Blog #3, On Ann Raimes’ writing errors essay
Ann Raimes’ essay titled, Errors: Windows into the Mind, contends that teachers sometimes misinterpret the root cause of spelling and grammatical mistakes made by their students on writing assignments. The articles goes on to offer a variety of practical strategies that teachers can use to help students learn from their mistakes.
Its a very practical essay giving specific examples of the kinds of problems that arise and offering advise on how to handle them. After being exposed to a good deal of education theory recently, it was great to get some practical advise from an experienced teacher like Raimes. But I couldn’t help but wonder if her advise was a bit dated?
The essay is dated, December, 1991, so I presume that it was first published more than 20 years ago. A lot has changed in 20 years. My guess is that many, if not most, middle school and high school students are now writing their assignments on computers loaded with spelling and grammar correcting software. I wonder how these kinds of software programs are changing the writing process for students?
For example, I'm writing this essay on a mac application called Pages. Pages does more than just automatically spell check, it also underlines passages in green that it believes to be either grammatically incorrect or overly wordy. When you hover over the green underlined phrase with your mouse the word processing program offers suggestions on how to fix or improve you sentence. I wonder if these kinds of word processing programs help or hurt students?
I have a young friend who says she’s a terrible speller because she grew up after the arrival of spell check. She’s not alone, many kids of her generation are bad spellers because they’ve never had to learn to spell, spell check programs demotivated them. So are spell check programs bad or good? I believe a good case could be made either way.
Of course advanced word processing programs like Pages aren’t going to structure an essay for a student, or decide on its content. (At least not anytime soon.) So students will still need to learn to write. But I’m curious whether teachers are finding a decrease in simple grammatical mistakes, and if so, if its due to word processing software? (Pages just told me that I shouldn’t have started my last sentence with the word “but,” but I’m going to do it anyway!)
Someday soon advanced word processing programs may correct all kinds of writing mistakes instantaneously. How will that effect teachers? More importantly, how will it effect students? Its certainly something to think about, and perhaps something to talk about in class. I’d love to hear some opinions as to the value or dangers of spell checking and grammar correcting software.
I didn't notice the date on that article, but that is a very interesting point you bring up. When it comes to spell check, I don't think it will have a negative effect on teachers or students. In the near future, everything will be computerized and there will be little or no use of pen and paper. So what's the difference if people rely on spell check? Besides for spelling bees, there is no need to know how to spell without spell check.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to grammar check, I think relying too much on it can be a problem. Students who rely on grammar check too much in their writing will not learn out to speak correctly if no one is correcting them.