When one writes, revises, and edits, attention to error comes last. Is that a truth upon which today’s writing teachers might agree?
Some of my new colleagues have expressed surprise when I’ve asserted that error comes last. They’ve been startled by my revelation that I carefully avoid marking problems with spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage when I respond to early drafts. They assert that students’ sloppy inattention to writing’s mechanical concerns will alienate readers far more quickly than problematic logic or infelicitous organization — and on that point, they’re probably right.
But I argue that mechanics come last as a matter of writerly efficiency: it makes no sense to correct every instance of the passive voice in a thesis paragraph when the logic of that thesis paragraph needs to be overhauled anyway. Students have a limited amount of time to devote to their assignments (even moreso in the case of my overscheduled cadets, who start their days at 5:20 in the morning), and if given a choice between correcting a comma splice and reworking an example for specificity, they’ll choose the simpler task.
Some folks, however, aren’t interested in thinking about writerly efficiency. Errors, as in Ben Yagoda’s obnoxious September 8 Chronicle piece, are “Deadly Sins” that demonstrate to some teachers the vile and debased nature of their students’ lazy and corrupt writerly souls. When Yagoda attempts to establish his ethos by declaring that he has “been teaching college writing since 1992,” I’m saddened that so many students have been subjected since 1992 to the instruction of someone who clearly has not even a passing acquaintance with composition’s scholarship on error.
I’d be curious to hear how Yagoda might respond to the now-canonical Joseph Williams article on “The Phenomenology of Error” (CCC 32.2, May 1981), Richard Haswell’s “Minimal Marking” (CE 45.6, October 1983), or Connors and Lunsford’s “Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing” (CCC 39.4, December 1988). I’ve shared these pieces of scholarship and their range of perspectives with my new colleagues, and there’s been some interesting discussion. And at my new institution, we’re blessed with an abundance of technological resources, so this recent Crooked Timber post by Harry Brighouse caught my eye.
Brighouse declares his love for a Microsoft Word feature that I absolutely loathe: the green underlines of the grammar checker. For me, Word’s grammar checker is so often wrong that I’ve turned it off, and in the past I’ve also urged students to turn it off when they’re doing early-draft writing because of the anxiety effect: how can I effectively and efficiently generate ideas when I’m worrying about whether my next sentence will get a little green underline? My other reason for turning off the grammar checker is that it’s a device to which students can turn in the final stages of writing that seems like a nice subsitute for putting in the effort of proofreading and copyediting: if the machine will do it for you, why learn to do it yourself? (There’s some sort of corollary here in the apparent increase of homonym errors that have followed the introduction of the spell-checker.)
How do you deal with error? Do you like the grammar checker? And what do you wish your colleagues knew about error?
I agree completely — year after year, the biggest revelation to my composition students is that most of them have been revising backward, ie, beginning with grammar and spelling and rarely (if ever) considering the argument. We work on breaking down the tasks of revision into the order of most efficiency, and I try to reflect that in my marking of their papers by paying increasing attention to the level of error as the semester continues.
Even aside from the issue of efficiency, I think the instant gratification of correcting errors dissuades writers (student or not) from the more complex, less obvious types of revision on which a successful essay depends.
Wow, I could have written this entry–my experience is so eerily similar to yours. As for the grammar checker, one of the first things I do in a comp class is tell students how to turn that damn thing off.
What I wish my colleagues knew: that finding and correcting errors is relatively easy compared to helping students learn how to write thoughtful essays that actually do say something of interest to someone. That students quickly learn that teachers really want a pristine error-free surface and that substance is secondary to that, and that they often adapt their writing practices to their teachers’ expectations. That it makes no sense to spend time correcting grammar and mechanics in a draft that hasn’t yet developed a thesis or supporting examples because the section being edited may not even exist in the next revision.
Liz said:” What I wish my colleagues knew: that finding and correcting errors is relatively easy compared to helping students learn how to write thoughtful essays that actually do say something of interest to someone.” Yup. It’s also easier to write a cranky article about problems in punctuation rather than problems in thinking. Even (or especially) in basic writing, where students come to the course, convinced correct grammar is the only thing to be concerned about. it’s my humble wish that everyone in grad school, regardless of curriculum, be required to take a course in teaching writing–the course would cover general pedagogy/theory and also give ideas for teaching writing in one’s discipline. Then, maybe, others would see how much bigger a task teaching writing is than it appears to be.
I agree completely. How can students possibly move forward with the *thoughts* if the early writing is obsessed with grammar and spelling? This is particularly a barrier in my developmental classes since improving the grammatical aspect of writing is roughly half of the purpose of the class. After talking about the importance of it and devoting time in class to the grammar issues, it’s difficult for the students to grasp that the initial writing phase should not be concerned with it. But this, I think, is part of the larger problem of seeing writing as a process.
I routinely advise students not to be concerned and discourage pulling out the dictionary and thesaurus while in the early writing phase. However, I admit that while spot reviewing as I walk around, I do sometimes point out errors that I see. This is in part because I have trouble stifling it in myself (it just *leaps* out of my mouth), because I do not review rough drafts, and because run-ons, fragments, and homonyms run rampant in my students’ papers at this early juncture. It is something, though, that I consciously try to work on and improve in myself as a teacher.
Also, no, I do not use the grammar checker, and although I’ve heard that Word 6.0 is more effective at catching fragments, I do caution students that it cannot be relied upon. It definitely causes more problems than it does aid.
I’m totally with you, Mike (and Joanna and Liz and Shelly et al). Miminal marking’s my thing.
