Writing in the School System: How Fundamentals Could Harm Student Writing

My original analysis of equity focused on grammar and how it effects the teaching of writing courses and how students view their own writing. By creating a step-by-step process of learning writing in which one cannot move to the next stage until the first is mastered, grammar becomes a barrier in the path of teaching writing instead of a building block. Grammar does not come easily to everyone, and it is not the natural way we learn our native language. We learn in the vernacular that those around us use. By counting dialects and vernaculars as incorrect, an inequity is created that puts students of writing down and slows their writing. Students can become discouraged from writing and struggle to find their own writing style because they are too focused on being “correct” in the minds of their instructors and future publishers. Instead of writing what they want to say, they write what they think others are looking for.

Zahra and I read each other’s works in class and we both had some similar focuses. While I focused more on the mechanics and teachings of writing, she centered her piece on dialects and how the inequity surrounding different dialects affects people raised speaking them. The inequity in both of our analyses was the argument on what is proper and what is not when it comes to published writing. Some differences in our essays were the focal points of language we used, such as grammar for mine and dialect for hers, and where the inequities took place. I was more focused on writing courses and teaching grammar in the classroom. We both came to a similar conclusion about language and how it is affected by those teaching it.

One of the main discussions in class that stuck out to me was during and after watching the “Shit+ Awk Frag” video. This video, though we only watched part one, outlined some of the issues I wanted to touch on in my TIRP. It discussed how teachers’ comments on students’ work were taken by the students. One thing that struck me while watching the video was the question about whether or not the students made the changes that the teachers suggested. The students who did change their essays according to professor comments made statements that I recognized, that the instructors would be expecting those changes in subsequent drafts and that they must have put the comments there for a reason. When my drafts were given comments in earlier school years, and sometimes we were expected to give those drafts back to the instructor with the final draft, it didn’t encourage me to write a true final essay. I would only change the things that my instructor pointed out, and I knew a lot of students that did the same. In this way, students are not learning how to draft and edit. They are simply learning how to get by quickly with what the instructor wants to see. Even now, I don’t like to edit. By commenting and forcing students to abide by those comments, teachers are not teaching their students how to edit and have more than one draft. They are teaching students how to cut corners in order to get the desired grade.

I think drafting and grammar are important in learning how to write, but I also think that the way they are implemented in our school system currently harms students’ writing more than it helps. If there was a way to make it important to the student individually and not as a grade, it might encourage students to incorporate drafting, editing, and grammar into their writing technique. By forcing it and making it about expectations instead of about the individual, it lessens the assignments affects in the students’ lives.