SLIPs in student essays

Here are some examples of SLIPS that I found in the student essays. I only listed a few of them.

Pot legal

This student has relatively few phonological SLIPs but they repeat. "Mariguana" persists throughout the essay.

The essay's main problems were morphological SLIPs. Sentences like "Jim Gray a Republican" are missing the "is." I think the writer also needs to review plurality as "child's" should be "children's."  In the third paragraph, "this people" needs to be "these people." 

There are multiple cases of syntax SLIPs: "For example I had a friend who would smoke mariguana everyday, eventually he got tired of it because it would not have any effect anymore so he got ecstasy as a try on; got hooked on it and now is an addict who dropped school." There are several ideas in this sentence that are just strung together with commas. I think the student was trying to explain marijuana's role as a gateway drug but fails to mention that. The student just assumes that the reader knew what he or she meant. As a result, I would also categorize this sentence under Pragmatics. The writer also abruptly switches to second person and directly addresses Judge Gray in the last paragraph.

Semantic SLIPs are not as prevalent but they do show up occasionally: "this people developed symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks so why would we want to live in a world like these."

I had trouble with a few sentences. I couldn't determine whether "the symptoms that families within develop are a thousand" was a syntax SLIP or morphological. It sounds like awkward sentence structure but I wasn't sure. There were also some instances where it sounded like "Jim Gray" or "Gray" was randomly inserted into a sentence. Sentences like "Jim Gray but that does not mean …" or "The children Gray are expose to this…" I wasn't sure whether these sentences were morphological SLIPs or semantic SLIPs.

Weird Friday

This student's writing is heavily influenced by spoken language, and as a result, contains multiple morphology SLIPs. Spoken language affects spelling when it comes to words like "damn," "where," "blanket," and "through." There is a case where the student wrote "stared" when it should have been "started" but this could have been a typo. Names of stores such as Foot Locker and Champs should be capitalized. The student misspelled "and" but this could also be attributed to spoken language; the "d" is often hard to hear.

The most persistent and prevalent SLIP were semantic. The writer uses colloquial spoken words and phrases such as "hella" and "I was like." Another good example of colloquialism would be "so then we went to champs and see if they had my size and yupp they did had it so I got my shoes and left to the house." The writer's ability to continue thoughts or start sentences without saying "so" seems to be very limited. It also sounds like the student's knowledge or vocabulary is limited in the sentence "then like at 10pm we left to the airport and got our things register to the thing, after that we were all set to go in."

Endnotes for students

Response to Pot Legal

I like that you have a specific paragraph for each problems such as drug lords, problems, and politicians. You bring in good examples like Jim Gray but look up proper citations so you can make your essay more reliable. And for one last thing, I recommend that you review possessive form and plural vs. singular. I noticed that those problems repeat through the essay.

This student has a pretty good idea regarding overall essay structure and paragraph content. I think the paragraphs are mostly focused with relevant information but could use some expanding. I am hoping that the student will be able to understand what I am trying to suggest when I mentioned possessive and plural forms. There are other topics that the students needs work on but I feel like it would overwhelm him or her if I brought up everything. I figured this would be a good place to start.

Response to Weird Friday

You have very good descriptions and little details like the way your mom calls you mijo. I definitely know what you mean when the alarm clock goes off like that. I was hoping you were going to tell me what happened in Mexico. I wanted to know!

For next time, let's work on spelling and starting sentences. I feel like you have so much to tell me as a writer so I think we should start with spelling and exciting and interesting ways to start new sentences.

I didn't really know where to start with this student. The writer clearly has a story to tell, but isn't very sure how to go about it. Unlike the Pot legal writer, he or she isn't familiar with written English. I also suggested that we go over everything together since I get the feeling that the writer doesn't have a clue about written language. I figured that correct spelling and sentence variety would be some progress.

Spoken and written English

I think it all comes down to how much reading and writing students have done. Reading will help students expand their vocabulary and sample different writing styles. Even without the imitation exercises we talked about in class, reading will inevitably give students examples of sentence structure and a sense of voice. 

