avoid Errors:
1. "Errors matter but not as much as most English teachers think" (120). Not only are we more sensitive to the "linguistic variety" that presents itself in our classrooms, but the variety of students in our classes who are unable to master the easier concepts can make us wonder if those concepts are, indeed, that easy. This changes how we view our students, and brings about what’s called the "territory of tolerable error." Different types of errors and the numbers of those errors determine whether these errors are tolerable or not (120-2).
2. " The teacher should keep in mind the cost to himself and the student of mastering certain forms and be ready to cut his losses when the investment seems no longer commensurate with the return" (122). Remember: we are getting our students to think about their errors and apply a roadmap to correctness to their writing, not guaranteeing that their writing is going to be error-free right away. All we can do is give the student as many opportunities as possible to apply the roadmap to their own writing (122-3).
On Student Motivation and Correctness:
Because students know that they can communicate reasonably well already, being native English speakers, their motivation to spend a lot of time on what seem to be minor errors is not that great: "…our student knows too much to be patient" (123-4). When students are motivated, it is usually negative motivation: they wish to avoid a bad grade or the perceived social stigma that might go along with error-riddled writing (124).
What might motivate them:
1. Knowing why they should learn the material and that it doesn’t disrespect the social group from which the errors come (125).
2. Students like the challenge of applying rules to their writing. The best way to do this, though, is to allow students to figure out the rules for themselves rather than telling them what the rules are. This can take longer, but is ultimately more fruitful (127).
3. Success breeds motivation. If they "get" something, they’re more likely to want to spend more time figuring other things out (127).
Note: Don’t just ignore the errors. Doing so makes them seem mysterious and threatening rather. Instead, give students the tools that will help them overcome their errors (128).
Shaughnessy Suggests:
1. For the sentence: Have students practice building up simple sentences (without adding a completely new sentence). This gives them the opportunity to understand things like adverbs and prepositional phrases without having to talk about those things as rules. We can also ask students to expand sentences in certain ways, getting them used to the possibilities for their writing. Finally, we can then have other students reduce the longer sentences into their basic parts, giving them practice in understanding subjects and verbs (131-2). "The perception of the sentence as a structure rather than a strong of words is probably the most important insight a student can gain from the study of grammar…that is likely to influence him not only as a proofreader but as a writer" (133).
2. For inflection: Because the –s and –ed endings are often skipped over in speech, the teacher must first discuss why these inflections are important, show the reasoning behind different inflections, and then have students apply that reasoning to their own writing. If the student over-generalizes on a rule, make sure that he understands what the exceptions are (and that exceptions do not overturn the rule) (133).
3. For tense: This is a hard one to teach. The student must practice with the formal system for changing tenses, and he must also "develop an ‘ear’ for tense combinations in a range of situations" (135). Sometimes skill and drill is the best method here, and some teachers have also found that relying on ELL handbooks is helpful (135-6).
4. For agreement: This is another one where skill and drill could work. There are lots of possibilities for error here, and individualizing instruction based on the particular student’s errors is necessary. Sometimes it’s useful to talk about agreement in general, though, and note that agreement is something that spans a variety of other languages (136-7).
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Errors and Expectations: Chapter Three
Syntax
Okay, let me say something right away. Mina Shaughnessy knows her stuff, and this book is dense with information. It’s a grammarian’s dream, riddled with complex terminology for grammatical structures that I have, admittedly, had to struggle with to fully understand. As I want to make these blog entries as useful as possible, I will only offer the most useful information from the chapter.
First, a definition of syntax (in case you were wondering): a system for indicating the relationships between words in sentences (46).
The main idea here is that basic writers who do not understand how to write academically "fake it": "…This unfamiliarity with what might be called the dialect of formal writing leads some writers to affect the style without having mastered it. The result is an unconscious parody of that style, often a grotesque mixture of rudimentary errors, formal jargon, and strained syntax…" (45). Basic writers also struggle with translating their complex ideas into solid academic writing.
