Addressing Language Difference and Error in Student Writing

1. Addressing Language Difference and Error in Student Writing Bruce Horner Endowed Chair in Rhetoric and Composition University of Louisville

2. Ambiguous Relationship between Difference and Error in Writing • What constitutes conventionally correct writing is in many ways a matter of interpretation and debate • Two of the paradoxical constants of language in use are change and variation • Genre, discipline, occasion, power relations, culture play roles in determining what is and isn’t “correct” • What counts as expected and correct notational practice varies significantly for the same teacher in the same discipline at different times

3. Questions posed by Globalization and Fracturing of English • What counts as “English”? • Who is a “native speaker” of English? • Who “owns” “English”? • Which “English”? • Who says?

4. Effect of English Globalization for Teaching Writing English(es) • The growth of world Englishes and fluctuating “standards” competing with what passes for Standard Written English in the U.S. and U.K. • Increased intermingling between all these versions of English and other languages, affecting not just lexicon but syntax and notational practices • Increased intermingling between and migration of peoples, resulting in far more undeniably linguistically heterogeneous student and teacher populations.

5. From Monolingual to Multilingual U.S. University Classroom Norm • More instructors for whom English is not first or only language • More instructors whose English is not U.S. or U.K. • More students for whom English is not first or only language • More students whose English is not U.S. or U.K.

6. Intellectual Inquiry in Proofreading • Which English is to be used? Defined how? When? Why? • What should we deem to be “correct” written English? According to what criteria? According to whose criteria? Under what conditions? Why? Correct at what? • Does a seemingly unconventional usage represent an error or an innovation? According to what criteria? Whose? Why? When?

7. Three Fears of Confronting Ambiguity of Error • Gives students license to do whatever they want • Confuses and frightens students by showing matters of error to be complicated • Detracts from our authority, and students’ acceptance of that authority

8. Addressing Fears—Student Responsibility vs. “License” • Students must take more responsibility for their notational practices if what counts as “correct” is contingent and negotiable • Negotiable does not mean anything goes

9. Addressing Fears—Student Confusion Confusing discrepancy between false claims to universal and fixed standards and the diversity and fluctuation of actual notational practices VS. Clear (un-confusing) acknowledgement of the ambiguity of error

10. Students’ False Conclusions from Their Confusion • they’re just too stupid to grasp a seemingly “simple” matter and will never be “good at English.” • teachers are just switching the rules to trick them.

11. Addressing Fears—Loss of Teacher Authority Base teacher authority firmly on the facts of writing practices students encounter in their daily lives: the contingent, fluctuating, negotiated character of writing conventions —not on false claims to timeless, universal, monolithic “rules”

12. Insights on Unintended Errors • Everyone makes errors in their writing • Many errors students make tend to disappear over time • Some errors aren’t worth attention: they’re likely to remain, don’t affect intelligibility, and may lose their status as errors over time (e.g., novel lexical items and idioms) • Encourage greater tolerance among readers for differences • Teach students strategies for negotiating such tolerance from their readers • Don’t assume the intolerance of readers

13. More Insights on Unintended Errors Writers tend to make more mistakes in their writing when taking on more cognitively challenging writing tasks, e.g.: When first presented with the original concept to examine an experience of discovery drawing from you own experience, using Kuhn’s argument. This potentially could be viewed as a challenge. This being because the initial idea or concept was new, and the actual thought around the concept was not yet developed. In that section of the essay by Trask, she explains that her native country show possession in two ways. “Through the use of an “a” possessive, which reveals acquired status.” (pg. 396) This meaning material things such as a car or a shirt. The other possessive is in ‘o” form. This possessive would have to deal with things that inherent. Such as ones body and parents explains Trask.

14. More Insights on Unintended Errors Many students lack experience and training in proofreading Proofreading is more complicated than experienced proofreaders recognize Training in proofreading gives students: • Experience with the results it yields • Confidence in their ability to proofread • Knowledge of patterns in their errors • Control over their notational practices

15. Proofreading Techniques and Principles • Techniques: • read the writing aloud; • cover the passage with a ruler and slowly read aloud; • read the text backwards • Principles • Slow down reading process • Focus on notations instead of meaning

16. Reading for Meaning Aoccdrnig to rsraeech at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht order the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt thing is that the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae.

17. Reading English “Backwards” (Right to Left, Bottom to Top) say to sorry I’m apish more altogether are heads adult feet and legs pudgier smaller and cranium bulging prominent more a jaws smaller eyes and heads larger have adults with compared children bigger and bigger gets jaw the but precipitously declines size eye relative and all at grow scarcely eyes the adulthood of configuration browed lower slanted more the to way gives child young a of cranium bulbous the and three age after slowly very grows brain the growth human during itself head the pervades changes of suite a addition in.