I'd say students who struggle to transition from oral language to academic writing either haven't had a whole lot of homework, or they didn't do it. Academic language can be "weird" and foreign. It's very formal, full of words the average student rarely uses (when was the last time anybody said "nevertheless" in a sentence), and can seem borderline archaic. I can't imagine what it would be like for ESL students because they have to write in an unfamiliar language. Foreign countries do seem to emphasis vocabulary memorization when teaching English, but it's different when you actually have to use it to convey an effective message. Picking words out of a dictionary/thesaurus doesn't guarantee proper academic language. There's an interesting line between knowing the definition of a word and the proper context in which to appropriately use it. ESL students would likely know the definition but misunderstand the context while fluent or native speakers will understand that context even if their vocabulary isn't as extensive. 

Essay writing is a skill that improves with practice, but if students have never written an academic paper before, they are not going to be familiar with thesis statements or transitions. And it's not that the material or essay prompt is particularly difficult, but I think it's that those students simply aren't used to thinking academically. Ultimately, I think the primary reason students struggle is their limited vocabulary. Yes, I know there is more to an essay than fancy words, but if a student already has a comprehensive vocabulary, then they can move onto content and organization.

The importance of dance discussion

Here are some ideas and thoughts my group had:

1. What issues/questions does this essay bring up in light of the reading
1. What are the students' goals?
2. Can you make error correcting more engaging and not so dull?
1. How well does error correcting work?
3. How can you improve help students become interested in the editing finding process?
4. How and which errors are going to be marked?

2. What options does a teacher have for responding to the essay and working on grammar
1. Focus on the errors that impede the overall meaning of the text
1. Frequent and distracting errors
2. Start a collaborative assignment where students have to share and discuss information
3. Proofreading training
4. Indirect feedback
1. Highlight or just circle errors and allow students to figure out the error on their own (the check mark in the margins)
5. Direct feedback
1. Locate and label error with appropriate symbols
2. Fix the error (most direct method)
6. Positive reinforcement
7. Average out the grades for potential rewrites so it forces students to carefully proofread and edit
8. The teacher could assign separate grades for grammar and content. Grammar and content could be weighted evenly or separately (grammar 40% content 60%)

3. What I suggest:
1. Work with the student's proofreading techniques
2. Help the student work on sentence level corrections (local errors).
3. Give global feedback regarding grammar
1. Many of this student's mistakes are repetitive. I think the student would benefit from a grammar lesson on past tense, plural vs. singular, and subject verb agreement.
2. I would recommend that the student try some exercises to practice such material and then return to the essay and attempt to self-correct.
4. If I were tutoring this particular student, I would want to know the essay's primary focus. It seems like the student wants to talk about two different topics
1. The part about the health benefits of dance is informative but I found it a bit distracting; the main focus of the essay seems to be centered around its cultural significance.

Some things I need to remember for tutoring

Jasmine is enrolled in English 114 and Dustin is enrolled in English 214

My main concern is that I won't be able to address their questions effectively or I'll confuse them because I'm giving conflicting information or I'm unable to articulate my point very clearly

The grammar editing tips are useful but I feel that they would benefit students who are in remedial English classes. Dustin and Jasmine's writing isn't grammatically perfect but they have a decent understanding of subject verb agreement and verb tense.

Their primary issues are excessive wordiness or lack of focus.

I like the tip that suggests double checking little words such as "or," "it," and "is." I have already found mistakes like this in Dustin's writing. They aren't serious, but they are mistakes that can be eliminated through proofreading.

I think both students could benefit from reading their essays out loud and slowly as they both tend to lose focus.

Reading aloud also helps with finding grammar errors or rewriting awkward sentences. Dustin has been able to identify and rewrite certain sentences

Asking internal questions could help narrow down their focus and get to the main idea.

I would recommend that both students take the time to carefully proofread.