The major syntactical errors discussed in the chapter are accidental errors, blurred patterns, consolidation errors, and errors in juxtaposition. You could probably guess that things get complex when Shaughnessy is discussing each type of error, but the point is that these are errors that occur when students try to translate their speech patterns into writing. They make typos. They think they’re following a common pattern, but then switch into another: "By going to college a young person could get an increase his knowledge about the world he lived in" (50). They aren’t sure how to combine sentences correctly, either through coordination or subordination. They mess with the common sentence, verb, and complement structure and then get lost: "It is my belief that what you do you should be praised for it" (68).
We’ve all seen these types of syntactical errors, but why do they happen?
First, the basic writer simply doesn’t know enough about the language of academic English to effectively manage the necessary consolidations (73). Limited vocabulary might cause problems, too—they might know the words, but they aren’t able to call them forth when immersed in the writing process (74).
Even when students use "big" words, they can use them incorrectly, like "The man grew up in a maladjusted environment" (76). The writer intended to say that the environment was bad, thus placing "maladjusted" before the noun it was meant to modify, not knowing that "maladjusted" is "semantically bound to the subject, man" (page 76).
What do we do about this? It’s important to really talk to students about why a word won’t work in a certain situation, explaining why it won’t work as well as contexts in which it would work, thus giving the student a guideline to work from. Practice in sentence combining is also useful for the basic writer (page 78).
Second, the basic writer doesn’t know how writing works—he applies speaking rules to writing, not understanding that there is a difference. Also, the idea of needing to be perfect when writing that some students have and that is supported by some writing teachers also causes problems because students will deliver a first draft without going through and objectively considering what is being said and how it might be said better (79). Of course, a student must also know what it is he wants to say to be able to go back and rework his ideas (80).
What do we do about this? Focusing on each stage of the writing process is critical (81). Get students talking with each other about their writing topics—this helps them sharpen their own thoughts (82). Several models were noted, but are basically this: break the class into smaller chunks (6-12 students) and ask students to work on writing assignments (often asking them to solve a problem), first individually and then collaboratively. The teacher plans assignments and offers insight when necessary. This changes the classroom dynamic, making for more independent writers (page 83-4).
Teachers also look at student writing mostly when grading, which means that she "tries to see what keeps the paper from being understood" (84). Once the piece has been read and graded, the student is "done" with it—he resists revisiting it. It’s much more effective to be reading throughout the process, helping the student best articulate his ideas (84).
Proofreading must be taught. This doesn’t come naturally: "In proofreading the reader must be trained to look consciously at what he would normally need to ignore—features of the code itself" (85). Don’t just correct errors. Train your students to see their errors for themselves.
Third, students doubt themselves, and by trying to write (putting themselves out there), they will reveal potential inadequacies (85). The grammar problems get magnified by the types of assignments we give, such as an essay question. This is not the type of situation that would ordinarily give rise to a natural desire to communicate one’s ideas on the page. So if the writer doesn’t care about the assignment, he certainly isn’t going to care about whether it’s grammatically correct or not (86).
What do we do about this? Make assignments relevant to them.
Finally, above all else, Shaughnessy stresses that students must write a LOT if they are ever to get better. I’ll end this post with this golden nugget, justifying the purpose of writing not just in the writing classroom but across the curriculum:
"Writing is, after all a learning tool as well as a way of demonstrating what has been learned. It captures ideas before they are lost in the hubbub of discourse; it encourages precision; it requires, even in the less autonomous work of taking down lecture and reading notes, that the writer make judgments about what is essential, and finally, it lodges information at deeper levels of memory that can be reached by more passive modes of learning." (88)
Okay, let me say something right away. Mina Shaughnessy knows her stuff, and this book is dense with information. It’s a grammarian’s dream, riddled with complex terminology for grammatical structures that I have, admittedly, had to struggle with to fully understand. As I want to make these blog entries as useful as possible, I will only offer the most useful information from the chapter.
First, a definition of syntax (in case you were wondering): a system for indicating the relationships between words in sentences (46).