18. Reading English “forwards” (for Meaning: L-R, T-B) in addition a suite of changes pervades the head itself during human growth the brain grows very slowly after age three and the bulbous cranium of a young child gives way to the more slanted lower-browed configuration of adulthood the eyes scarcely grow at all and relative eye size declines precipitously but the jaw gets bigger and bigger children compared with adults have larger heads and eyes smaller jaws a more prominent bulging cranium and smaller pudgier legs and feet adult heads are altogether more apish I’m sorry to say.

19. Problems with “Correcting” Student Writing • When it’s unclear what the student intends, we can’t say what the appropriate form would be • Providing corrections does not help students learn to make corrections • Demand for correct writing may interfere in revising for meaning • There are typically patterns to students’ errors that students can learn to identify and correct

20. Editing Example Original: Silko’s stories were full of anger and provoked me into greater anger at the “racist” behavior of the police and border patrols, because of the effect this had on her, I felt we must do something to change our policies about immigration and maintaining U.S. borders. Silko’s stories were full of anger and provoked me into an outrage at the racist behavior of the police and border patrols. I felt we must do something to change our policies about immigration and maintaining U.S. borders, because of the effect it had. Silko’s stories were full of anger and provoked me into a greater anger at the “racist” behavior of the police and border patrols. Because of the effect this had on her, I felt we must do something to change our policies about immigration and maintaining U.S. borders. Silko’s stories were full of anger and they provoked me into greater anger at the racist behavior of the police and border patrols. After seeing the effect this had on her, I felt that we must do something to change our policies about immigration and maintaining U.S. borders.

21. Rewriting English • From a Native Daughter is an essay by Trask in which she spills out her heritage and upbringing, trying to prove injustice amongst the cultural history of Hawaii.

22. Pattern from Handout Example: “in which” • both use one group of people in which they target (line 6) • just to further make your points is not one in which I agree with (line 35) • you must target a group in which you want to place the blame upon (line 37) • the do also make a connection through language, in which both authors make great points (line 41)

23. Pattern from Handout Example: western/Western • Trask talks about how Hawaii was taken over by the westerners ( line 4) • changed Hawaii’s history to better suite the westerners (line 5) • seven hundred years of our history repudiated by “superior “Western Scholarships.” (line 31)

24. Pattern from Handout Example:there/their • Both use language as a stepping stool in there essays (line 8) • If the historians would have learned there language (line 15) • They would have been able to write the real meaning of there people (line 16)

25. Pattern from Handout Example: Punctuating Quotations • “ People lose the capacity to use language precisely and expressible or even to distinguish one word from another. The spoken word models itself on the written word instead of the other way around.”(323) (line 11) • “ None of the historians had ever learned our mother tongue. They had all been content to read what the Europeans written.”(525) (line 13) • “ Since the public no longer participates in debates on national issues, it has no reason to inform itself about civic affairs. it is the decay of public debate, not the school system, that makes the public ill informed, not withstanding the wonders of the age of information.”(316) (line 26) • “ Finally nearly all historians had refused to accept our genealogical dating of A.D. 400m or earlier for our arrival fro the south pacific. They had instead claimed that our earliest appearance in Hawaii could only be traced back to A.D. 1100. thus at least seven hundred years of our history repudiated by “ superior “Western Scholarships.”(28) (line 31)

26. Proofreading for Intelligibility • Trask and Lasch both target one group on individual in there essay’s and lays the blame on them. (line 22) • People lose the capacity to use language precisely and expressible or even to distinguish one word from another (line 9) • However, the do also make a connection through language (lines 40-41)

27. Implications and Conclusions • Humility is necessary when addressing student writing • Negotiate with our students, and help them negotiate, what will and won’t be acceptable writing practice (notational and production) • Be patient to avoid sabotaging students’ efforts to say more than they quite yet know how to by always insisting on what we think of as conventional correctness • Offer students guided practice in using proofreading techniques • Help students identify patterns of error in their writing • Develop students’ strategies of accommodation and negotiation

28. Negotiation of Difference as the Norm I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions. . . . In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained. . . . Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. –Henry David Thoreau, Walden

29. Conclusions • Not all difference in student writing can qualify as error • What counts as error varies across time, discipline, genre, situation, and reading • Proofreading is reading in involving interpretation, negotiation of ambiguity