Certain phrases can be eliminated entirely or replaced with a single word.

Jasmine could certainly use the listed proofreading tips (listen to music or chew gum) as she has already told me that she hates the proofreading process. Anything that can help her focus and get through the process would be helpful.

Searching for pronouns is a good idea because sometimes students use too many pronouns and they forget which noun the pronoun is replacing.

Watch for apostrophes. Distinguishing contractions and possessives is an easy mistake to make but also easily avoidable

Make sure each sentence has an independent clause. I found a couple of comma splices in their writing.

Some notes on responding to errors

Main points:

1. Be selective in marking errors
1. Give top priority to the most serious errors; those that affect the comprehensibility of the text
2. Give high priority to errors that occur frequently
3. Consider the student's level proficiency, attitude, and goals
4. Consider marking errors recently covered in class

2. The most serious errors
1. The ones that impede global understanding; usually involve more than one clause
2. Those that do not affect overall comprehensibility are local errors

3. The frequently occurring errors
1. If the student has few global errors but multiple local errors, focus on the local errors and the repetitiveness will become a distraction

4. Consider the student
1. Consider her or his level of proficiency
1. If a student is relatively advanced he or she may be able to cover several errors with no problem
2. Consider the student's attitude
1. How confident, resistant, or discouraged is the student?
3. Consider the student's goals
1. Does the student want to improve their overall writing or just eliminate the errors?

5. Consider marking errors recently discussed in class
1. Locate the error
2. Identify the error with a symbol

6. Decide when to start marking errors
1. For earlier drafts, focus on content
2. Mark and refine sentence level errors on later drafts

7. Who will identify and mark errors?
1. Other readers such as peers can be an active part of the editing process
2. Afterwards, give them ideas and help them understand how they can benefit from the feedback

8. For grading
1. Determine whether the errors and primarily global or local
1. Use this information when determining a grade
2. Strong content but too many local errors can bring the overall grade down
1. It's better to assign an overall grade than separate ones for content and structure; students will overlook what they need to work on and fixate on the higher grade
3. Justify the grade they got with an explanation
4. Give them positive comments regarding their strong points and improvements

About those grammar rants

There is a depressingly large number of people on the internet who cannot distinguish words like “there,” “they’re,” and “their.” People can complain and rant, but the reality is that it won’t change a thing. Not online, anyway. I found a particular rant that was undoubtedly the angriest, most explosive grammar rant I have ever come across. I admit, the author’s style is unorthodox and questionable, but it was such an energetic and fulminating rant that I could not resist. I would have provided a link but I don't think the server likes it when I do that. It marked me as a spam blog. Either that or whatever I'm writing is absolute rubbish. Great. Anyway, the language doesn’t bother me, but some people may find it excessive.

The rant was undoubtedly focused on the language behind texting and general internet usage. The author hones in on the inability to differentiate their possessives, contractions, commas, and similarly pronounced words that mean entirely different things. The culprits are typing and texting as if they are conversing with their audience, and as a result, use similarly pronounced words interchangeably. There was similar case involving Facebook when a “friend” was attempting to correct a person’s use of the word “your” in the phrase, “your beautiful,” but the original commenter could not understand her mistake and mistook the correction as a compliment.

People are also just lazy. As the author points out, there are only two more letters in words like “why” or “are,” and yet people are too lazy to fully spell them out. People say bad grammar is everywhere, but it just may have achieved global saturation; because it exists primarily on the internet, it has become very difficult for people to blame a particular geographic region or social class. It is literally everywhere. Today the internet, tomorrow the world!

It is difficult to assume or guess the author’s motivation for exploding into this diatribe, but I think the author is particularly lamenting the fact that many people simply do not care about correct spelling and word usage. I’m pretty sure that the author isn’t directing such rage at a particular group whether it may be race or social class. It comes across as an angry, curse-the-world type laments. The author is also unlikely to be among the “intellectual elite,” but is probably just an average person who learned and retained their knowledge of basic grammar.