The main idea here is that basic writers who do not understand how to write academically "fake it": "…This unfamiliarity with what might be called the dialect of formal writing leads some writers to affect the style without having mastered it. The result is an unconscious parody of that style, often a grotesque mixture of rudimentary errors, formal jargon, and strained syntax…" (45). Basic writers also struggle with translating their complex ideas into solid academic writing.
The major syntactical errors discussed in the chapter are accidental errors, blurred patterns, consolidation errors, and errors in juxtaposition. You could probably guess that things get complex when Shaughnessy is discussing each type of error, but the point is that these are errors that occur when students try to translate their speech patterns into writing. They make typos. They think they’re following a common pattern, but then switch into another: "By going to college a young person could get an increase his knowledge about the world he lived in" (50). They aren’t sure how to combine sentences correctly, either through coordination or subordination. They mess with the common sentence, verb, and complement structure and then get lost: "It is my belief that what you do you should be praised for it" (68).
We’ve all seen these types of syntactical errors, but why do they happen?
First, the basic writer simply doesn’t know enough about the language of academic English to effectively manage the necessary consolidations (73). Limited vocabulary might cause problems, too—they might know the words, but they aren’t able to call them forth when immersed in the writing process (74).
Even when students use "big" words, they can use them incorrectly, like "The man grew up in a maladjusted environment" (76). The writer intended to say that the environment was bad, thus placing "maladjusted" before the noun it was meant to modify, not knowing that "maladjusted" is "semantically bound to the subject, man" (page 76).
What do we do about this? It’s important to really talk to students about why a word won’t work in a certain situation, explaining why it won’t work as well as contexts in which it would work, thus giving the student a guideline to work from. Practice in sentence combining is also useful for the basic writer (page 78).
Second, the basic writer doesn’t know how writing works—he applies speaking rules to writing, not understanding that there is a difference. Also, the idea of needing to be perfect when writing that some students have and that is supported by some writing teachers also causes problems because students will deliver a first draft without going through and objectively considering what is being said and how it might be said better (79). Of course, a student must also know what it is he wants to say to be able to go back and rework his ideas (80).
What do we do about this? Focusing on each stage of the writing process is critical (81). Get students talking with each other about their writing topics—this helps them sharpen their own thoughts (82). Several models were noted, but are basically this: break the class into smaller chunks (6-12 students) and ask students to work on writing assignments (often asking them to solve a problem), first individually and then collaboratively. The teacher plans assignments and offers insight when necessary. This changes the classroom dynamic, making for more independent writers (page 83-4).
Teachers also look at student writing mostly when grading, which means that she "tries to see what keeps the paper from being understood" (84). Once the piece has been read and graded, the student is "done" with it—he resists revisiting it. It’s much more effective to be reading throughout the process, helping the student best articulate his ideas (84).
Proofreading must be taught. This doesn’t come naturally: "In proofreading the reader must be trained to look consciously at what he would normally need to ignore—features of the code itself" (85). Don’t just correct errors. Train your students to see their errors for themselves.
Third, students doubt themselves, and by trying to write (putting themselves out there), they will reveal potential inadequacies (85). The grammar problems get magnified by the types of assignments we give, such as an essay question. This is not the type of situation that would ordinarily give rise to a natural desire to communicate one’s ideas on the page. So if the writer doesn’t care about the assignment, he certainly isn’t going to care about whether it’s grammatically correct or not (86).
What do we do about this? Make assignments relevant to them.
Finally, above all else, Shaughnessy stresses that students must write a LOT if they are ever to get better. I’ll end this post with this golden nugget, justifying the purpose of writing not just in the writing classroom but across the curriculum:
"Writing is, after all a learning tool as well as a way of demonstrating what has been learned. It captures ideas before they are lost in the hubbub of discourse; it encourages precision; it requires, even in the less autonomous work of taking down lecture and reading notes, that the writer make judgments about what is essential, and finally, it lodges information at deeper levels of memory that can be reached by more passive modes of learning." (88)
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Errors and Expectations: Chapter Two
Handwriting and Punctuation
Page 15: The physical act of writing, of moving the pen or pencil (or typewriter) across the page so as to form decipherable words without great effort, is of course fundamental to other writing skills. Yet students have often not mastered this skill by the end of high school.
