Week 6 Blog

This week’s readings focus on the role of grammar in the composition classroom and teachers’ response to student writing. Of all the topics I am completely frustrated with is that of the role of grammar in the classroom. The unending battle between the older traditional belief that grammar is imperative in order for students to be great writers, or speakers for that matter versus the more modern approach of those that believe grammar serves very little purpose in improving student writing. Quite frankly, it seems that most articles that are produced often, as Hartwell points out, is designed to prove why their argument about grammar instruction is “right.” I did appreciate Hartwell’s article, however, mostly because it focused on the issues that revolve around this battle. Hartwell does a good job of clarifying the various classifications of grammar. He does reiterate at the beginning of his article that he does not attempt to prove whether one side of the argument is right or wrong, but discusses the understanding behind the various grammar classes.

Connor’s article focuses on the history of grammar, mechanics, and correctness. As we have read in previous articles, Connors reminds us of the traditional composition classroom focusing on rhetoric. Connors emphasizes the radical shift that took place during the 1870’s where composition courses could no longer focus on the “mental discipline” and move toward instructional goals that revolved around mechanical correctness than overall effective communication. Connor quotes Kitzhaber as he reemphasizes the radical change revolving more around the shift from “socially acceptable” to “formally acceptable.” It became apparent via the Harvard examinations that beginning writers’ written troubles lie with mechanical problems. Yet again, we battle with what is considered to be “good” and “bad” writing. In this case, Connor emphasizes how “good” writing was to be considered writing that was essentially error free. Connors addresses probably one of the major factors for grammar being the sole focus of teacher response. He discusses the issue with instructors not being able to provide authentic feedback for students due to the large number of classes. Instructors were required to ready at least 100 essays and were expected to provide feedback to improve writing. Naturally, as Connors points out, instructors became overwhelmed with the work and teacher feedback soon became marks on grammar and mechanical errors.

As I mentioned my frustration earlier, it is only because I am required to teach a purely composition course. With little guidance, I struggle with what might be the most effective ways to in fact teach the course. More importantly, as I stood up in front of soon to be high school teachers, I constantly thought to myself what were these teachers going to do with this information and I already knew the answer. They were going to use this grammar “stuff” to mark and circle the errors on their soon to be students’ essays. Was contributing to this epidemic? Possibly. The only action I could take was to remind them that these were only guidelines and they should consider language correctness and language appropriateness.
Regarding teacher responses to writing, Sommers’ article focused on the ineffectiveness, at times, of teacher feedback. She points out how many teacher responses include two different tasks that oppose one another: correct the fixed finite piece; yet, also fix the piece that is evolving. Sommers also address teacher comments that seem to be “rubber stamped.” From the samples she provides, she is able to identify how many of the comments that are written can be applied to just about any essay. Essentially, many teacher comments seem to be ineffective unless they actually engage with the text. Also, it is noted that many of the teacher comments seem to revolve around more what the instructor feels the purpose of the essay is rather than the students. Thus, we continue to find the common trend of students writing to the professor as audience. As my dissonance blog points out, I plan to continue to investigate the effects of teacher responses. The Connors and Lunsford article incorporate a study and analysis of teacher comments and utilize this piece as a starting points for my paper.