Spelling and student writing: Does it matter much? Should it matter more?
With the exception of top brass, very few reporters and editors in newsrooms have offices. Our desks are so close that if I stretch too far, I could knock my colleague Kyle Wingfield in the head. (Not that he couldn’t use a friendly thump to the head now and then. You can read his political blog here.)
So both praise and proscription are often overheard by all in newsrooms. I find it more painful to be a bystander to a pillorying than to be a victim.
One of the worst lashings I ever overheard was directed at a reporter who confused “it’s” and “its” in the lead of an important story, a mistake that also slipped by the copy desk. The editor lamented that the piece could have been a contest entry but for that mistake.
His critique must have stayed with me because I can’t get past the misuse of the words to this day.
And that includes a presentation of new standards in my own school system a while back. The audience was handed examples of excellent student work. And the writing and reasoning were impressive. However, what I remember most was that the 8th grade paper featured an opening sentence that contained both “it’s” and “its,” neither used correctly.
Should it matter?
I remain surprised how often student work chosen for display suffers spelling or grammatical errors. At a school open house, I watched a student PowerPoint on international poverty where I stopped counting after the seventh misspelled word.
Here’s my question to teachers and schools: If you are choosing student work to showcase, is it appropriate to ask students to correct any errors?
The teacher showing us the PowerPoint told us how impressed he was with the perceptions and insights of the sixth graders who created it. I was surprised that he didn’t reference the spelling mistakes, perhaps to explain that he was more concerned with the students’ insights. I couldn’t celebrate their original thinking because I was too busy wishing they knew how to spell “separate” and “Eritrea.”
I understand that the top goal is to prod students to write, but exquisite writing can be undermined by spelling errors.
Should only perfect papers/PowerPoints be shared or should parents see the students’ original work without prettification?
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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114 comments Add your comment
Private Citizen
December 4th, 2012
2:04 am
The other thing is that for students to write competently, they need to be reading quality material so that words have meaning. We used to read literature level stories. I think much of this has been replaced with for-profit “pop culture” children’s authors. It is a whole industry, the utterly forgettable “Scholastic” type books. They’re not written as literature, they’re made as something to exploit a market. I do not say this lightly. They exploit the nervy “light” consumer mindset children are under. Anything heavier is either considered to be unacceptable content or it not viewed on par with the engineered “diversity” books. You can teach some dopey engineered pop-culture recently created for-profit fiction book with a Latino story line, but god help you if you actually taught from a real Latin American author from Brazil. The Newberry award winning “Bridge to Terabithia” fiasco is a good example of engineered for-profit education culture. It was a completely meaningless light book and then right on cue as it was being used in curriculum, the movie people made a big showy movie out of it, a movie that completely changed the story line and had them looking for Big Foot, and this was run through the theaters to exploit the dopey U. S. kids who had consumed the book via their schooling. Try and teach Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland with a challenging dimensional story line and some one will try and relieve you from your job. Makes no difference the writing is on a 1000x times difference from the trash and fodder prescribed to children to make-fake with developing their mind and the strength of their mind / reasoning, that they might actually not understand something and have to ask some questions of themselves, of the text, of their teacher, and maybe even of each other. Weep, folks. Know yourselves in shame and weep for what you are doing. http://i2.listal.com/image/320219/600full-bridge-to-terabithia-poster.jpg Please note as you view the poster that there is no “Big Foot” of any kind in the book or even suggested in the book. It is basically an overgrown short story about some kid falling into a river.
Private Citizen
December 4th, 2012
2:14 am
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversation?’
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)
____________________________________________
Fiction that uses the setting of a house is not acceptable due to that it will make peasant children who live in apartment buildings feel “less than” someone who lives in a house.
I Teach Writing
December 4th, 2012
5:51 am
I come at this issue from two different angles. I see the means of student production, as I have kids in a GA public elementary school; I also see the finished product nearly daily, as I teach introductory and advanced composition at a GA public university.
Both angles suggest strongly that writing mechanics, like grammar, received less emphasis under NCLB (and likely still does under Common Core) than is warranted. Several teachers have discussed above having received dubious advice from consultants about spelling in particular: “Just get them to write! We’ll worry about spelling later.”
These reports shed light on my parental experience of seeing my daughter receive glowing reports from teachers on pieces of writing with significant spelling problems. The teachers focused on the content (which was excellent) without thinking enough of my child to believe that she could write intelligent, creative work AND take the time to use correct mechanics. And that piper must be paid, eventually.
Sadly, for many students, I embody that piper. They arrive in my classroom with lively, intelligent minds but sub-par grammatical and mechanical skills, so they spend considerable time as university students struggling to advance the depth and complexity of their writing while simultaneously giving themselves a remedial course in writing fundamentals. It is impossible to convey sophisticated, nuanced thought if you can’t use a comma correctly or a corral a group of clauses; it is equally impossible for a reader to take seriously an intellectual proposition that arrives riddled with spelling errors. The writer’s credibility suffers. So even the most faithful of these students end up with lower grades than they would have, had they arrived with an adequate grasp of mechanics — the things I was taught in middle school in the 1980s.
