The Elements of Teaching Writing

The Elements of Teaching Writing Quotes

Gottschalk, Katherine, and Keith Hjortshoj. The Elements of Teaching Writing A Resource for Instructors in All Disciplines (Bedford/St. Martin's Professional Resources). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. Print. Educational research indicates that many factors, all related to language use, limit amounts and types of learning: =Even if they are alert, students are not able to sustain attention to continuous lectures beyond ten or fifteen minutes at a time. They are most attentive at the beginning and end of alecture period and most likely to miss information in the middle. =Partly because they have to write and listen at once, attentive students typically record less than half of the most important information and ideas in a lecture. =If they have not recorded this material in a form that will restore understanding, students will quickly forget most of what they learned in class. =This weakness of short term memory applies also to reading. UNless students write notes or papers about reading assignments or talk about them in discussions, they will quickly forget most of what they read. =If they are trying to record and recall large amounts of material, students are most likely to miss the connections among facts, concepts, and viewpoints. Analysis, synthesis, critical thinking, the application of concepts to new cases, and other complex forms of learning all conflict to some extent with the goals of extensive coverage. -18-19 

 Asking a student who has read only one text in a field to critique its strengths and weaknesses may be asking for the impossible. -41 

 According to the study [A Harvard University one on student writers], some of the most useful types of [teacher] comments were =Questions that stimulated further thought. =Brief summaries of what the reader got out of the paper =Descriptions of difficulties the reader encountered. -Even highly critical feedback that was constructive and respectful. -53 

 Give reading essays priority over grading them. -58 

 According to Connors and Lunsford's extensive 1988 study, the twenty errors occurring most commonly in student essays are as follows, in descending order of frequency. 

     We have supplied short examples for some errors and discuss others in the paragraphs that follow. 1. No comma after introductory element. [Well it wasn't really true.] 2. Vague pronoun reference [See discussion below.] 3. No comma in compound sentence [I like to eat but I hate to gain weight.] 4. Wrong word [His F in math enhanced his alarm about his D in chem.] 5. No comma with nonrestrictive element. [See discussion below.] 6. Wrong or missing inflected verb endings [I use to go often to town.] 7. Wrong or missing preposition (Moosewood Restaurant is located at Ithaca.] 8. Comma splice [See discussion below.] 9. Possessive apostrophe [Student's backpacks weigh far too much.] 10. Tense shift [I was happily watching TV when suddenly my sister attacks me.] 11. Unnecessary shift in person (pronoun) [When one is tired, you should sleep.] 12. Sentence fragment [See discussion below.] 13. Wrong tense or verb form [I would not have said that if I thought it would shocked her.] 14. Subject-verb agreement [Having many close friends, especially if you've known them for a long time, are a great help in times of trouble.] 15. Lack of a comma in a series [Students eat, sleep, and do homework.] 16. Pronoun agreement [See discussion below.] 17. Unnecessary comma(s) with restrictive element [The novel, that my teacher assigned, was very boring.] 18. Run-on or fused sentence [He loved the seminar he even loved the readings.] 19. Dangling or misplaced modifier [After being put to sleep, a small incision is made below the navel.] 20. Its/it's error [Its a splendid day for everyone.] -98