Write Right? Oh the Joy of Homonyms

Is there such a thing a writicide?

After reading "The English Teacher's Red Pen: History of an Obsession," I would say Zemelman and Daniels would agree that writicide does exist. For instance, how many middle school and/or high school students write for fun? Probably not too many right? This is because English teachers have lowered students' confident. I can't blame students are not wanting to write - who would like to be told they are not good enough? The famous red pen has placed this crime in our hands now. The trouble is though, we evaluate students extremely different than other subject teachers. For example, when I was in high school I hardly did any writing in my science classes. We did lab reports, but we were not graded on the same criteria which we were in English class. Instead, science teachers searched for our understanding of the lab and the results we were able to obtain. They were measuring what we learned from the activity, not what we had previously known. Do I think there should be more writing in other subjects? Yes, of course! This would limit the expectation that English teachers have placed on their shoulders, so instead of spending their entire weekend fixing grammar mistakes, they can concentrate on content, organization, and focus. It is sad that "our obsession with perfection in mechanics" actually causes us to lose "fundamental aspects of composing [like] content and clarity." I hope in my classroom to focus on focus...meaning I don't want to weigh the papers heavily on conventions. Yes, I'll be frustrated when I see reoccurring mistakes in a paper, but I will only mention the mistake twice. If a student lack focus that is a much bigger problem than misspelling a word.

In my classroom, I want to take the same approach as the piano teacher. Like her, I want to read the paper and not stop every sentence to fix mechanics. We would never have great music if we stopped musicians when they made one mistake! Also, if possible I would like students to meet with me to talk about one problem I may have found in their paper. I would be curious to see what problem they would say they have when writing as well. I will emphasize to my students that writing is a process and grammar will improve as they continue to write. If they need further help with conventions/mechanics, I will help them too. As Smagorinsky reccomended, I would like to instead incorporate grammar alongside reading and writing activities (165). Another reason I would employ conventions alongside other activites is because I don't want to bore my students. My middle school Coop uses this method, so it is nice to actually see it in action too. Student don't want to learn about grammar, instead they want to talk about things they interest them. I find my Coop's daily journal entries way more helpful than an entire period spent on grammar.

So, to reflect- there is not a right way to write. I think is it sad that English teachers are expected to evaluation students as if they are polished adult writers. Also, there is not a right way to evaluate writing either. It really depends what you as a teacher appreciate in student writing. I would definitely say that I appreciate a well-developed clear paper with a few convention mistakes rather than a flawless paper with no content or direction. Writing should not be about being "right," it should be about how you express yourself. This is a message I will pass on to my students. I would, however, be tougher on student writing towards the end of the year because I would have expected students to have improved their writing conventions.

Side Note: My friend, who is a freshman in college this year, sent me a paper to look over. He asked me to give suggestions on how he could improve his paper. I have not read over the paper yet, but I would be interested in bringing it in to class to show everyone. We could compare it to the WFYIS paper we read in class. The reason I find this paper interesting is because he is a friend of mine from China. He is attending Chinese University of Hong Kong and his classes are taught in English. His conventions therefore are not up to par, but I think his focus his there...so how would you evaluate it? After reading these sections on writing evaluation, I think I have a better idea of how I will approach his paper.