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mara williams
on May 21 2013 - 06:00 AM
Summer break has this mom on a house upkeep war path.
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If you want to be scared, really scared, just pick up a teenager’s unedited English report. I’ve got a few if you need one.
Nothing’s going to jump out at you or anything. Unless you count all the missed commas, run-on sentences or sentences that never, ever, begin with a capital letter. Don’t get me started on how paragraphs go on and on without a new one. Doesn’t anyone write short paragraphs anymore? (They’re my favorite. Heck, I like to write one-word paragraphs, or two- or three-, every once and a while.)
Fun, pure fun.
But with teens, it’s about writing fast and getting the words on the paper, I guess. Punctuation be damned.
And who do we have to blame for this? Yes, that’s you Mr. Internet. And you Mr. Cell Phone texting program. Teens think in OMG and LOL, and luv and gonna and Ill (that’s I’ll not ill). No wonder their punctuation and grammar are taking a beating.
What’s toughest as a parent is that writing is what our oldest does best. He’s great at description and word choice. He foreshadows and has a touch of humor. His voice is totally conversational. Wouldn’t change a thing with all that. Trouble is, there are never commas. Most sentences begin with lowercase letters. He loses any real punch with his writing because you’re still thinking there should have been a comma before that last and.
Those first drafts are an English teacher’s nightmare. Or one would think.
Seems his teacher doesn’t count off much, if anything, for poor punctuation. And I’m not criticizing her for that. Her goal, which I totally get, is to have the students learn to write well, to use good description and draw the reader in. Focus on the pure words.
But what about sentence structure? Aren’t commas a good thing? What was all that we learned with sentence diagramming?
She must be doing something right because oldest is writing very well. (Of course mom is helping a little with proofreading.) He even thinks he might want to be an author one day.
Which is why husband and I are going to be hosting our own punctuation and grammar lessons at home. The good ole’ AP stylebook is coming home, and I may start grounding for missed commas and no capital letters.
Little too harsh?
I don't think it's harsh at all. I think it's part of my job as a parent to enhance what my son is learning at school. If I can help him in any way, I'm going to. I can't guarantee helping when he gets to physics and calculus, though! :)I have younger siblings in Jr. High and High school. My 17yo brother has a cell phone and texts me all the time. And I can't understand what he's saying most of the time, so I finally told him I wasn't going to answer him until he typed and spelled legibly. Now his friends tease him for using longhand. I'll choose longhand over the ignorant "text speak" people use any day... Don h8t me ;)The evil genie that is texting is never going back into the bottle, and that annoys me to no end. I don't mind abbreviations, but they'd better make sense. And I am a self-proclaimed Spelling Nazi--especially if it's a word I've taught you to spell!!! When I was teaching, my students hated me because I expected them to use proper spelling and grammar, although I didn't teach English. What, those don't count in other areas? Pssht!Way to go, Mom! If he were a composer, he could create brilliant pieces, but if his piano is out of tune, no one will be able to hear the brilliance. Sorry the teacher isn't on it--in middle school it should count more. My oldest's 4th grade teacher is a real stickler for the details. Love that his teacher is into fostering the creativity, though1.
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