I have often had students tell me when they come into my writing classes that they neither read nor do they write. Many either haven't or have no memory of writing a formal academic essay in high school, and I've heard similar anecdotes from my colleagues.
Page 17: Although the full punctuation vocabulary of the code includes at least a dozen marks, the writer at this level uses only the three most common marks: the period, the comma, and the capital. Question marks, exclamation marks, or quotation marks appear infrequently, and often incorrectly; semicolons even less often; parentheses, hyphens, dashes almost never; and the special uses of such “academic” marks as ellipsis dots, brackets, and underlining are unknown. This means, of course, that the basic writer can say little through punctuation, whereas the experienced writer with a command of these slight notations adds both flexibility and meaning to his sentences.
…and what happens is that even though writers use periods and commas, they often use them incorrectly. That doesn’t mean, though, that they don’t know what sentences are. They’ve been making great sentences all along in their speaking. Speaking doesn’t include the placement of periods and commas, though.
**Shaughnessy suggests that we look at students' sentence boundary patterns to see what their logic is. Sometimes students see sentences as “rhetorical units” that are different (longer or shorter) than the grammatical sentence. Remember, periods feel very final to students, and to end one sentence is to have to start another, which can be a formidable task for the basic writer.
Page 24: Modern punctuation…sharpen(s) the sense of structure in a sentence, first by marking off its boundaries and second by showing how certain words, phrases, or clauses within the sentence are related…This is difficult for a writer to do without an analytical grasp of the sentence. Otherwise, he must go by what “feels” like a sentence, and here his intuitions…are frequently wrong.
When students create fragments, they are trying to cut down sentences that might feel “out of control” to them, and when they create run-ons, they are trying to make sure similar ideas stay together in one (grammatically incorrect but, perhaps, rhetorically correct) sentence.
**Shaughnessy suggests that before studying punctuation, don’t begin with the marks but instead the sentence structures that make the marks necessary. Start with subject/predicate, then move to sentences within sentences (like who and if forms), then with appositional forms (ex: Rufus, a big and fluffy dog, needed a bath), and then –ing phrases.
Page 30: The speaker stops when he has ended a unit of thought, not necessarily when he has ended a unit of grammar called the sentence, which in fact often falls far short of a complete thought. For many beginning writers, the need to mark off sentences inhibits the progress of their thoughts.
**Shaughnessy suggests that we teach students their options for connecting sentences: embedding sentences in sentences and how to link sentences together. She suggests that the following words “invite the most fragments”: wh-words, that, unless, although/though/even though, if, because, since, and so that.
It’s also important for students to learn the rhetorical purpose of the coordinating conjunctions, specifically and, because the use of and is so prevalent in speech but can create confusion in writing.
Also, when teaching the semicolon (when used in between sentences, not necessarily lists), it’s important to talk about the relationship of example sentences between which the semicolon falls.
Exercises that get students used to logical connectives like however, then, and for example also helps them to understand the relationship between ideas and where those ideas might fall in a sentence.
Teaching tips:
1. Help students to understand the value of proper punctuation to the reader by having them exchange papers, read aloud unpunctuated paragraphs, etc.
2. Define the terms for the writers (often they don’t know the difference between a comma, a semicolon, and a colon, for example).
3. Take the time to figure out the student’s individual pattern of error.
4. Make the classroom an open environment where students feel comfortable discussing what they don’t know.
5. Remember, to place punctuation correctly, a student must first understand what a sentence is.
Page 15: The physical act of writing, of moving the pen or pencil (or typewriter) across the page so as to form decipherable words without great effort, is of course fundamental to other writing skills. Yet students have often not mastered this skill by the end of high school.
I have often had students tell me when they come into my writing classes that they neither read nor do they write. Many either haven't or have no memory of writing a formal academic essay in high school, and I've heard similar anecdotes from my colleagues.
