Carrie Peters wrote:
 
>  I am interested in how teachers
> are currently dealing with error in students' writing? Is the red pen
> highlighting grammatical mistakes/problems still around?- or is there more
> of a focus on the text itself, overlooking the errors?  Any information on
> web sites, references of people who study error, or comments from those
> interested in grammar and error would be greatly appreciated!
 
In our small college, we have an English Dept. of seven faculty with
two adjunct persons to assist with teaching writing.  We take a wide
variety of approaches--from one colleague who teaches composition by
exposing students to "great ideas" (emphasizing analysis of texts) to
some colleagues who teach by a pure process approach that makes use
of lots of personal writing.   With perhaps one exception--one
adjunct who tends to teach a lot of grammar--none of us use red pens
for marking papers.  All of us emphasize the importance of multiple
drafts--with attention in early drafts given to thesis, focus,
development, and organization, and in later drafts to editing the
language of the piece.
 
As a teacher of basic writing and ESL writing, I am very concerned
with the negative effects of intensive error correction on
motivation, confidence in writing, and fluent production of written
texts.  Basic and ESL writers first need to become convinced
themselves that they have something important to say and can produce
pieces with ideas that will spark engaged and interested
responses from readers.  Once they begin working on the kinds of
pieces that they really care about composing, their attention can be
drawn to the 'static' --created by their sentence-level mistakes and
errors-- which annoys readers.  But FIRST they need to get a sense that
they DO have interested readers, that they are writing for a real
audience.  Then they will realize their particular 'point of need'
and have the sufficient motivation to attend to the kinds of errors
we point out.  Pointing out errors to students who are not
attending to them is a big waste of time for the instructor.
 
I hope that you're aware of the distinction between 'errors' and
'mistakes'.   Have you read the classic work on this subject by Mina
Shaughnessy, _Errors and Expectations_?   Another very good book that
I refer to often is Marie Wilson Nelson's _At the Point of Need:
Teaching Basic and ESL Writers_.   Finally, I think that Bates, Lane
and Lange propose a very good system for responding to the writings
of ESL students in their book _Writing Clearly: Responding to ESL
Compositions_, including a very clearly articulated system of options
for marking errors--direct vs. indirect, and from least to most
salient types of marking.
 
Sorry for the long-windedness.  I would be interested in hearing what
you finally decide to focus on and what your findings are.  Please
update us.
 
 
 
**********************************************************************
R. Michael Medley       VPH 211                Ph: (712) 737-7047
Assistant Professor     Northwestern College
Department of English   Orange City, IA  51041
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