Andersen Blog Post #3
Students need to be encouraged in their writing even when
they get it wrong. “We are not correctness cops” (Valbuena). This statement came
out in our class about how teachers should work with students’ grammar issues. Should
we constantly pick at their deficiencies? A student I tutor came to me with a
paper he received from his composition professor. It was heavily marked with each
error. The student was embarrassed, devastated and confused. He was unsure why
there were so many marks and struggled with deciphering the markings. I asked
him to bring me a clean copy of his essay so that we could look at it together
without the instructor’s comments. In reviewing the paper, I recognized that he
had three primary errors. I had him make a list of those errors and try to find
those within the essay. Once he knew what to look for in his work, he was able
to find almost all of his errors. I think that sometimes instructors focus so
much on the errors, they miss the content of the work. This student loves
writing and is in the process of writing a book, which he talked about in his
essay. Hopefully, the work we did will encourage him to continue with his
writing and not turn him off from it.
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