Page 17: Although the full punctuation vocabulary of the code includes at least a dozen marks, the writer at this level uses only the three most common marks: the period, the comma, and the capital. Question marks, exclamation marks, or quotation marks appear infrequently, and often incorrectly; semicolons even less often; parentheses, hyphens, dashes almost never; and the special uses of such “academic” marks as ellipsis dots, brackets, and underlining are unknown. This means, of course, that the basic writer can say little through punctuation, whereas the experienced writer with a command of these slight notations adds both flexibility and meaning to his sentences.
…and what happens is that even though writers use periods and commas, they often use them incorrectly. That doesn’t mean, though, that they don’t know what sentences are. They’ve been making great sentences all along in their speaking. Speaking doesn’t include the placement of periods and commas, though.
**Shaughnessy suggests that we look at students' sentence boundary patterns to see what their logic is. Sometimes students see sentences as “rhetorical units” that are different (longer or shorter) than the grammatical sentence. Remember, periods feel very final to students, and to end one sentence is to have to start another, which can be a formidable task for the basic writer.
Page 24: Modern punctuation…sharpen(s) the sense of structure in a sentence, first by marking off its boundaries and second by showing how certain words, phrases, or clauses within the sentence are related…This is difficult for a writer to do without an analytical grasp of the sentence. Otherwise, he must go by what “feels” like a sentence, and here his intuitions…are frequently wrong.
When students create fragments, they are trying to cut down sentences that might feel “out of control” to them, and when they create run-ons, they are trying to make sure similar ideas stay together in one (grammatically incorrect but, perhaps, rhetorically correct) sentence.
**Shaughnessy suggests that before studying punctuation, don’t begin with the marks but instead the sentence structures that make the marks necessary. Start with subject/predicate, then move to sentences within sentences (like who and if forms), then with appositional forms (ex: Rufus, a big and fluffy dog, needed a bath), and then –ing phrases.
Page 30: The speaker stops when he has ended a unit of thought, not necessarily when he has ended a unit of grammar called the sentence, which in fact often falls far short of a complete thought. For many beginning writers, the need to mark off sentences inhibits the progress of their thoughts.
**Shaughnessy suggests that we teach students their options for connecting sentences: embedding sentences in sentences and how to link sentences together. She suggests that the following words “invite the most fragments”: wh-words, that, unless, although/though/even though, if, because, since, and so that.
It’s also important for students to learn the rhetorical purpose of the coordinating conjunctions, specifically and, because the use of and is so prevalent in speech but can create confusion in writing.
Also, when teaching the semicolon (when used in between sentences, not necessarily lists), it’s important to talk about the relationship of example sentences between which the semicolon falls.
Exercises that get students used to logical connectives like however, then, and for example also helps them to understand the relationship between ideas and where those ideas might fall in a sentence.
Teaching tips:
1. Help students to understand the value of proper punctuation to the reader by having them exchange papers, read aloud unpunctuated paragraphs, etc.
2. Define the terms for the writers (often they don’t know the difference between a comma, a semicolon, and a colon, for example).
3. Take the time to figure out the student’s individual pattern of error.
4. Make the classroom an open environment where students feel comfortable discussing what they don’t know.
5. Remember, to place punctuation correctly, a student must first understand what a sentence is.
Errors and Expectations: Introduction
Errors and Expectations, written by Mina Shaughnessy in 1977, is one of those books that was cited a great deal in my graduate studies but wasn't one I was required to read, and, not thinking I was going to have to worry about teaching basic writing (foolish mortal!), I didn't seek it out for my personal professional development.
It is, though, one of the seminal works on basic writing and cannot be ignored in my research on grammar pedagogy. This book discusses other topics beyond grammar (there are chapters called "Beyond the Sentence" and "Expectations"), so I will get a stronger grasp of the history behind basic writing and writers in college.
Before reading the introduction, I was concerned that this might be outdated and therefore irrelevant. Having read the introduction, I see that the same errors and expectations that were present in the late 70's are still with us today.
What follows will be a discussion of the most illuminating quotes from the book along with discussion of how to use this information in the classroom. Exact quotes will appear in italics after the given page number along with commentary. I will also indicate Shaughnessy's suggestions for the classroom and, finally, overall teaching tips. I hope the text is as illuminating as I expect it to be.
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