Granted, this type of writing is primarily found on the internet (I hope), but it certainly does not inspire confidence in our high school and upcoming college students. Leetspeak can be funny and amusing to read when used in internet memes, but it loses its charm, if you can even call it that, very quickly.

I’m pretty certain bad grammar was always present. It’s just more obvious today due to instant communication and modern multimedia. And just because bad grammar is more prevalent, it does not necessarily imply socioeconomic decay. Although, George Orwell did mention that if a civilization grows decadent, its language inevitably follows. Maybe that’s the real problem. 

The disappearing sentence

Here are some notes

Christensen rhetoric: traditional theories of the sentence that were being taught were taxonomic rather than generative or productive.

Imitation exercises were intended to make students’ writing similar to that of a superior writer; students in imitation groups learned to write better expository prose with fewer flaws than students using sentence-combining pedagogies.

But students taught Chomsky’s transformational-generative grammar both reduced their errors and developed the ability to write more complex sentences

Hunt concluded that the minimal terminable unit, a unit minimal in length and terminated graphically between a capital and period, was a much more reliable index of stylistic maturity

Frank O’Hare’s study in 1973 showed beyond a doubt that sentence-combining exercises, without any grammar instruction at all, could achieve important gains in syntactic maturity for students.

Anti-formalism—the idea that nay pedagogy based in form rather than content was automatically suspect

Johnson refuted that students need training in higher-level skills such as invention and organization rather than knowing how to be a “sentence acrobat”; suggests that Christensen is useful in a classroom but little elsewhere

Imitation writing was perceived as insulting; it was “mere servile copying” and insulting to the student writers’ creativity. It was mechanized and dehumanizing.

Sentence combining was nothing more than an exercise; it barred students from saying what they really wanted to say

The gradual but inevitable hardening of disciplinary forms erased the sentence. Composition studies became a subfield of English studies

Grammar is like....

Grammar is like a yellow traffic light. You are initially taught to slow down and stop at yellow lights so you can blast through them later.

I always thought that grammatical accuracy was vitally important for an essay. Reading something that wasn’t written correctly would make me lose interest in whatever I was reading. Some may even lump me with the proverbial grammar Nazis. Although, I suppose I’m not as bad as others because I won’t directly correct somebody if they say something wrong. But I think this perspective is a bit too hard-nosed, and maybe even old-fashioned. It could be the way I was taught. I grew up underlining the subject of a sentence, circling the verbs, and identifying adjectives. I turned in copious amounts of worksheets and often got them back with a depressing amount of red ink. It wasn’t the most fun part of my studies, but I wasn’t deathly opposed to it. It was just a part of school.

I think students need this basic foundation. The focus in school always shifts from grammar to original thought and analysis, but students need to know the proper structure of English. I think the same could be said for poetry or music. I can’t imagine musicians learn how to play an instrument through improv, and I like to think that students start with some form of structured meter or rhyme before studying and writing free verse.

I’m not saying that emphasizing grammar is the solution to all students’ problems but it’s a necessary evil (if some want to call it that). It should, however, be introduced to students early on so they aren’t so afraid of it. How it is taught in class would largely depend on the instructor. It can be done through worksheets and quizzes or more creative ways that involve games or peer work. Regardless of how it’s taught, ideas and organizational skills will inevitably follow once that foundation is cemented.

The priorities change slightly for ESL and developmental writers. Their main goal should focus on how to write their thoughts in an intelligible manner even if their grammar isn’t entirely correct.  Their teachers or tutors can then work on improving common mistakes such as verb tense, possessives, and subject-verb agreement. If their readers can piece together their message, I would label that as success.  

It’s embarrassing when employers say that colleges are graduating students who cannot write a coherent sentence. Students can complain all they want, but they should be in school to learn and not just to receive a piece of paper saying that they just went through the motions. They can deal with it.

Me? A tutor?

