We tutors and teachers have an excellent opportunity to make grammar, organization, and communication of content actually matter to the student when the student is most engaged in the subject—in his or her own papers. Exercises in workbooks and classroom PowerPoint presentations are useful tools, but it is my belief that people actually start to care about writing conventions when they want their own ideas and stories to be understood! We miss the chance to engage students with their very own sentences, their very own ideas, their very own material, when we “take it over” to “correct it.” When a student is telling the story of his father’s funeral, he is invested in his sentences and thoughts far more than when reading his textbook. When a student writes her ideas for fixing child support, she is very keen to make her thoughts clear and is much more liable to listen to instruction than when watching it roll across PowerPoint slides.
Students’
papers are a treasure trove of opportunity for education. In future posts,
I propose how we can use these treasures to activate learning for the students
and avoid fostering the students’ passivity.
