I have mostly been commenting on posts because everyone has provided some wonderful information and beneficial links. However, as I sit here grading the exams that I gave my students this past week, I realized that I may need some help from all of you. Without a doubt, I am sure that you have all read papers or essay open-ended responses from your students and found that their grammar is beyond astonishing...and I mean for the worst. I have really enjoyed the time I have spent with my 9th graders these past three weeks. I did have to, however, do a lot of correcting, as I had expected, when it came to speaking proper English. The students up until this point have not had to hand in any work/assignment which displayed their writing skills, until recently. I came to realize that the students that have the most difficulty speaking proper English are the same students who are writing as if they are either IMing or speaking to their friends. They like to use abbreviations in their writings and they also like to use words such as "youse", "aint", "gonna", and terms such as "messed up". I am not quite sure what the best possible way is to help correct the students from this habit. However, it is extremely frustrating especially when the teacher spends the whole year correcting them of this this habit and they still do not process it. It seems as though our speech has more power over us than our writing.
Does anyone else share the same frustration as I do?
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I'm also interested in what your classmates have to say...I've come across the same problem with (especially) my sophomores..
I have not graded papers on students that I would have to correct there grammar. I am an early childhood major so the only experience I've had has been with children between 4-7 years old. But my finance's brother is in 7th grade and I read over his work almost every night because he has the tendency to do the same thing. Everything is abbreviated and spelled incorrectly such as "lol", "j/k" "aint", "gonna" and it drives me crazy. They text to each other and the way they speak is the way they write. I ask him all the time why does he do that and he tells me it is just easier to write that way, its a mere habit that needs to stop. I am with you on this, it frustrates me and drives me crazy. The teachers are trying to stop the habit but it just continues.
I just had this same conversation on Thursday with the teachers in my junior field classroom.I was grading an essay that was supposed to be based on a writing prompt. Not only did the student not stick to the prompt but there were words that I couldn't even make out. There was slang terms I didn't know and so many misspellings I had to have another teacher check several words to help me figure out what they were. I couldn't figure them out from the context of the sentence because the sentence didn't even make sense. The student was in 6th grade and I was astonished that this 13 yr old girl couldn't even write a short paper in a cohesive manner. I asked the teacher about that and was told this was an improvment from the writing essay given in January and a huge improvement from the one given at the beginning of the year. I couldn't even grade the paper I was so startled and confused by it.I handed it back to the teacher who told me that I needed to look at in the context of who it came from and how far that person had come since writing that first essay. That was the basis for which the teacher was awarding a grade.
Yes!! I definately share your frustration with this. I have been grading papers for the past three weeks and have wanted to pull my hair out each time. The majority of the kids in the class I am in write in the same slang they use when they speak. When I read their papers I can hear them saying exactly what is written. I feel like I am listening in on one of their conversations. I hope that makes sense because I am not sure how else to explain it. I really think to fix this problem we need to start correcting how these students speak. They are writing and spelling incorrectly because they speak and pronounce words incorrectly.
I remember my sisters always correcting me on the way I talked when I was in highschool. I talked as if I were typing to a friend on AOL. This gave me a big heads up on my English. I realized myself that that's not the proper way to speak or write. I then took it upon myself to change and since then my papers have been much better.
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