Underground grammarians, beware

In her response to Williams’ piece, Lees writes, “If we are to claim that error resides ‘in writers’ at all, then, we’ll have to claim it’s there in a special way, as something other than error, as a thing that achieves its identity as ‘error’ by being read - interpreted - by someone else” (p. 219). Lees notes that Williams places error “at an intersection of text, reader, handbook, and writer”; it seems that interpretation of a text (and thus, interpretation of error) is reliant on all four of those things (p. 218). Interpretation, as the result of the ‘intersection’ of text, reader, handbook, and writer, is, as Lees argues, is an action “carried out within a cultural group” (p. 220). Knowing this, as well as understanding the social nature of writing, it is clear that Lee is right when she argues, “in the social economy of error, the error-maker is the injured party” (p. 223).

The important point being that we, as writing teachers, need to be aware of the effects our proofreading and revision practices have on our students. As Huot notes, “no other aspect of learning to write is as stressful and debilitating for students and teachers” than proofreading and editing (p. 221). In order to positive ways of proofreading and editing, Huot argues that we need to “recall the pervasiveness of errors in published texts to understand what a complex task it is to ask students to produce several errorless papers in a single semester” (p. 221). It’s ridiculous to ask my students to do something in one semester that I haven’t been able to do yet (i.e. produce a piece of writing that is “error-free”).

One of Huot’s suggestions, having students write regularly, is probably something I’ll do next semester. I keep finding great ideas in the readings we’ve done in this class, but I realize that I need to include activities that I’ll be able to achieve in my first semester as a teacher. I don’t want to overwhelm myself and my students with activities that I’m uncomfortable with, and that might create more hassle than learning. I’ll include those activities a little bit at a time over my teaching career, and then try to see what works best.

Anyway, by having students write regularly, they will be engaging in writing practice for practice. Practice makes perfect, apparently, and while I’m not looking for perfection, there is definitely merit in repetitive practice. And, as Huot notes, any writing problems students have at the onset of the semester will work themselves out eventually through practice.

Lees writes, “Errors, then, are departures from textual convention that have the power to embarrass authors by calling into question their social identities” (p. 226). This is why I’m always nervous when I turn in an assignment or final draft; I always assume there’s something wrong that I haven’t noticed, and thus will result in a low grade. The domino effect of this on my future is part of my anxiety in this situation, and therefore I can only imagine what first-year students feel when they turn in a piece of writing. Any problems with student writing that I actually point out will BE IN CONTEXT with the larger meaning involved in the piece. I’m going to be aware of my assumptions and expectations, and try to accommodate for those when I read student work.