Grammar Game

Last semester I didn't cover grammar extensively in my basic writing course. I started using worksheets to fill in time around mid-term, and I marked recurring errors in students' papers. But it killed me that one of my hardest-working students was unable to pass my class because he never shook a grammar problem that I marked in all his papers but didn't spend much classtime on.

I may have gone overboard this semester by assigning each student a grammar presentation, but my hope is that if nothing else, students learn the one issue they present. I've been wanting to incorporate grammar games for a while, but today was the first time I had the extra classtime to do it. Grammar games give students the opportunity to use grammar to control sentences instead of merely fixing mistakes. In "Grammar Games in the Age of Anti-Remediation," Margaret Tomlinson Rustick shares a game called "Sentence Survivor" (53). Basically, you start with a long sentence on the board and the students take turns erasing words until there's no way to make the sentence shorter. They can take one, two, or three words, as long as they're in a row. Rustick says to use a compound-complex sentence, but I'd say anything over six words will do. The idea is to leave a complete sentence but for the opposing team to get stuck. Obviously the meaning of the sentence changes with the various moves.

The students liked the game, and we had a surprise star. Near the end of the second round, she asked me if she could add punctuation. Of course--that makes the game more interesting. She jumped up and erased three of the last four words leaving only, "Why?"

Hmm. Rustick didn't mention that possibility. There's nothing grammatically wrong there, but it's not actually a sentence. It led to the other team using "Ferocious!" as their final move a couple of rounds later. I'd say "Why?" is more acceptable, but if the students are able to envision contexts in which "Ferocious!" is acceptable--well, that's the whole point of the game, right?

Work Cited
Rustick, Margaret Tomlinson. "Grammar Games in the Age of Anti-Remediation." Journal of Basic Writing 26. 1 (2007): 43-62.

The Downside of Tutoring

The downside of tutoring is that students expect their papers to turn out perfect.

The course that teaches future basic writing teachers (the course I originally wrote this blog for) requires grad students to arrange tutoring sessions with basic writing students. It's a great idea, since most of them will only have a vague notion of what these writers are like. (They're pretty normal people.)

After I passed back my students' second graded paper, one student approached me visibly upset about her grade. She explained that the tutor hadn't seen any grammatical problems and that the problems in her paper were the result of his suggestion.

I've been a tutor. I don't honestly believe that this particular tutor gave her bad advice. She simply misunderstood his advice, or in trying to apply his advice, took a risk and used devices that she hasn't yet mastered.

I guess I need to further emphasize that the goal is for them to leave this class as good writers. If the tutor hadn't made suggestions, she might not have had those grammar errors. But she would be in the exact same place she had been as a writer. It may seem to her that something bad happened because her grade wasn't so great. But hopefully in the end something good happened--she learned something new.

I Was Thinking about Letting Class out Early

My students had a paper due today, and five of the fifteen of them were giving presentations. When I started class, only six people had showed up--and only two of those who were supposed to be giving presentations. I keep a few worksheets and activities on hand at all times in case my lesson plans run short, but I wasn't sure I could justify an hour of busywork. And these six students were the ones who actually showed up, so they deserved to go home early, assuming that's what they wanted.

Most of the rest of the class showed up fifteen minutes late. We did get to see all five presentations, and there were only fifteen minutes left at the end. I got up to clarify something from one of the grammar presentations (on pronoun-antecedent agreement), and next thing I know students are asking questions about semicolons. So we talk about semicolons and other ways to connect independent clauses. And then a comment about colons. By the time I briefly cover the grammar questions, we're out of time.


For those who have taught college writing, this is probably not surprising. Students want grammar. They know (or think) they struggle with it and want to be able to follow the rules. However, teaching grammar is not hip in composition circles. And of course, I'd never teach grammar at the expense of other elements of writing. I insist that one of the requirements of a good paper (not even excellent, but just good) is that it actually be interesting.

If only I could get them to pay as much attention to discussions about other issues as they pay to explanations of punctuation.

What makes for a good narrative?

Honestly, all I wanted was for someone to say that a story needs to have a point. But instead my students suggest that good dialogue makes a piece more interesting. Another student suggested dramatic irony. And, yeah, he knew what it meant. Stories that float around the office are a lot more likely to degrade students than to brag on them. But it was pretty cool to have such sophisticated suggestions. Being able to analyze literature doesn't mean they're good writers, but it might mean that they're good readers, which is halfway there. There's only so much I can do to help a student who's never read a book.

How will I know what to fix?

Today my students had a peer review scheduled, so they were required to bring drafts of the papers which are due Friday. When I clarified that they would not be turning these preliminary drafts in to me, one student asked, "How do we know what to fix if you don't read our papers?"

She didn't know what kinds of changes her rough draft could go through that weren't specifically directed by her teacher. Which is a reasonable concern from someone who may have never been asked what she thinks about her own paper.

With this class, I'm trying to instill the notion that revision is about making things better, which may not involve "fixing" anything. Last week I asked if anyone had ever read anything they didn't like. (The answer is pretty obvious.) One student hadn't liked Animal Farm. We discussed why that was. It wasn't because George Orwell had bad grammar or even wrote confusing sentences. It was just the idea of animals running a farm that bothered the student. So, I emphasized, the kinds of things that would have improved the book are not the kinds of things students usually change in a rough draft--spelling and word choice. Making something good is more complicated than making it correct.

Writing Process of Basic Writers

Apparently when Sondra Perl wrote "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers," the term "basic writer" hadn't yet caught on. Perl, in fact, doesn't seem to like the way Shaughnessy characterizes basic writers. She notes, "These unskilled college writers are not beginners in a tabula rasa sense, and teachers err in assuming they are" (38). Certainly Shaughnessy didn't mean that basic writers had no backgrounds, and Perl thinks that Shaughnessy is right to focus on the logic of basic writers mistakes--but Perl wants to focus on process more than product.

Perl shows that basic writers had just as much logic behind their writing process as Shaughnessy showed that they have behind the written product. They think about the topic, they write, they correct errors, and they do this all rather systematically. So basic writers aren't just going at writing willy-nilly. The question is, what are they doing wrong? Perl seems convinced that it is a preoccupation with error and the attention that it draws away from content that is the problem. This is at least partially confirmed when the process and product of the personal writings are compared to the objective writings--students wrote more fluidly for the personal writing, and although they were still less than perfect, they were better.

It seems that since Perl is particularly concerned with process, she would be in favor of a curriculum like that at my university, where most of the assignments in basic writing are of a personal nature. Although the students may not always have the opportunity to write personal essays, if writing personal essays helps them change their writing process for the better (so that they think more about content and less about errors), that improved process might eventually carry over into more academic writing.

Works Cited

Perl, Sondra. "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers." 1979. Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor Villanueva. Urbana IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2003. 17-42.

Switched to Google Reader

By the way, I've switched from Bloglines to Google Reader. As one would expect from Google, it's much prettier. You can view a list of posts with snippets instead of Bloglines' clunkier view posts so-many-days old, making it look basically like Gmail. And it does have folders in addition to Gmail style tags, so you can easily condense the list. It's also an easy switch, since you can simply click "export" from Bloglines and then "import" from Google Reader.