The perception among students that their writing problems primarily involve grammar means that they often view their path to improvement as both narrow and fundamentally uninteresting. Not to say that grammar is actually uninteresting (obviously!) but rather that students might engage more readily with the task of improving their writing if they conceived of the task as having a broader intellectual basis. Improving your writing isn’t just fiddling with technicalities and arcane rules; it is a matter of thinking deeply about your ideas and your communicative intent. Calling it all grammar can be both dismissive and uninspiring.
To help us all come to grips with the challenges at hand in this Writing Studio, I'd like to ask you to read and reflect on her ideas, and to post your reflections in comments on this post. Here are few questions to help you get started:
- Do you think grammar is interesting? Why (not)?
- Would you take a(-nother) grammar course, if you could?
- Do you believe weaknesses in your writing come mainly from poor grammar?
- What characteristics of your writing other than grammar concern you?
- What characteristics do you admire in the writing of others – that of your classmates, peers, or acquaintances (personal or scholarly)?
[228 words {including 106 in quotation}]
