>Peter,
   Error is very complex, and the notion of register often comes into play
in places where we wouldn't think about "error".
   Rewriting is like a dimmer switch, not an on/off one.
   If students think they can rewrite by improving or correcting the
words, they will never learn to write. We make the choices on the basis
of an evolving meaning. The most important studies have shown exactly
this difference in the approaches of raw versus seasoned writers.
Inexperienced writers try to improve the words. Experienced writers
work on the meanings.
   As a field, we should err on the side of inclusiveness and
functionality. Lots of what you call "error" may very well be the
places where meaning is undeveloped or confusing or lost or where the
student has not yet become comfortable with the tools available to a
writer. Knowledge about lanaguage is a useful adjunct to this. In a
sense, error is what we do when we write, but I think the better
writers tend to look at what is working and build from there.
   Grammar is not a neutral conveyor. I think we can pay a great deal of
attention to it without conveying the sense that students need to
talk/write like members of a different social class to be accepted.
   There may be more effective ways of getting students ready to face
other people's prejudices than simply enforcing them on our own.
   But I respect the minefield you are walking through. We need to address
this communally, not as individuals.

Craig

> In a message dated 2/20/07 8:29:47 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:
>
>
>>    When you talk about register, you are talking about two very distinct
>> phenomenon, the observation that a community of users shares a language
>> and the observation that people look down on others whom they believe
>> are inferior by nature or by group affiliation. I find the second very
>> distasteful, and I am often embarassed that people believe my interest
>> in grammar is an interest in "improving" the language by weeding out
>> the wrong usage or the wrong people.
>>
>
> Craig, I too find the second distasteful.   The problem I see, however,
> with
> applying our mutual distaste to our pedagogy is that the people who do the
> "looking down" on error in our students' writing are their other
> professors, the
> people whom they are writing to for jobs, their future employers, their
> customers, their bosses, their clients, and so forth.
>
> In a perfect world, at least one you and I would agree is better than the
> current one, this would not be the case, but our students will not be
> going to
> live and to work in that perfect world.   I see my job as trying to help
> them
> succeed in our fallen world.    I, therefore, spend a good deal of time
> trying
> to help them reduce the quantity and severity of error in their writing.
>
>
>
> Peter Adams
>
>
>
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