I’d say the most common request I receive in the Writing
Center is to proofread for grammar and spelling. Of course after explaining that I can not do
this, we procede to go over the student’s paper anyway where we usually find
larger concerns dealing with thesis, organzation, and conclusion among
others. The point is, students seem so
hung up on making sure lower order concerns like gramar are correct that they
are seemingly unaware of the larger order concerns that should take president.
In her article “The Phenomenology of Error”, Joseph Williams
argues this point, claiming that universities, publishers, and composition
society as a whole are too hung up on gramtical perfection and we’re mssing the
bigger picture. Worse yet, this
structure is training students to focus on grammar in lue of larger content
issues. He wrote, “When we read for typos,
letters constitute the field of attention; content becomes virtually
inaccessible. When we read for content,
[typos]… for the most part—recede from consciousness,” (154). This is how we’ve been trained at the Writing
Center and until we stop seeing higher order continent issues all together, I
think this is the right way to tackle writing.
When that day comes, I’ll happy to proofread for grammar… well, maybe
not completely happy… I tell tudees that
the most important thing is their ideas and conveying those ideas. grammar and spelling only concern me when
they impede those things. As Williams
sites in his nitty-gritty appraisal of White and Orwell’s works, no one
searches (or should search} for grammatical mistakes when trying to divine
meaning from their works.
However, there is a whole land of gray between overvaluing
grammar and undervaluing it. Therefore,
I can’t completely disagree with Micciche’s points either. Without some basis of grammar there ceases to
be language and no ideas are being conveyed.
Still I agree with Williams that if forced to choose between whether
grammar is overvalued or undervalued today, I’m going with overvalued, thus
making Williams point the president to follow—don’t forget to vote tomorrow!
In middle school our English teacher used to give us extra credit points for any grammar mistakes that we found in published texts and brought into class. While a great way to get students excited by grammar to actually understand when mistakes occur, perhaps this was an instance of overvaluing grammar. But, was she teaching us writing at the same time? If the class's writing skills at the end of the year were generally great, was her focus on grammar instrumental to developing those skills? I'm not sure what the answer to that question is, but I think you're right in agreeing that there needs to be some basis of grammar for ideas to be conveyed.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Just something I've been thinking about - What does autocorrect on cell phones and spellcheck on Word do to students understanding of grammar and spelling? Are they learning less and relying more on these tools than we did as kids? Perhaps there is something to say for the written assignment, then...
Getting hung up on lower-order stuff does seem to be a problem. I think a practical view, like the readings this week seem to advocate, is a better approach. Normative grammar simply jsut doesn't hold. Focusing on effective usage works best.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a confusion about grammar. What is grammar? I was thinking grammar as mental--in the actual constitution of thought-- rather than on the page... getting nit-picky about grammar is pedantic... when talking to ESL students in the student center I never say their incorrect. Sometimes their meanings are quite brilliant. I tell them instead how a language, can be more clear and how Americans tend to use it... not how it is correct. Langauge is living and changing.
:)
i used a lot of bad grammar and spelling above...but i hope the ideas got across...
ReplyDelete