I’ve noticed that errors sometimes work themselves out in the process of revision anyway. Why spend all that time/energy making students hyper-aware of them early on?
Mike, you’re right. Period.
I’d also hand your colleagues Hartwell’s famous “On Grammar…” and the introduction to Errors and Expectations. But don’t hold your breath. Despite all the educating I’ve tried to do at my place on this same issue, the grammar- thumpers don’t want to learn.
I don’t mark mistakes or talk to students about grammar in early drafts for all of the reasons you’ve mentioned. I sometimes say, “You have an overwhelming number of errors. You are going to have to proofread your final draft very carefully.” If I do give that kind of warning, I’ll point out some examples, but I certainly won’t go through and proofread the whole draft.
I do, however, mark mistakes on final graded drafts. This is what is required of me in my job, and the students I have are often quite grammatically challenged. When I was in graduate school, I remember we were asked to think about whether student errors “impeded readability.” Well, I am here to tell you that 90% or more of my students make the kind of errors that severely impede readability. Something has to be said or done about it in the grading process.
My mother had a cross-stitched piece hanging on the wall when I was growing up that said, “I once had six theories about raising children. I now have six children and no theories.” That’s the way I feel about teaching composition. I had a lot more theories about how it should be done before I had six sections at a time with an average of 35 people in each section, many of whom are in need of remediation.
Sharon, how do you deal with those readability problems without being overwhelming? I’m imagining that in your case, having students partner up to do peer proofreading and copyediting is the only viable option to do correctness work before they turn in final drafts — do you suggest to them that they make a list of the two or three types of errors their partners make the most and point to page numbers in the handbook? When you’re grading, do you point to patterns of error?
And what do you think of the body of research that seems to show that direct grammatical instruction has little to no effect?
I do lots of peer groups. I try to float around the classroom while they are working, but it is impossible to get to everyone, and at best that method is not much more than “drive by instruction.” We all do what we can, though.
I try to help the students identify the two or three mistakes they are most likely to make, and I encourage them to edit their own papers specifically for those errors. This works wonders when students are highly motivated. Non-traditionals who are simply rusty from being out of school for a while often make real progress by concentrating on their own patterns of mistakes.
As for the research about direct grammatical instruction, I’m sure it is correct. I do feel, however, that some sort of grammatical instruction has to take place for those who are struggling. I also feel that almost any method of instruction can work for students who are highly motivated.
The trick then is to get students motivated to improve. I don’t believe there is a catch all for that. Nothing will ever be a substitute for an instructor who has time and gives that time to individual attention to student writing.
There’s also Mina Shaughnessey’s Errors and Expectations. It may deal primarily with basic writers, whatever the heck those are, but it’s write on (poor pun intended) with your thinking Mike. Problem is, we’re all too often preaching to the choir on this sort of thing. Most of my colleagues are what I’d call minimal markers, though they and I don’t ignore these concerns, because they will sink a good essay, making it so some readers can’t see the ideas for the errors. But if we are to simply focus on “error” then we don’t help students become better logicians and rhetoricians. All too often students think of revision as maybe a spell check and a grammar check. On that point, the grammar check, when it’s not turned off, works best to show that I’ve put two spaces between words when I want one, but not much more. It labels so many sentences as fragments when they aren’t that it’s pathetic.
Sometimes I wonder about the span of time in which we expect students to overcome error–semester–versus how much time it must take for the information to be grasped and internalized , much less conveyed in their writing. And I’m speaking about developmental students who are traditional. They are having to learn how to be college students, writers and grammarians (well “grammarian” is a stretch). I’ve grown to realize that just because a student barely squeaks by doesn’t mean that he will never get it–it may simply take more time than are planned in a semester.
The two ways in which I’d not quite disagree, but footnote your post:
When error and other mechanics of illegibility are strategically inserted into a text to enhance meaning. When I teach writing, I teach students to transgress strategically — and in that sense, waiting ’til the end to work in purposeful error makes no sense.
When “error” is, very early on, keeping a student from producing meaning. To wait ’til the end, in cases like this one, is to put of teaching a productive compositional element.
I agree Mike, and I think that efficiency is one part of it. But I also explain to my students about focus and multitasking. There is a reason why we call these mechanical problems; they require more mechanical cognitive processes; one learns to apply rule sets and other well-defined strategies for fixing. I don’t think the same way about fixing grammatical errors as I do when I am focused on larger order global concerns in a draft. Continually returning to sentence level concerns involving correcting–this may also include editing awkward sentence constructions, some stylistic editing, and fine tuning the sentence level meaning (e.g., word choice)–requires a different set of cognitive processes.
Switching back and forth between these processes in the early and middle stages of drafting not only reduces efficiency, but can block the necessary focus they need. I ask my students to consider how often they have been in the “groove” with generating ideas and working on the argument and then, after stopping to correct errors and do minor sentence level revision, lose that groove. Many will agree they have had that experience. Their muse isn’t the one providing inspiration on proofreading their text 🙂
BTW: Given where you are, perhaps a military analogy might also serve your point about efficiency. Working out minor tactical details can be a waste of time before one has effectively decided on a strategic plan and the overall tactical implementation since those plans are subject to change.
They assert that students’ sloppy inattention to writing’s mechanical concerns will alienate readers far more quickly than problematic logic or infelicitous organization — and on that point, they’re probably right.
That sentence reminded me of my experience of I Am Charlotte Simmons. I couldn’t read past the third chapter in that book because I couldn’t understand the voice of the hideous punctuation.
Ever put sentences of great writers through the word grammar check for fun? You should try it some time for some shits and giggles.