I have never been in a position as an “official” tutor so I am a bit anxious. Or maybe very anxious. I think my biggest worry is that I won’t know what to say or I’ll make a stupid mistake; it would be embarrassing to mix up grammar or misspell something. My biggest worry is that I’ll seem incompetent. I also have a tendency to ramble on so I’m going to have to watch myself so that it doesn’t turn into a lecture. My intentions are usually good, but on a few cases I have come across as ignorant. Not to mention I subconsciously fidget and I get distracted rather easily. Any issues that I think could arise have been briefly or extensively discussed. The various tutoring tips I found make me feel as if I am going to have to watch myself constantly.

I think it’s mostly pressure that I put on myself. I don’t want to just be some tutor in the ETC. I want to be a tutor students would be willing to work with again.

Top 10 Tutoring Tips

I didn't number them in any particular order. I just liked these tips:

1. Show you care. Express concern about sharing ways they can improve.

2. Give corrections in ways that will motivate them to be better.

3. Be wary of your body language.

4. If a student does not or cannot respond, don't force the issue. Try rephrasing the question.

5. Prioritize areas that would benefit from attention.

6. Be helpful rather than critical.

7. Make sure your mind is focused.

8. Don't lecture.

9. Make sure you consider what you intend to say and the effect it may have on someone else.

10. Avoid yes or no questions.

Some links for tutoring tips

http://www.literacyconnections.com/Writing%20Instruction

I really liked this website. It was incredibly comprehensive and discussed a lot of material; it gives ideas concerning reading, spelling, and vocabulary. Unfortunately, it largely focuses on young children. There are some easily transferable ideas, but I don’t think it would be very useful for the average tutor. I found that the sheer amount of information available was hard to ignore.

The link that I found was http://cityyearblog.org/blog/2010/10/13/5-tips-for-tutors/ but I noticed that it was actually a part of http://cityyearblog.org/blog/category/tutor-2/

I think this website is good because it has both articles about tutoring in general and it offers relevant advice for a variety of subjects. Many of the articles don't provide tips but rather emphasis the importance of tutoring. Still, each tip provided also included a link if the reader wanted more information. I thought it was particularly relevant because many of the ideas listed echoed ideas from the Tutoring Cycle listed in the Generation 1.5 reading.

http://www.tutornation.com/index.htm

This website seemed okay but I thought it would mostly benefit people who are already established as a tutor. It had good “tips for tutors” section but the overall layout of the website suggested that it was primarily a marketing tool rather than an online resource for tutors. I got the feeling that it is meant to be an employment opportunity. I know some people are already qualified as teachers/tutors, so I figured it would be useful for them.

http://istudy.psu.edu/FirstYearModules/PeerTutoring/PeerTutorInfo.htm

I like this one particularly because it specifically addresses peer tutoring. They also provided several useful tips outlining how you can be an attentive listener or how to ask the appropriate questions. The website also provided a link concerning body language which I didn’t expect but found useful nevertheless. I didn’t even think of the messages subtle body language can send to a tutee.

http://schoolblast.net/

Some of the “tips” made here were definitely unique and I found others to be a bit too personal (I’ve never heard of combining sleepovers with tutoring sessions regardless of gender). The suggestion about going to the movies wasn’t as radical but I still felt like those comments were a bit unprofessional. The tutee should feel comfortable and the atmosphere should be friendly, but I don’t think the tutor has to literally become the tutee’s friend. I did find, however, the topic of tutoring and technology very useful. Considering today’s technology-centered youth, I think the author’s recommendations regarding Skype and online tutoring were good.

http://www.couchclan.org/tutor%20training/level%202%20documents/Tutoring%20Tips%20based%20on%20Learning%20Style%20Additional%20Learning%20Styles%20Resources.pdf

This was the last bit of information I could find that seemed useful. It became increasing difficult to find websites that offered relevant advice that wasn’t generic. The link provides a very good approach to tutoring whether a student is a tactile or auditory learner. I think some of them are a little contrived, but they seemed to be effective techniques.