I can’t hope to diagnose all the causes; they are legion. I do think that teachers would be well served to re-think the strategy of what I call “100-Minus” grading. I’ve seen the language of that approach several times in these comments: “I take off for spelling mistakes.” This approach assumes that pieces of writing are inherently good, that it’s our job, as teachers, to point out the flaws that mar the surface of this inherent goodness. Mechanical errors, by this reckoning, are aesthetic problems, things that can be “tidied up” after the fact, rather than fundamental building blocks of a structure of meaning. If we see them as building stones, though, and the written piece as a structure, then we must see each piece as starting from nothing. From this (more accurate) perspective, a grade is built from zero, and every part and piece of the composition interlocks. Poor spelling affects the writer’s credibility, which means less benefit of the doubt elsewhere; effective grammar and spelling, by contrast, progressively build the reader’s trust, and I will more easily grant the writer a tenuous logical connection if she articulates that connection clearly.
Such skills are not Ivory Tower stuffiness, as a number of business-minded commenters above attest. A student who can compose a clear written argument about history, philosophy, or literature can also write a clear and succinct report for her boss, make a convincing case for a new marketing strategy, or smooth ruffled client feathers after a mistake or misunderstanding. In those cases, the right words can be worth millions; the wrong ones may land you on your ear (or at least on the professional “Do Not Resuscitate” list).
Private Citizen
December 4th, 2012
9:07 am
A big part of what is going on in education now globally has to do with a rejection of the rational, abstract mind… The spelling and poor writing are a symptom of what is a very real effort to create New Kinds of Minds. Minds that Feel rather than Know.
Collar, You need to win an award for seeing through this engineered brainwashing.
Long Time Teacher
December 4th, 2012
11:18 am
We must teach even the young to edit their writings. It is unacceptable to have many errors in a final writing. I do not think students realize that they need to rewrite their paper and make a final draft. Teachers do not teach the writing process because it is very time consuming to read through papers.
Private Citizen
December 4th, 2012
12:32 pm
Long Time Teacher, (as you must know) it is difficult to teach well when being dominated with many outside initiatives, often from people far away who are monetarily exploiting the public education structure and manipulating state DOE to do their bidding for them and force-deliver shallow but very real and consuming demands. A good example is Obama-Land 360 degree teacher evaluations. Someone said this would be very expensive to do in the corporate world.
A saying from a math teacher – “They reason you kids can’t do math is because your English teachers are lame.”
GT Alumna
December 4th, 2012
1:02 pm
It matters. My daughter’s 4th grade teacher last year made so many errors “correcting” spelling tests. In one instance, she actually argued with my child on how a word was spelled, even though my daughter came armed with the dictionary. In brief the teacher couldn’t spell the word correctly and she rewarded kids who spelled it wrong. She also did this with grammar mistakes and incorrect math concepts. It took awhile, but my daughter received credit for every erroneous grading mark. The issue became so prevalent that I complained to the administration and… wait for it… they actually defended the teacher, saying she was such a great teacher and that “everyone loved her.” Apparently not.
At the end of the year, I took all my evidence of teacher ignorance into the main office and demanded a specific teacher placement for the next year. The 5th grade teacher we selected for my daughter was known to us, since my son had her three years prior. This teacher is very good in all the core subjects, but she is also a stickler for grammar and has even been known to diagram a sentence or two. The administrator told me that it would be no problem assigning my daughter to her class in 5th grade as most parents requested NOT to get her because she is “too hard.” Apparently, you really can’t fix “stupid.” Bottom line is we got what we wanted and my daughter is learning every day, which is all we asked of the elementary school.
After the first quarter, my daughter commented, “Many kids on the bus told me she was a mean teacher and that I would not enjoy school. They were wrong. She is a demanding teacher and as long as I am prepared, she is very nice to me.” Raise the bar and kids will work to meet it.
Adult Educator
December 4th, 2012
1:38 pm
We write to communicate. In order to communicate effectively, we need to ensure our message is received. Poor writing rife with mistakes causes readers to disregard the information being conveyed. Who are you more likely to hire? The company whose brochure is written well, or the company whose brochure is full of misspellings and grammatical errors? (Most employers will immediately trash any resume that contains a single error).
I teach this for a living. I often find it difficult to convey the importance of good spelling and grammar to my students when many of the flyers posted around campus contain egregious errors. There are people in high-level positions on staff who have somehow earned Master’s degrees yet cannot spell, write, or speak properly. What’s a conscientious educator to do?
