Finding the Right Approach with Errors in Student Writing
Take a child’s painting and cover it in transparent plastic or laminate. Then, start marking all over it, crossing things out, redrawing other parts, putting notes and comments on it. Parents will most likely find such action discomforting. They might even gasp in horror. Then ask, why should we do this to a student’s writing? Afterall, both are artistic creations –works of art.
Inexperienced writers make
errors. So do experienced writers. Learning cannot take place without some
level of error. One of the greatest issues a developing writer can face in the
process of becoming a competent writer is to be inhibited from responding, for
fear of being wrong.
When a young writer tackles an unfamiliar word in their
writing and spells it correctly they confirm their existing beliefs concerning
that word. If they happen to get it ‘wrong’ then they learn something just as
important. They learn that they must modify their belief about that word. The
writer learns by testing their existing belief. This is the kind of healthy
risk taking we must encourage in our classrooms. Writers should not be afraid
to tackle new words.
I watched with glowing pride as a Grade 1 writer recently
tackled the word aquarium in her
writing, because ‘fish tank’ just wouldn’t do. We celebrated the risk taking
with much ceremony during the share time that day. The next lesson saw many
more risk takers emerge in that writing community.
Frank Smith in ‘Essays
Into Literacy,’ wrote, ‘Children do not learn from being corrected but from
wanting to do things the right way.’
They do not become better
writers by writing less, and this is the possible negative outcome from an over
emphasis on correction.
Correction is beneficial
when the student sees the need for it. When students have an authentic purpose
for the writing they are doing, they engage in the process with purpose and a
desire to make it work for the reader. The pen that makes the correction is in
the hand of the writer, not the teacher. Correction needs ownership rather than
imposition. Most of the effort put in by teachers acting the part of the
correction police is largely a waste of time. It overwhelms the learner and
openly promotes the notion of why bother?
in the mind of the hapless victim.
Jeff Anderson’s idea of
issuing students with’ an invitation to explore’ exemplars of good writing is a
wonderful way to deal with many of the issues that young writers deal with
as they grapple with making their writing reader friendly. It encourages the developing writer to look for things they might be able to imitate in their own writing. Anderson’s
approach condemns the idea of putting up a piece of mistake riddled writing and
having students conduct a kind of misguided
autopsy on the body of errors. It is consigned to the rubbish bin of irrelevance.
Remember, the argument is not about
the standard of student writing but how we go about achieving the standard. By
consistently sharing models of great writing we have the opportunity to
highlight the conventional wisdom regarding spelling, grammar and sentence
construction. Armed with this information the young writer is then invited to
conduct a discrepancy analysis and make the appropriate changes. More power to
the writer…
Do we want students to be
able to identify errors and make corrections, or do we want them to use the
power of punctuation to create messages that resonate with clarity and beauty?
Actually, we want both!
Comments
Post a Comment