This guest post is written by author Michael Laser.听
If you鈥檝e had success, please share what worked!
This post is adapted from a much longer on Doug Lemov鈥檚 blog, Teach Like a Champion.
I鈥檓 a novelist and a relatively new teacher of freshman composition (going into my 4th semester). I鈥檝e been searching for effective teaching methods to help my students improve their writing at the sentence level. To give you a sense of the problems I鈥檓 trying to address, here are a few sentences from their essays:
Because now in today鈥檚 age if it were opposite and it was a group of males in a store shirtless and a male manager walked in he would 9 out of 10 times ignore it and say that they weren鈥檛 doing anything stupid or unnecessary, holding women to a different standard.
The similarities among the speakers and their author are illustrated differently through their speaker鈥檚 separate tones.听
The money in the household shared between the Nora and Torvald contrast the idea of a happy marriage.听
I鈥檝e read books and articles on integrating grammar instruction into a writing curriculum and have adapted the strategies that seemed most promising. I鈥檝e also invented lessons of my own, including 鈥淩ecognizing Awkward Sentences鈥� and 鈥淚mproving Awkward Sentences.鈥� But even students who seemed to get the idea when we practiced usually forgot the lessons when they wrote their essays. And, though it hurts to admit this, very few of my students improved significantly鈥攁t the sentence level, at least鈥攂y the time they handed in their final essays.
I expect awkwardness in a first draft, in student writing and in my own; but I know that I can clear up most of the problems by going back and revising. That鈥檚 the skill I鈥檝e tried to teach my students. So far, I haven鈥檛 found a way that works.
Frustration has led me to rethink my search. Instead of trying one teaching strategy after another, I want to find teachers who have gotten better results and ask how they did it.
Have you seen significant improvements in your students鈥� grammar and style between September and June? If so, would you be willing to share some of your methods? The more specifics you can provide, the better.
You can post suggestions in the Comments section, or email me at Michael@michaellaser.com. Eventually, if enough people respond, I鈥檇 like to compile these ideas and present them for other teachers to use, either on the Web or in book form. Either way, I would credit the teachers who suggested the methods.
Note: Many writing specialists believe that an emphasis on correctness crushes confidence, stifles creativity, and produces听濒别蝉蝉听capable writers. For decades, they have sought to engage students by assigning topics that matter to the writers, encouraging students to flesh out early drafts with more detail, and overlooking most errors. They have worked to overturn students鈥� belief that听I can鈥檛 write鈥�a belief that results from finding their best efforts bloodied with red marks, repeatedly. These insights are important. Still, it seems to me that, in the reaction against oppressive teaching methods, basic skills have been lost. If students graduate from college and go on to write emails, letters, and reports that are as awkward and error-filled as the papers they鈥檝e written in my class, they鈥檒l be judged harshly.
I want to encourage my students to think creatively. The challenge is to build their confidence at the same time that we teach them to write graceful, grammatically correct sentences. If you鈥檝e accomplished that, please take the time to explain how.
Michael Laser writes novels for adults and younger readers. You can read more about his work on his website, .听