Many students coming into college these days can’t write proper sentences, perform simple math functions, read a ruler, reason, or comprehend college-level material. I don’t know how we as a society can help the lost generations who weren’t required to learn these skills in K-12, but I can tell you this: if we do not begin to address and correct the problems now, we are ALL going to be in bad shape twenty years from now.
Consider what happens when nurses aren’t able to correctly measure the prescribed dosage, electricians can’t properly calculate load, teachers can’t spell, etc. If American students can’t pass the certifications required for these positions, either those jobs will go to non-American workers – leaving American students to dig ditches and give you incorrect change at the drive-thru – or the certification tests will be dumbed down just as the K-12 and higher education systems have been. Neither scenario appeals to me.
Truth in Moderation
December 4th, 2012
9:12 pm
@Old Physics Teacher
Thank you for referring us to “Ode to a Spell Checker.” The poem is brilliant! A copy of it now resides next to our home school Mac (sorry PC).
LD
December 5th, 2012
10:28 am
Of course it matters! Part of the reason I do not have a subscription to the AJC is BECAUSE of consistently poor writing by its staff! For example, from an article published yesterday, “. . . met with the schools board members Monday . . .” If the journalists and publishing staff are not adequately proofing their work, what confidence do I have that they are adequately checking their facts?
There is no excuse for a misspelling in a Power Point. Part of the instruction given to the students should be “Always spell check your work!” When I was in school, my papers were given 2 grades – one for content and one for mechanics. Sometimes the grades were equally weighted, sometimes not. But, I always knew BOTH content AND presentation counted! As a society we cannot continually lower the expectation of what defines “good work.” It is time to raise the expectations – not just for students, but for all of us.
Are we ignoring what poor spelling skills could be telling us? | Get Schooled
December 6th, 2012
2:49 am
[...] My posting on spelling and grammar prompted a lot of comments, including this thoughtful email from a high school teacher. [...]
Dekalbite@LD
December 6th, 2012
4:08 pm
“Part of the reason I do not have a subscription to the AJC is BECAUSE of consistently poor writing by its staff!”
As a longtime (30 year) AJC subscriber, I am surprised and dismayed by the spelling and grammar mistakes that used to be exceptionally rare and are now commonplace. When I look closely at those errors however, most of them appear to be errors of too few reporters and too few editors. This is probably a consequence of the ascendence of the Internet as a news source and the decline in readership for printed materials. Lately, I’ve noticed that many of the stories that come off the wire services (e.g. UPI, AP, etc.) also have errors so it’s probably not a problem discreet to the AJC.
N. GA Teacher
December 6th, 2012
10:05 pm
A question was posed made by a previous blogger as to why educators don’t emphasize and critique spelling, grammar, vocabulary, etc. Basically the reason is the Georgia Writing Test, which students must pass to graduate from high school. This “test” essentially judges whether a piece of writing is coherent. The test is incredibly easy. It does not assess spelling, grammar, or any other such aspects. Demanding any sophistication in writing appears to have disappeared from the public school landscape.
Aaron Puley
December 7th, 2012
3:01 pm
For me, the answer is…it depends.
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depends on purpose and context. Ultimately, it all comes down to the task at hand, what I would like the students to get out of it, what the expectations are (curricular or otherwise), and what the learning goal is.
If the task is brainstorming, collaboration, and inquiry, then I say “No” – spelling and grammar doesn’t count. I would much rather students explore their thoughts openly without fear of being graded / evaluated for structure In my experience, especially with blogging, is that if students are concentrating on mechanics then they tend to filter their thoughts – their creativity is stifled. They end up spending way too much time concentrating on spelling and grammar and not near enough time and energy on thinking, exploring, and collaborating. I also didn’t expect proper spelling and grammar* in replies to blog posts as these, too, are more conversational and supportive in nature.
*Note: I’m not talking about wildly crazy text messaging language here, either, there has to be a happy balance
On the other hand if the blog at hand is a digital portfolio of learning then I would like to see process in exactly the same way I would have expected it earlier in any traditional task – exploration, development, revision, and polish.
To differentiate a blog in this way and to have it serve both purposes, a student could categorize or tag their posts accordingly (i.e. brainstorming, conversation, polished, published, edited etc.) In this case, students would have to consider the purpose of their work, the audience, and how they would like their work to be seen. The writing / creative process can be honoured and the continuum of learning made visible.
If the blog is a collection of polished work only then the rough, unpolished, process work can be posted as a password protected post and shared only with the teacher. The teacher could comment to the post in a private nature this way, thus offering support to the learning of the student in a place separate from the eyes of others.
Another way I explored this was to have students collaborate, explore and share topics in reply on my blog informally and offer more formal work on their personal blogs. This can also be done in groups or forums on social learning network installs like HWDSB Commons or Edmodo.
Spelling and grammar is obviously very important in formal and professional contexts. It shouldn’t have any priority in the process of learning, though – IMHO. Learning is messy – it’s a process – we need to honour that.