How do we make skills INTEGRATION take place...? Help!

[Laura Gibbs]

This is my first "report" on my big effort this year to include more explicit work on writing mechanics in my classes (see my new wiki: Grammar Through Proverbs). What I can report on today is one of my worst fears realized: for my good students, the problem is not that they do not know the rules of punctuation and spelling... but they do not APPLY them in their actual writing. So, I would really like to hear from people how we go about promoting skills INTEGRATION in ways that are not purely punitive (i.e., based only on grades and implicit/explicit grade threats.... which sadly seem to be what my students expect and respond to best...).

Here's the report: I let students work ahead, and really good students leap at that chance. I've got one student who has already completed a whole bunch of the extra credit grammar quizzes, and got near perfect scores on all of them, and was so distressed about a less than perfect score on one of them she wrote to apologize about it (she had gotten only a 95% on a quiz about commas). Well, when she turned in her first piece of formal writing, it contained all kinds of errors - errors in apostrophe, comma, spelling, punctuation of quoted speech - even though she had gotten perfect scores on those areas when tested. Now, on the one hand, this was good news, because it meant when I alerted her to the errors, I could feel confident she would understand on her own how to correct them (previously, I was not even sure my good students even knew the rules - with this student, I know she knows the rules). So, she didn't need me to fix the errors for her, but she did need me to point them out (even though she had found and corrected the same kinds of errors on the quizzes). Because I have some independent knowledge of her skill level from her performance on the quizzes, it helped me gauge the appropriate kind of markings she needed in my comments on her writing. So, that's a good new advantage for me as a teacher... but at the same time, it is both weird and frustrating that she writes without applying the skills I now know she does possess.

Yes, I know there is no magic bullet out there for this kind of problem... but I would be very grateful for people's advice on what we can do to help students actually USE the knowledge they have. Of course, they will demonstrate it when tested (especially when tested for a grade)... but how do we get them to apply it purely for its own sake, to use that knowledge, and make it part of their standard operating procedures outside of a testing situation...? Help!

[Laura Gibbs]

P.S. I should add that this kind of situation is what makes me totally cynical about testing as a panacea for our ailing schools... the situation I've described with this student, which I consider not untypical, is proof positive that students can display skills in a testing situation which actually might play little or no role in how that student will actually go about living their life or even doing their other schoolwork!

[Ellen Pham]

Hmm, I wonder why there is this disparity. It could be that she knows the comma rules (or can look them up when taking a test) but hasn't yet integrated that knowledge into her writing? As a loose analogy, as a beginner I can read from a chart a new chord for my ukulele and figure out the fingering, but I can't play through a song smoothly using that chord right away- I have to practice a lot first.

Or, could it be that the students don't have the concept of revision down? In their day-to-day writing (texting, writing posts for the computer) revision doesn't play much of a part. I'd ask the students what their revision process is, just to check ; ).

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Ellen, what I suspect is that she really doesn't care one way or the other: to her, the story seems just as good with correct punctuation or without. I actually made a comment to that effect over in reply to something Mark posted about writing, where I mentioned the analogy there that I sometimes feel like I am teaching (forcing) my students to use punctuation in much the same way that deaf students are taught to speak ... the use of punctuation is something that's really alien to this student's own perception of her writing: I can get her to learn the rules, and can force her to apply the rules (she will dutifully correct her writing when she turns in the revision)... but what if she sees no positive benefit in actually using the rules in her writing...? What I am doing is pretty much purely coercive, and alien to this student's own perception of her writing. That is an uncomfortable feeling for me - I do it, because I feel obliged to do it, and I do have useful knowledge to share with her... but still, I find it an odd situation to be in as a teacher!

[Ellen Pham]

Hi Laura,

There is a very active ning, English Companion (where English teachers meet to help each other) that might be of interest. Seems to have lots of great posts, though I haven't been very active on it myself. It at least gives you a peek into the high school English teacher's mindset : )

[Laura Gibbs]

OOOOH, Ellen, that looks great! Thanks so much! Those huge Nings can be weird to participate in, but it looks like it could be a storehouse of all kinds of information. Super!!! :-)

[Connie Weber]

Hi Laura,
So how's it going with this student? Has she turned in a formal paper since the first unedited one? I'm curious about whether she's getting the message.
I find that students used to writing online are used to using informal, sloppy writing (filled with spelling and punctuation mistakes), often codified and filled with emoticons. A couple of group discussions about our standards for ourselves usually gets things on the right road. It's just that students seem used to extremely informal language--that's the "way to go" in their previous online spaces. A new context has to be created, a new mode.
I know you can't have a group discussion in class with my elementary students on the rug like I do , but have you had some sort of group discussion online? I'm talking about something other than posts of your expectations, more interactive... The idea is to get some sort of buy-in, some sense of ownership of the class standards. You have forums, right? You could frame a talk like this: "How easy is it to shift into using your formal writing skills in an online class?" or whatever you think might get your students actively talking about the idea (making them metacognitive about self-portrayal online).
Just some thoughts. If you get a chance, give us updates, ok? I think your question is pertinent to all of us who are involved in digital learning spaces. Thanks!

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Connie, I think this a case where college is so different from your teaching environment: for about 97% of students the goal is to get the grade (usually an A, sometimes a C - that varies by student) with as little work as possible. So, if I ask them to work on their writing so that it is better, that happens by coercion: I make them do it, by saying it is required for the grade. There really is no other type of leverage that matters. It sounds like your class is not ruled completely by grading as college classes are...? LUCKY YOU! That would be a blissful change.

The only other leverage besides grades I can work with is the impression that they make on their peers. So, for example, I don't have to set standards for how they build their websites: they really care about how their websites work and go to a LOT of trouble with images, colors, fonts, layout, etc. (even though their skills are very basic and this takes them a LOT of time)... they do that not for the grade (I give them no grades based on design), but because it impresses their peers and they get real personal satisfaction from expressing themselves through the design of their website.

They get no personal satisfaction of any kind from spelling and punctuation, and the large majority of their peers do not care because they cannot tell the difference (they may or may not know the rules, but even if they know the rules, it patently doesn't matter to them much one way or the other).

The contrast between web design and writing mechanics makes the contrast very clear: web design happens through student initiative and their free choice; writing mechanics is from coercion by me, the teacher. I don't like being coercive and using grades to force the students to do things, but that is what happens with the goal of improving writing mechanics. It is imposed by me, becuase I think it is wrong for students to graduate from college without this skill.

I may, however, give up on this goal, since the Writing Center at my own school has its head firmly in the sand about this (as I discovered last week), along with the student newspaper. I don't see how I could bring myself to stop noticing my students' writing errors, but perhaps my time would indeed be better spent forcing myself to ignore it and teaching them about web design, another set of skills I could teach instead, since I am able to do that as well as (or better than) teaching grammar skills.