In chapter three of “Writing in the Content Areas,” Benjamin identifies a number of common writing mistakes made by students and then offers useful tips for fixing them. Benjamin teaches by example. She offers samples of weak writing, points out the problems inherent in the paragraph, and then shows how the paragraph should be rewritten. (This is a terrific technique which I think teachers should mimic!)
A common mistake students make is not including enough detail. Benjamin teaches instructors how to spot generalities and then coach students get specific, by including dates, statistics, technical terminology, names, and other details. I loved this chapter! It made perfect sense to me and I could really see how adding specifics and avoiding vague generalizations improved writing.
I did have some questions though. Benjamin suggests that instructors should be teaching lessons on how to use prepositional phrases, the difference between ordinals and comparatives, and how to make branch diagrams to display relationships. All this is great, but I wonder if an Earth science or math teacher has the time needed to teach grammar?
Maybe this is now the job of all teachers, and if it is, that’s great. I’m just a little surprised that non-English content teachers are being asked to teach basic grammar, but I do understand the WAC program’s argument as to why its important.
Chapter three points out that essays can differ in what they’re trying to accomplish, and that essays can persuade, inform, and show cause and effect. Benjamin also encourages teachers to have students learn subject specific vocabulary, and she offers numerous tips such as keeping a lookout for ambiguous words like “it,” and avoiding redundancy.
I’ve said it before, but this book is making me a better writer. I’m not sure if I will really remember all of Benjamin’s writing tips and be able to use them someday when I’m teaching, but if all teachers embraced these suggestions American’s students would no doubt benefit greatly.
I totally agree with you about having science or math teachers teach grammar. As a math teacher, not only am I not interested in teaching grammar to my students, but I don't think that's my job, plus I know I'm not qualified to do so. The extent of my grammar education is my college core English class, and I wouldn't be surprised if I knew less about grammar than some of my students.
ReplyDeleteAfter thinking about the issue, I realized that this can all be solved if there was more communication between content teachers in school. In class we discussed the statistic of how few teachers spoke across the content areas. I think that having a cross content assignment, where different teachers had to grade the same assignment, looking for different specifics would be a great idea.